A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens Essay

The novel, A Tale of Two Cities, was written by Charles Dickens and was published in 1859. A Tale of Two Cities is a historical fiction based during the French Revolution. As two groups of people who both live in London and Paris find themselves in a situation that affects all of them, which ends with some deaths and suffering. Charles Dickens purpose for writing A Tale of Two Cities was to inform and amplify the readers mind on human nature. Throughout the book Charles Dickens uses many themes and characteristics, that bring out human nature in all his characters, to broaden the view of the readers.

Of the extraordinary amount of literary devices available to authors, Charles Dickens uses quite a few in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, which is set during the French Revolution. One of his more distinctive devices is character foils. The five sets of foils are Carton and Darnay, Carton and Stryver, Darnay and the Marquis de Evremonde, Madame Defarge, and Mr. Lorry and Jerry Cruncher. Dickens uses foil characters to highlight the virtues of several major characters in order to show the theme of personal, loving relationships having the ability to prevail over heartless violence and self-consuming vengeance.

Madame Defarge is first introduced as a stern woman with a rather ominous habit of knitting, with no indication of her bloodthirsty habits. However, it is later noted that Madame Defarge is actually knitting the names of the victims of the Revolution, and we find out that she wants to eliminate the aristocracy because the Marquis and his brother raped her sister and stabbed and killed her brother-in-law. She eloquently describes her destroyed childhood to the Vengeance and her husband at the tavern.“Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn child was their child, that father was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me (346)”.

Humanity is inherently flawed. Charles Dickens illustrates this in his novel A Tale of Two Cities as he writes about the lives of the Manettes and the people they draw around them. In this novel, Dickens uses Sydney Carton, a main character in the novel and the lover of Lucie Manette, to reveal his thoughts about the inherent nature of humanity. The characteristics of humanity change and mutate with the experiences of each person and the workings of their own mind, as illustrated by Mr. Stryver’s inhumane and thoughtless treatment of Sydney, the first time Sydney saves Charles Darnay’s life, and Sydney’s love for Lucie Manette.

Charles Dickens writes an exemplary novel about the French Revolution, which follows the lives of those weaving into and out of it. Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities takes place in the late 1700s in France and England. The novel introduces a theme of man’s inhumanity to man, the cruel behaviors people show to each other. Throughout the book, the inhumanity of different characters towards other men slowly becomes more and more prevalent. Dickens uses the Evremonde brothers, Madame Defarge, and the Revolutionaries to show that there is no redemption for man’s inhumanity against man.

During the French Revolution, over 40,000 people died, and over 12,000 of these people did not even have a trial. The French Revolution was over sixty years before A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was released, but there were still many injustices and inhumane acts that took place in England during his lifetime. The inhumanity Dickens experienced during his lifetime is seen throughout the novel very clearly. Dickens portrays the inhumane people in the novel as successful at first, but they all eventually meet their horrific demise. Men are corrupted and doomed by the hatred and inhumanity towards his fellow man, and this is shown clearly through the Evrémonde brothers, Madame Defarge, and the revolutionaries.

A Tale of Two Cities, a book written by Charles Dickens in 1859, describes the situation of France and the French Revolution. At the end of Chapter Six, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Miss Pross are at a Tea Party. A turbulent storm occurs and incites an eerie mood within the characters. Charles Darnay starts telling a story about a paper he found. After telling the story, Dr. Manette begins to feel ill. Following this is a section which contains multiple literary elements. In Chapter Six, Dickens utilizes descriptive literary devices, such as imagery, personification, and anaphora, to foretell the French Revolution and set the mood of the passage.

A Tale of Two Cities has several recurring themes, including the failure of the French Revolution. In the book, the peasants defeated the aristocrats by imprisoning and murdering them. Although many of the imprisonments and executions were unjust, the peasants had gain complete power. The peasants’ revolution did not end the tyranny that existed with the aristocrats ruling, but created a new tyranny with lack of justice and mercy.

A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens is centered at a time of despair and corruption. This time is known as the french revolution and takes place within a 17 year period, starting in 1775 - 1792. This book shows the injustice and some consequences leading to the revolution and the events in which they happened. It is also focused on the spiritual and political freedoms desired by the many people involved in the revolution. The revolution is driven by the need and desire for power.

Charles Dickens was the author of the A Tale of Two Cities. The novel is based on the French Revolution before, during, and after it occured. The French Revolution was a period where two opposing sides had political and social disagreements, leading to a war of bloodthirst. Each character is mirrored by a character with opposite traits. Using dramatic foils to create drama and suspense, he is able to illuminate different personalities through their opposition.

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, it uses duality throughout the story. Duality often refers to having two parts and is usually used with opposite meanings. Charles Dickens wanted us to know about duality by the very first paragraph of his novel. One of the dualities has to deal with the two cities of the title, London, England and Paris, France. Also, some of the dualities show us opposite parallels dealing with two or more people. The two emotions love and hate also have something to do with the theme. I think the use of the doubles is significant

A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens, takes place during the French Revolution. The book centers on the heroic attempts of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay. Sydney Carton puts on the façade of being insolent and indifferent, but his true nature is expressed in the book when he puts others first, defends Charles, and dies for the ones he loves. Charles Darnay is a once wealthy aristocrat whose attempts at heroism include going back to France, his financial sacrifice, and the noble way in which he was willing to face his death.

The French Revolution mainly took place in the city of Paris during the late 1700’s. The Revolution did not only affect the people of France, but also the citizens of England as well. The French Revolution is known as one of the most brutal and inhumane periods of history. If one studied the beliefs and views of the people involved at the time, one would see a reoccurring theme of “ being recalled to life”. Born from the world of literature, Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities takes a deeper look at the culture of the late 1700’s, in both England and France. Dickens uses the character of Lucie Manette to further examine one of the major themes presented in the novel, consisting of the belief of one being

Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in order to enlighten the average Briton about the events of the French Revolution. The novel compares and contrasts cities of London and Paris, which represent French and British society, through the eyes of Dickens’ human characters. The two cities play such a large part in the novel that they become characters themselves, and the contrasting societies of the two cities become a conflict. In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities, the individualistic society of London champions the first feudalistic and later socialistic society of Paris.

Charles Dickens is one of the most influential writers in history and was “born in Landport, now part of Portsmouth, on February 7th, 1812”(Priestly 5). Despite being the successful writer that he was in life, Dickens had very humble beginnings and because his Father, John Huffman Dickens, “lacked the money to support his family adequetly” , Dickens lived in poverty through out most of his childhood (Collins). Matters only got worse, however, when Dickens’s Father had to “spen[d] time in prison for debt” causing Dickens to have to “work in a London factory pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish” (Collins). It was a horrible experience for him, but it also helped him to no doubt feel pity for the poor, which is