A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Is a Well Known Cautionary Tale

In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens opens with an anaphora, about how the world is throughout the novel. A reoccurring theme throughout this story is the battle between good and evil. Most of the novel is about the struggles each force has and how most of the time good triumphs over evil. In A Tale of Two Cities, the triumph of love, the death of the Marquis, and the contrast between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay shows how good triumphed over evil.

reaction of wanting revenge. You can argue that madame defarge’s big part in the french

The French Revolution was a time of great social, political and economic tumult in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century. The motivators pushing French citizenry toward revolution are varied in scope and origin. They range from immediate economic woes to an antiquarian class structure. Modern historians still debate the value of the changes that the revolution brought to modern society. The middle class made gains that would never be rescinded, but do revolutions always end in tyranny? In the years before the revolution citizens were rigidly constrained by the estates of the realm. These social strata had been in place since the medieval ages. The people were divided into three groups; clergy, nobility and everyone else. The clergy

Justice is one of the main theme from this book, as each character tries to get justice. In this book we see the distress and agony that Madame Defarge suffers with. Mainly because of her sister’s deaths and family suffering, due to the Evremonde brother’s, Charles Darnay’s father and uncle. Ever since that happened she’s wanted justice for her and her family. The justice that Madame Defarge wanted later turn into retribution, which lead her to a path of darkness, making her wanting the death of Charles Darnay and his family. At the same time, she was fighting for justice for France, which made her want more lives to be dead for the good of her people. those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me!’… “Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” … “but don’t tell me.” (Dickens 339) Many readers might portray her as the “villain” of this book, but she really is not. All she wanted is justice for what was done

Today many violent scenes are used for their shock value and for the sake of including violence. However, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, has violent scenes to illustrate the time period of the French Revolution. Scenes such as Foulon being paraded through the city and murdered, the Storming of the Bastille, and the fight between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge emphasize the violence of the time through graphic detail and imagery. These scenes add to the novel’s legitimacy by expressing the immense violence of the time and truly showing the horrors of the revolution.

Dickens’ Madame Defarge develops a vast amount of hatred towards the Evremonde Family after the atrocities committed by them on

Humanity is a spectrum. There is no one person who is unequivocally bad or good. Every individual is ambiguous, and merely has the strength of their character and the choices they make. In some cases, these choices are influences by external factors that push fundamentally good individuals to commit deplorable acts. One of the most interesting of these factors is the concept of revenge, and the lengths to which humans will go in its pursuit. Throughout A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens is deliberate in his portrayal of the deleterious effect that a desire for revenge can have on even the most unimpeachable of characters, especially in the lives of Dr. Manette, Madam Defarge, and Gaspard.

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)”.

Charles Dickens focuses on the revenge that put the bloody French Revolution in motion in his suspenseful story A Tale of Two Cities. The French Revolution was a revolt instigated by the peasants, who attacked the nobles with vengeful hearts starting in the year 1789, and going on until the year 1799. The settings of the book took place in both London and England, two parallels in novel, two cities where the plotting of the Revolution went into affect. Although the reasons behind the different examples of revenge are exposed, the actions taken with revenge in mind are inexcusable and not justifiable. Dickens portrays the theme of revenge successfully through the joker Gaspard, the brave younger brother who sacrificed himself to protect his

Madame Defarge, a very bold but cruel revolutionary, is very sadistic towards nobles, especially the Evrémondes, because of how the family had treated her family in the past. The woman who had been stolen away by the younger twin was Madame Defarge’s sister, so the Evrémondes tore her family apart. She had been waiting to get her revenge on the family her whole life, and once the revolution starts, she seizes her chance. The very kind and generous son of the older brother, Charles Darnay, travels back to France from England to try and save his employee, and she immediately takes the opportunity to put him into jail. After multiple trials he is found guilty and condemned to death via La Guillotine. Although Charles Darnay has never actually wronged her, “it was nothing to her, that an innocent man has to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw not him, but them” (281). Madame Defarge is not satisfied by Darnay’s death, however, and wants to kill his wife, Lucie Manette, and their daughter. It was this inhumanity that leads to her death. Madame Defarge goes to the Manette’s home to try and find Lucie in the act of a Guillotine-worthy crime, mourning a Guillotine victim. Instead of finding Lucie, however, she finds her housemaid, Miss Pross. Miss Pross and Madame Defarge begin to fight because Madame Defarge wants to find Lucie, and eventually she draws a gun, but “Miss

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, revenge plays a crucial role in the motivations of some of the characters, such as Madame Defarge and Gaspard. In fact, Madame Defarge’s entire motivation for her participation in the French Revolution is out of want for revenge for her family (Dickens 445), not true justice. This is known because had justice been her true goal, Madame Defarge would not have attempted to kill everyone in the Evremonde family by marriage or blood, just Darnay - a direct descendant to Monseigneur the Marquis. Had Madame Defarge’s family not been killed by the Evremondes, she would not have been vengeful and would not be calling for the death of all of the aristocrats; Madame Defarge would be satisfied with the death

In the sociopolitical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens analyzes the events of one of the bloodiest revolutions in history, the French Revolution, characterized by its violence after no less than 40,000 people were sentenced to death. The violence of the revolution put irreversible change into motion, helping to bring greater equality between French citizens as a result of the upheaval, and causing political changes that affected millions. Through his changing tone, Dickens conveys that rebellion is necessary to amend the ever-growing divide between the social classes, but the mindless nature of the violence, as a result of mob mentality, is excessive, and blood is unnecessarily spilled.

While the Victorian people called for romantic intrigue and petty drama in the literature of their time, Dickens’ added complexity to his novels not to satisfy the frivolous needs of Victorians but to further the theme of irony in his novel. In A Tale of Two Cities, irony is an ever-present theme and is woven into the plot seamlessly by author Charles Dickens. Coincidence is a complementary theme to irony in this novel. Dickens’ constant implementation of situations of coincidence and chance leads to a greater sense of irony throughout this book. Dickens adds complexity to the plot and further enforces the theme of irony in the novel through circumstances of coincidence, including the indictments of Charles Darnay, the life and associates of Dr. Manette, and Madame Defarge’s need for and path to revenge.

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

Sacrifice, even when it comes to one’s ultimate end, is crucial in order to survive as a productive race. In the book Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, he illustrates the hardships of the early-nineteenth-century lifestyles. With the resurrection of an evicted man, the novel sprouts from a broken family recovering and growing. This novel incorporates many grand gestures and adventures, such as the French Revolution, treason trials, and the sacrifice of one’s own life in the name of love.