A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

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.

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.

The era surrounding the French Revolution was a horrifically bloody and violent period of history – the best of times and the worst of times. The violence enacted by the citizens of French on their fellow countrymen set a gruesome scene in the cities and country sides of France. Charles Dickens uses a palate of storm, wine, and blood imagery in A Tale of Two Cities to paint exactly how tremendously brutal this period of time was.

Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations" first saw the light in 1860. In it the English novelist raised and criticized important issue for the time of social and psychological dissociation between the higher crust and simple working class. The genre of the novel features are located in the plane of the classic era of realism, generously spiced with the original English humor and a bit of European sentiment. "Great Expectations" - a novel of education, because it tells several stories of becoming a dignified young person:“So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” It proves all above statements about ambiguity and depth of moral, which was described in it.

When people go through traumatic experiences, they often tend to have a different perspective of the world around them. Dickens puts his characters through many distinct personal struggles that end up shaping who they are. Although each of these struggles was particular to each of the characters, they all were affected in some way, whether that be in a positive or negative light. Throughout the course of the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens toys with the idea of personal change to develop the ambiguity of the characters Sydney Carton, Ernest Defarge, and Madame Defarge.

Charles Darnay is on his way to Paris in the fall of 1792 in search of Gabelle. Along the way, he is stopped in several villages by revolutionaries, and is scorned as an emigrant and an aristocrat. At one point, he is forced to hire two men to “escort” him to Paris. When he finally gets to Paris, he is declared to be a prisoner and is taken to La Force prison. He encounters several other aristocrats and French royalty who are imprisoned there, and who seem so lifeless and dead that he refers to them as “ghosts.” Darnay is said to be at the prison “in secret”, and although he does not realize it at the time, means that he will be kept in solitary confinement. He is brought up to a small room at the top of a tower that measures “five paces by four and a half.” Locked alone in the small room, Darnay resorts to pacing back and forth in an effort to clear his mind. He seems helpless and confused, unsure of how he ended up in this predicament, and more importantly, how he is going to escape from it.

The French Revolution was a time of civic turmoil in the late 1700s. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens includes historical facts about the chaos arising in parts of Europe, specifically France, while building the complexity of the characters. He creates personality with examples of why individuals surrender certain possessions during this time of troubles. One reason people sacrifice is based on the desire to do the righteous thing for the benefit of others. Throughout the novel, Miss Pross, Dr. Alexander Manette, and Sydney Carton make sacrifices for love.

Arguably one of the most feared characters in the book and easily the most influential to other characters in the book. In this magnificent work: Great Expectations, Charles Dickens would not even have a story without the compelling and sinister Mr. Jaggers. The reason Jaggers is who he is simply is because his drive for power, which is fueled by his status as London 's greatest lawyer continuing to stay intact. Jaggers has acquired this power through many actions; such as, striking fear unto others, maintaining his self-confidence, and never allowing emotions to get the best of him.

By strange stern ways, and through much staining of blood, those feet had come to meet that water” (3.14.376). Since she is one of them, she is already passionate about exterminating the nobility, but it also fits in well with her goal of exterminating the Evrémonde family. Hence, this revolution and her surroundings stop Madame DeFarge from recovering from her childhood and it serves as a constant opportunity that will allow her to exact revenge from her family. In addition, this revolution lets her love take the wrong direction.

If we want to make changes in our Lives, then we will have to look at the causes and the way we are using our minds, the way we are thinking. For, “No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. You can’t have a positive thought & hold on to the negative one. Choose one.” ~Louise Hay. We all have the will and heart, the courage and braveness to let go of the past and to learn from it, and not to dwell in it. So, after all how can something, be both positive and Negative at the same time. Well in a very simple way of putting it, an event can be both positive and negative at the same time. It all comes down on what perspective you are seeing the event from. For, different perspectives can show us stories in a whole other way and in a whole new light. During the book Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens, you could see this view in many different ways. First, you could see how Carton spend a lot of time criticizing himself and imagining that he would never be able to change. This caused him to not even try and to just live life, in a sad state. Next, sacrifice can be positive and it usually means to have new beginnings. On the other hand, you are usually losing something dear to you, which hurts you for the rest of your life. That is why, no one should dwell in the past, but learn from it and move on. Lastly, courage could be a positive and at the same time a negative aspect. It all depends on our own personal perspective, or viewpoint.

Great expectations can be summarized in one word, bildungsroman. It’s a big word just how Great Expectations is a big book, about 400 pages to be exact. Bildungsroman is a word used by many English teachers and scholars to describe a story about growing up. Great Expectations comes to follow a young orphan, whose name is Pip, going from boyhood to manhood. The book also isn’t about watching a character grow older; it’s about watching how a character changes, hopefully for the better. In Pips case, the growth comes in how he changes his expectations, in other words, his ambitions. In the first stage of his expectations, Pip desires to be a gentleman; wealthy, well respected, upper-class. By the end, Pip has come to

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, is known and loved by a wide range of people all over the world. This classic story tells of a young boy named Pip on his quest to become a gentleman in Victorian England. The very first event in Great Expectations is Pip 's encounter with Magwitch, an escaped convict that gives Pip a fortune for saving his life. After meeting Magwitch, Pip goes to the home of Miss Havisham, the eccentric woman appointed to teach him the ways of upper class society. While at Miss Havisham 's, Pip meets and falls in love with Estella, Miss Havisham 's sharp tonged, yet beautiful daughter. Pip 's goal throughout the entire book is to win over, and be worthy of her. This novel is widely read and is continuously read and discussed. Great Expectations is considered a classic because of it 's strategic use of descriptive language, development of characters, and it 's stunning relatability to modern day society.

Life is a complicated mess of circumstances that nobody will ever fully understand, the closest tangible object we may have in order to even begin to understand our environment would be through our own literature, expression, and art. Through these things, dried ink can clear the path to enlightenment, and this is increasingly evident in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Through very complicated, conflicted characters, he demonstrates an artful story about guilt, fear, expectations, and love. All of these topics which are present in the novel are so present in life, we might not even notice them in our own. Other writers and even musicians, use these themes to grasp at their own realities, trying to reach for the imaginary straws hanging above their faces, and the stories that they tell are a direct reflection of this behavior in their life, the results are stunning at times. Most of us might not even realize the amount of figurative weight we carry on our shoulders, it’s all just extra baggage. The baggage that we wear would be all of our combined emotions and expectations. No matter what you do, you will never escape the judgement of others (their expectations), your emotions, and your inner-judgement (and expectations).