Characters, Setting, and Conflicts in A Tale of Two Cities Essay

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.

In many novels, the society created by the author is surrounded by wealth and corruption. Numerous amount of times these settings are produced based on the life in which the author lives. Charles Dickens is no different. In the midst of most of his novels, Dickens exposes the deception of Victorian England and the strict society that holds everything together. In Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, a satire is created where the basis of the novel is the mockery against money and morals. Throughout this novel, multiple symbols and depictions of the characters display the corruption of the mind that surrounds social classes in Victorian England.

In this quote, Dickens uses imagery to describe the wine spill. People "darted here and there" to try to sip up any wine, before it dried up. Dickens wanted us to see how big this is to the people, because then everyone was so poor they couldn't afford wine, so the wine spill turned into a huge party. Everyone trying to get as much as they could and enjoy it.

Resurrection is a common theme for stories. In order for someone or something to be resurrected, it must first be created and then dilapidated. The focus in A Tale of Two Cities is on the dilapidated and resurrection portion of this pattern. There are a myriad of examples in this novel of resurrection. Specific people, groups of people, and even France are all examples of resurrection in A Tale of Two Cities. The theme of resurrection applies to Sydney Carton and Dr. Manette in A Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens.

Although Dickens clearly supports the revolutionaries cause, through metaphors of water, he highlights the sometimes animalistic nature of the revolution. In Book one, “[T]he sea did what it liked and what it liked was destruction.” Dickens acknowledges the inevitable nature of the revolution by comparing the sea to the French mob. And the mob, much like a sea,

While people like Monseigneur were dining on luxurious chocolate that was fed to them (pgs 108+), there were others like the people fighting to get a sip of the wine that just happened to fall onto the old, stone road (pgs 31-33). Dickens contrasted the two very different life styles of the same society to show how unfair it was and impact our opinions. In this case, it was such an unfair distribution of food in the late

In a Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens juxtapositions suspense and humor in an intricate tale of love and loyalty.

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

The use of suspenseful imagery allows for a descriptive foreshadow of the French Revolution. At the end of the chapter, Dickens compares people to the storm by showing “a crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them too” (109). The Third Estate is depicted as rowdy and very thundering by means of their rush and roar. If the people linger to this extent for a Revolution, this rowdiness can cause a massive war. Soon enough there was “a great hurry in the streets, people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke” (107). The storm, being synonymous with the Revolution, will cause a great hurry to the Third Estate due to their unpreparedness. Civilians, speeding away, try to get to shelter before the revolution starts to become too brutal. In the night a “storm of thunder

In the book, Dickens portrays the people as having the hatred necessary for mob violence. Immediately, the book shows us an example how such hatred was created. When a youth’s hands were chopped off, “tongue torn out with pincers” and “his body burned alive” it shows the violence and torture that led to the French revolution. The youth represents the weak in French society

The tale of two cities written by Charles Dickens is at the time period of the French revolution. But it is not understood if Charles likes the French revolution or if he’s against it? Charles Dickens sees the poverty in all the peasants, he sees that peasants are becoming solemn and deadly the people are. Charles sees that the rich treat the poor like garbage. The French revolution made France more disorganized then before. Charles agrees that something must be done, but does not agree with the violence of the French revolution.

Charles Dickens utilizes doubles and contrasts to enhance the plot of Dickens uses parallels in characters, social classes, and events that compliment each other to strengthen the plot. Its themes of violence in revolutionaries, resurrection, and sacrifice also help support the story.

Dickens begins the novel with a pro-revolutionary tone. His regard for the idea of the upcoming and inevitable revolution in a positive light is reflected by the atmosphere he sets for the reader. Dickens is able to make his readers pity the peasantry and sympathize with them. Through inclusion of detail, Dickens portrays the plight of the lower class writing, “gloom [gathers] on the scene that [appears] more natural to it than sunshine” (21). This allows the reader to imply that the suffering of the lower class has fallen into a continuous pattern, and they can understand the need for revolution. Additionally, Dickens uses anaphora with the phrase “Hunger [is]” (21). This gives the reader a sense of how much hunger dominates and defines their lives, effectively making their

Dickens writes this novel without bias; he makes that clear in the first chapter, “In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection