Spirituality In Charles Dickens's A Tale Of Two Cities

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.

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.

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.

One begins A Tale of Two Cities expecting... Well, expecting a tale of two cities. And yet we do not read about the second city, Paris, until "The Wine-shop", in which a wine-cask spills into the cobblestone streets, causing a brief, merry celebration among the starving people. Dickens uses the scene to establish the impoverished and desperate atmosphere of France that will serve as the catalyst of the Revolution, and employs imagery and symbolism to foreshadow the imminent bloodshed.

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, isolation impacts Madame Defarge and Sydney Carton by altering their perception of life, influencing Madame to become obsessive with her vengeful goal of eliminating the aristocracy and damaging Carton by forcing him to contain his depressive emotions.

Similarly, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species[3], catalysed religious decline. The Church of England during the Victorian Era was traditionally conservative, offering literal interpretations of the Bible. Tess of the D’Urbevilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented follows the condemned existence of Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman born into an impoverished family in a strict Christian village. To an extent, society adopted religion as a device for individual salvation and social change, thus demonstrated by Alec Stoke-D’Urberville’s suspicious conversion.

The implications of religion during the Victorian Era allowed for the existence of a society that would be considered controversial when compared to the type of social world we live in today. The people of the Victorian era held religion so dear to them that it affected gender roles, dress, and overall behavior to the point that we are now left to interpret whether the “proper” standards of living at the time were reasonable, or just a result of a fervent devotion to religion. It’s difficult to understand the reason why certain traditions were followed during the Victorian Era, without taking into consideration the religious reasoning behind it. Out of all the influences that Victorian tradition consists of religion, perhaps is the greatest determining factor in analyzing why this certain conduct was considered normal and just, mainly because a number of sins were sought to be avoided out of the fear of the supernatural, or a holy power. The goal of this research is to present the cause of certain trends during the Victorian Era as a result of religion and to show how greatly this deviates from the common trends in today’s society. Evaluating religion during the Victorian Era may also be helpful in explaining why social interactions in modern time differ so greatly from that of the past.

The Victorian era was one of transition, and it was this transition, the removal of old beliefs, to be replaced in new, that resulted in the lack of something definite to believe in (Houghton 2,14). The Victorians believed they were breaking with the medieval world, yet at the same time they idealized it. In fact there were a few extremists who, according to Matthew Arnold, "hoped 'to retain or restore the whole system of the middle Ages'" (Houghton 2). In an England that was continually pushing forward, expanding its boundaries and dabbling in the science and

Conversely, while characters in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities have found redemption, the characters in Crash have fallen from their grace. For example, Officer Tom Hansen is a perfect example of someone who had become the monster he wants to stop. From the moment we see Officer Tom, we see his blue eyes and blonde hair. We see a youthful face too, reinforcing how naive and new to LAPD he really is. All these traits combined creates a handsome man that, in many other movies, would’ve been the hero. His youthful appearance would make him much more likable to a mainstream audience. Heroes in films such as the Superhero films Spiderman and Captain America have had younger actors fighting for what’s right. Similarly to those superheroes, Officer Hansen follows these typical heroes. He tries his best to stick to his morales, despite all the other officers and even the Police chief that they won’t last in the LAPD. After witnessing Officer Ryan molest a black woman he pulls over, Officer Hansen immediately reports this horrific incident to the police chief. Despite fighting for his beliefs, Hansen is immediately told that the LAPD won’t reprimand Officer Ryan, notwithstanding the LAPD knowing a racist officer is working on the force. However, this doesn’t deter Officer Ryan, as he continues to do what he knows is right. When several police officers are confronted by an angry Cameron Thayer, the man whose wife was sexually assaulted, Officer Hansen manages to convince the other officers to not shoot the obviously indignant man. Hansen realises that by standing aside while Cameron’s Wife was sexually was assaulted, he allowed it to happen and must make up for it. By allowing Thayer to walk, Hansen shows his good hearted nature and continues to be the force of good in the LAPD by trying and making mistakes right. Unfortunately, it is Hansen’s nature to try and fix things that ultimately causes his fall. While driving late at night, Hansen sees Peter, a black man, walking along a lonely dirt road, shivering from the cold. Hansen, trying to correct the past wrongs of the LAPD, offers Peter a ride so he can get away from a icy air. As they continue along the dirt road in the car, Peter begins to laugh and a

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

The nineteenth century was a period of controversy, reform, and revolution. Among it were people longing to spread new ideas, discover new things, and find who they truly were. Though the desires of those in this time were not entirely contrastive to the ones of those in any other century, differences lie in the difficulty nineteenth century people faced in fulfilling said desires. This is not to say that people of the time lacked ambition—in fact, this is to say the exact opposite. Despite their abundance of ambition, contrary to current times, people were often suppressed from using their ambition to promote ideas that were considered socially unacceptable. Though there are many pieces of evidence to support this, multiple literary works

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.

Living in 1775 in England and France is known as “it the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Unjust punishments and inequality where everywhere and if one upset the wrong people they might find themselves at the base of a guillotine. Social Injustice is the unfair practices that are being conducted in the society. Social injustice was all over France and their government was flying downhill, at the tip of a revolution. In a Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Dickens used social criticism to show people the level of brutality and inhumanity of the French ruling class at the time.

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

Comment on the charge that Emerson and his ideas were a factor in the weakening of traditional Christianity in the nineteenth century.