Tale Of Two Cities Dualism Essay

In the darkest times of a person’s life, it is left to those who truly love them to support them through it. Their significant other, their family, their closest friends; all of them must come together to assist them emotionally through what may be the worst their life has ever been, and they must expect nothing but gratitude in return. Those acts of love define people, showing whether or not they actually care about their friend or family. These actions abound in the 1859 novel by Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, which takes place in the years leading up to and during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. This could easily be considered one of the darkest times for all of humanity, and it is readily apparent in the novel just

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.

Dickens uses Carton to symbolize resurrection in numerous parts of the book. "I am the resurrection," Carton calls himself. Dickens uses this specific character to symbolize that because of how Carton got Charles Darnay out of prison, and saved him from death therefore he symbolically resurrected him, by saving his life.

“Still, our first impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring. The officers were billeted in private homes, even in the homes of Jews. Their attitude toward their hosts was distant, but polite. They never demanded the impossible, made no unpleasant comments, and even smiled occasionally at the mistress of the house.” (5)

Dickens wrote in this way to to cause people to see the faults in their priorities, that they placed work higher than family. In A Tale of Two Cities, the abuse of power is more prevalent than that of money. Two characters in particular use their “rights” to oppress, Marquis St. Evrémonde as a member of the French nobility, and Madame Defarge as a leader of the revolution. The Marquis has a personal adage that, "Repression is the only lasting philosophy.

In the literature art of “A Tale Of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens, a loyalty to warfare, causes suffering to family and social class. A theme that is dominant in the feel and the writing style of the novel. Charles Dickens is excellent at providing a deep and personal meaning to fictional based characters; make you feel for them, sometimes more than these in real life.

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.

In this essay, I will argue that one of the underlying motives in Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the reinforcement of Christian values in 18th century Victorian England. Dickens was very concerned with the accepted social norms of industrialized England, many of which he felt were very inhumane. Christian values were challenged, largely due to the recent publication of Darwin's Origins of a Species, and philosophy along with literature was greatly affected. In 1859, the industrial age was booming, making many entrepreneurs rich. However, the majority of the lower economic class remained impoverished, working in unsafe and horrific environments as underpaid

A Tale of Two Cities Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, was sent to find Dr. Manette, an unjustly imprisoned physician, in Paris and bring him back to England. Lucie, Manette's daughter who thought that he was dead, accompanied Mr. Lorry. Upon arriving at Defarge's wine shop in Paris, they found Mr. Manette in a dreadful state and took him back to London with them. Mr. Manette could not rember why he had been imprisoned, or when he was imprisoned. He was in a state of Post Tramatic Stress Dis-order.

     One might believe that because capital punishment plays such a large role in Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities, that Dickens himself is a supporter of it. This just simply is not true. Dickens uses capitol punishment as a tool to define the evil embodied in both the French ruling class, and the opposing lower class during the French Revolution; as well as comment on the sheep-like nature of humankind.

First off, Charles Dickens’ very first paragraph says, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only…(Dickens 5)”. This is how he introduces duality in the book. I think that it is important that Charles Dickens used duality because he did not only want us to know that he used it but also explained the dualities throughout the story. The two cities London, England and Paris, France are complete

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens discusses the weight of duality in our world, it stresses that where there is hope, there is despair and where there is light, there is darkness. There are always two sides to one story, the way a coin has two sides. Some events and dilemmas in this book come hand in hand with many of my personal values such as morality, ethics, responsibility and independence. This essay will further explain the relationship between the values I share with one of the main characters, Charles Darnay. “He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly.

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.

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.