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Tale of Two Cities Essay

Decent Essays

Violence and Cruelty Leading to Harsh Rebellion Throughout the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens constantly uses examples of violence and cruelty to show why the French peasants revolted against the aristocracy and to describe the revolt. During the extant of the peasant’s lives before the rebellion they were treated so brutally by the aristocrats. The wealthy people took great advantage of their power and the poor people. When the peasants rebelled they responded with violence and brutality from the hatred of their hearts. The suffering the low class people of France endured during the time of this story was more than unbearable. As Dickens describes “Far and wide, lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. …show more content…

She was just asking for a gravestone for her husband but the Marquis quickly trotted off in his valet leaving her far behind. This heartless act left sadness in the woman’s heart, but the evil Marquis Evermonde could care less. He “drove as if he were charging an enemy, and furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or into the lips of the master.”(Dickens 113) When Gaspard killed the Marquis “he was hanged there forty feet high and left hanging, poisoning the water.” The French did not care that the little water the poor had to drink was being poisoned or that they killed a man. They wanted to warn the peasants that revolting would not be tolerated; yet it still occurred. Dickens directly warns that, so long as the ruling class refused to take responsibility for the way that they govern, they are destined to be violently overthrown.”(Galegroup 1). Although the aristocrats were asking for it “Violent oppression breeds violent rebellion which becomes a new king of oppression”(Bloom C) .The violence of the peasants was their response to their pain and no prosperity. “Dickens is always reminding the reader that the revolution, though a frightful moral disorder was born of Unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference. Society was diseased before the fever broke out.”(Gale E) “Headlong, mad and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s life, footsteps not easily

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