Violence In A Tale Of Two Cities

Violence is an unavoidable terror that has played one of the, if not the most, important roles in all of history. Without violence, lands wouldn’t be conquered, empires wouldn’t fall, and people wouldn’t have any limits or restrictions. The French Revolution is one example of a violent uprising because the people of France revolted against the rule of King Louis XVI by raiding, storming, and slaughtering for their natural equal rights. The revolution marked the end of a government ruled by monarchy and the start of the Republic of France. One important reason of why the revolution was successful in bringing political change was because it was violent.

This exemplifies the predominant theme of violence throughout the first part of the novel. Furthermore, I can connect the violence demonstrated in the book to society through the news. Every weeknight my parents watch Global News, I often hear news of break-ins, assaults, and random acts of violence which relates to the acts Alex and his droogs committed in the novel. This is seen when Alex, Pete, Georgie, and Dim break into the Manse and attempt to rob an old woman. They try to walk right in with the guise that they need assistance, but the woman says no which results in Alex breaking in and causing

With the passing of decades, humanity has been mentioning more and more the presence of violence in our daily lives. We see it online, news, social media, it is absolutely taking over a great fragment of our lives. But is this violence aspect of humanity a recent thing? If we take a look back to earlier human civilization, there has always been a violent essence in the way we think and act. The main focus of this essay is to discuss, and compare 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup to The Things They carried by Tim O’Brien.

Madelyn Ball Miss Tighe English I H 27 February, 2017 Mob Mentality Mob mentality is usually overlooked as a bad thing, but in reality it can be used for good as well. Usually mob mentality takes on the form of unnecessary violence that ends in blood shed for hundreds, when there is a possible way for no blood shed at all. In the book A Tale of Two Cities  there are many incidents that include some form of mob mentality. The storming of the Bastille, the beheading of the governor after he was dead, and the imprisonment of  Charles Darnay are all examples of how mob mentality uses chaos and anarchy to change the way  society runs.

Violence has been interpreted in various way by authors as the centuries have gone by. In Candide, Voltaire paints a picture about violence in the 17th century as war that continues to rage over centuries between empires with the main protagonist Candide, and his fellow members being subjected to all kinds of hardships as they themselves become casualties of war. In the Dew Breaker, Danticat discusses the extent of the everlasting damage, both physical and psychological, that is caused by totalitarian regimes, such as the Duvalier’s in Haiti in the 1970s. The central character in this story, The Dew Breaker represents an individual that is the product of such regimes, with his cruel and sadistic past as a torturer epitomizing violence. On the

         Burgess does not characterize Alex as just a murderous rapist.  To come to terms with his wife's death, he had to believe that it is inhuman to be totally good or totally evil (Burgess ix).  In the final chapter, Alex undergoes a moral transformation; "he grows bored with violence and recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction" (vii).  Burgess could not believe that the men who raped his wife were totally evil, so Alex had to redeem himself by living a normal life.

It is axiomatic that violence is a predominant feauture of the book: violence is used to commit vitriolic acts or to create sympathy towards characters, the book explains the consquences of solitude and how violence is a very pusillanimous way of solving arguments or forwarding your opinions. Violence is the destroyer of dreams, it can destory every single hope and can enervate characters. Of mice and men offers a new opinion of iternant workers and black people. It also invites us to think about our natural supercilious instinct to take advantage against the weak, vulnerable, unteneable and differently coloured is wrong and using violence to threaten them by tone of voice or physically hurting people will lead to consquences. Violence always

Violence throughout our time has been evident ever since the beginning of our human species. From verbal to physical, one will not go through his/her lifetime without understanding the violent nature of other people. Richard Wilkinson brought up a point that “More unequal societies tend to be more violent” (Wilkinson 2). Wilkinson shows that there is a prominent correlation between income and homicide. Lower incomes shows higher rates of homicide. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows how violence can flourish due to the inequality seen in the lower classes. Dickens uses violence to portray that a society filled with inequalities can lead to violence.

Violence in the real world Violence is a huge issue all around the world. In the great Gatsby there was violence everywhere. World war one had just gotten over and there was around 37 million casualties involved in that one war. The idea of violence is explored in key pieces of American literature and can be compared to the portrayal of violence in modern-day school shootings, the wars in the Middle East, Terrorist groups and domestic violence.

When people tend to be very passionate about a certain subject, occasionally they are very reckless in order to get what they truly want. This is the same regardless if it is a small group of people, an individual, or even an abundance of passionate citizens. Extreme loss of individuality and recklessness are no different for the large groups of passionate revolutionaries in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. The mobs in A Tale of Two Cities tend to have violence in which depths are unknown, and who do anything to get what they want at the moment. The mobs also tend to destroy their own community and upset the social norms of the society they are living in purely to get what they want.

Violence, in countless forms, has been around for as long as humans have walked the planet. The Ancient Romans and Greeks appreciates violent entertainment in their gladiator and naval battles, lion fighting and hunting. However, none of these civilizations could notice that violence was crippling their society by oppressing and killing off minorities. Living in such a harsh society ignites the fire to rebellions that lead to the fall of empires. Moreover, the slavery in these societies disregards the ideas and identity of much of the population.

The research identifies the creation and maintenance of social order through threat of violence: “Hawthorne's image of the scaffold reminds us that good citizenship requires obedience” (Thomas 187). Paradoxically, the established social order abstains from violence under the threat of violence. As the upper echelon of society threatens to harm the lower class rebels, the lesser classes threaten rebellion against the upper class. Through this constant tension between the two class divisions, social order is maintained. Therefore, Thomas declares that, in order to maintain peace, both threats must remain equal and neither the lower or upper classes should violently oppose the other.

Martin Luther King Jr once said,"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." This lesson is similar to the theme of Charles Dickens', A Tale of Two Cities. He shows the reader the ugliness that comes out of violent revenge. Although supportive of the French Revolution, Charles Dickens casts a warning though the violence and bloodthirsty nature of the revolutionaries. Dickens displays the true malicious behavior of the revolutionaries throughout the novel.

In the novel A Clockwork Orange, the author Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man name Alex and his friends, every night they go around and start committing violent acts. In the novel Alex expresses his freedom of choice between good and evil. The freedom of choice is a decision that every person must make throughout his life in order to guide his actions and to take control of his own future. This Freedom of Choice, no matter what the outcome is, displays person power as an individual, and any efforts to control or influence this choice between good and evil will take way the person free will and enslave him. In this novel the author uses this symbolism through imagery. He shows that through the character of

In part one of the novel, we witness the ability of free will that Alex possesses and his ability to choose between good and evil through contrast presented by darkness of night and lightness of day. At the beginning of the novel, Alex and his droogs (friends), Pete, Georgie, and Dim are at the Kovova Milkbar, roaming the streets and committing violent acts during night. Alex and his droogs encounter an old man who is drunk and is singing a sentimental song. Alex instantly chooses the path of evil with the free will that he encompasses, and along with his droogs they beat the old man while laughing at his misery. The old man complains about the “stinking world” and says, “It’s a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there’s no law nor order no more.” (Part 2, Chapter 2, Page 12) At night, Alex uses violence and chooses to beat, rape, and murder innocent people because it shows that he has freedom of choice and has authority and power in society. Alex’s interpretation of darkness and night is, “The night belonged to me and my droogs and all the rest of the nadsats (teenagers), and the starry bourgeois lurked indoors…” (Part 1, Chapter 4, Page 33). In contrast,