Violence In A Tale Of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, narrates the frustrations of the common people toward Foulon, a French magistrate. The people rejoice when Foulon is imprisoned since he treated them awfully. The nature of the French Revolution is the common people’s elation at the downfall of the aristocracy. Dickens utilizes personification, motif, and symbolism to describe the relationship between the common people and Foulon.

Today many violent scenes are used for their shock value and for the sake of including violence. However, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, has violent scenes to illustrate the time period of the French Revolution. Scenes such as Foulon being paraded through the city and murdered, the Storming of the Bastille, and the fight between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge emphasize the violence of the time through graphic detail and imagery. These scenes add to the novel’s legitimacy by expressing the immense violence of the time and truly showing the horrors of the revolution.

Revenge is an urge that one might seek to feed after their sister cleans the toilet with their toothbrush. As the saying goes, “Revenge is a dish best served cold”. In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens prolongs the theme of revenge, as it develops throughout the entirety of the novel. As tensions arose between the aristocrats and peasants, the French Revolution was born. Sixty years later, Charles Dickens addresses the war through through the stark revenge among the people, which is demonstrated by many characters. As the novel progresses, the reader is exposed to the strong desire of revenge from Madame Defarge, who is the embodiment of the pure

The literature that came out of the French Revolution often shares common themes of death, rebirth, and destruction. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is much the same way. Throughout the novel, Dickens clearly supports the revolution but also depicts the brutality of the revolutionaries. Dickens uses powerful metaphors of a sea to symbolize the revolutionaries destroying old France and the belittling name of “Jacques” to depict the narcissistic views of the French aristocracy to show his support for the revolution.

Imagine, smoke in the air. Cloudy and gray outside, with sounds of carts being carried across rocky gravel. The shouts of people talking about politics, economy, and most important, the revolution. You can hear people yelling and disagreeing with others opinions. You are standing in the middle of the rocky road looking around, watching people’s actions, watching slaves work hard, watching women carry babies and holding their children’s hands. Kids leather shoes, clapping against the road, with laughter coming from their mouths. Dogs barking, horses pulling away from their riders. Everything is so busy and loud. You can barely hear yourself think. Shouts come from a small house across the road.

Shusterman’s comments on the duality of human nature correlate with Charles Dickens’s perspective on the matter; Dickens further portrays such thoughts in his novel a Tale of Two Cities. This unprecedented story is set in both England and France during the year of 1775, although it also continues through the years of the French revolution. As an Englishman, Dickens hints at his disgust towards the aristocratic French society by using satire and descriptions of

According to Karl Marx’s Theory, taken from his “Communist Manifesto” the struggles between the upper class and the lower classes will eventually lead towards civil riots and possible even a revolution. While Aristotle’s Theory in “Poetics” argued that social change is inevitable and a “means to an end”. The book “Twilight”: 1992 by Anne Deavere Smith exemplifies these ideas through the use of multiple perspectives from individuals who witnessed, participated or in someway were affected by the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, which she personally interviewed.

A Tale of Two Cities, a book written by Charles Dickens in 1859, describes the situation of France and the French Revolution. At the end of Chapter Six, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Miss Pross are at a Tea Party. A turbulent storm occurs and incites an eerie mood within the characters. Charles Darnay starts telling a story about a paper he found. After telling the story, Dr. Manette begins to feel ill. Following this is a section which contains multiple literary elements. In Chapter Six, Dickens utilizes descriptive literary devices, such as imagery, personification, and anaphora, to foretell the French Revolution and set the mood of the passage.

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.

The nature of mobs is a significant theme in “A Tale of Two Cities.” In both the movie and the book, mobs are portrayed as powerful. Mobs are made up of many people with the same thoughts and motives. Mobs can also be very destructive for that same reason. Dickens uses the mob mentality to depict the bloody horror and the ultimate success of the French Revolution.

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.

“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 season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…” (Dickens 9). In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses this line to start the book and to describe what was happening in the country at the time. This line shows how there was chaos and confusion among the civilians. When the needs of civilians are not being met, what do they do? Do they sit back and let the government treat them poorly? Do they

Out of all the compelling characters in this story, Lucie Manette and Jarvis Lorry are the two that are most interesting to me. In the beginning of the story, they were strangers. However, as the plot develops, we find out they have actually met before. When Lucie became an orphan, Lorry took her to England to be raised. This action shows that Lorry cared for Lucie and wanted what was best for her. They meet again when he takes Lucie to her father. Throughout the story, they grow a strong bond.

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.

In Europe, the eighteenth century was a time of great social upheaval and change. While England experienced a period of general discontent, particularly over events such as the American Revolution, France experienced a full-blown revolution, which tore down the existing social hierarchy and established a ruthless tyranny in its place. Such general discontent has been reflected throughout literature, which has been used to demonstrate how these changes affected the lives of individuals. In some cases, these experiences left some individuals with inklings of hope, while others were left to succumb to revenge and despair. In Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, contrasting environments, actions, and character traits are utilized to strengthen the novel’s message that individuals who possess love and compassion will experience the greatest success in positively impacting the lives of those around them.