During this period highlighted by Dickens, all the political power lay on the hands of the king as well as those people who owned the majority land, the clergy and the aristocracy. The vast majority of people comprised of the Third Estate that entailed peasants and the whole middle class of professionals and businesspersons. The Third Estate according to French history is one of the three categories through which members of the society were classified in French before the French Revolution. Third Estate represented the great majority of persons in the French society.
The First Estate or the Clergy and the Second Estate or the aristocracy benefitted from numerous privileges and rights that include tax exemptions. The Third Estate paid taxes and those who failed to pay their taxes received harsh punishments. Majority of the Third Estate members were abandoned in dismal cells due to minor violations (Glancy 9). These infamous letters allowed the aristocracy of the King, as a leader, to detain anyone without cause and trial. For instance, the sealed letter condemned Doctor Manette to the Bastille for eighteen years.
While these scenes take a few chapters of the story, they are written with dreadful intensity. Dickens views clearly enough that the French Revolution was bound to take place and that scores of the people executed deserved the treatment. The predictability of the terror and social injustices is stressed upon through the use of terms such as, "my Lord" is lolling in bed with four liveried footmen serving his chocolate and the poor starving outside" (Glancy 69). The French Revolution is something that took place because of centuries of oppression that made the French peasantry sub-human. The story is a reflection of the French Revolution, and Charles Dickens views the upshots as inevitable, but the causes could have been prevented. If the wicked nobleman could have changed, like scrooge, there could have been no Revolution.
The struggle of class is the major source of development and hence the nobleman who steals from the peasant and provokes him to riot is playing a crucial role, just as much as Jacobin who beheads the nobleman. Although Charles does not write anywhere in the novel a section that can be comprehended as a sign of the revolution, he views revolution as a monster begotten via tyranny and often culminates through devouring its own instruments. In Sydney Carton's vision at the foot of the guillotine, he predicts Defarge and other major terror spirits all expiring under the same knife.
Dickens knows that the revolution is a monster (Hennelly 220). The revolutionary scenes in his tales hold the qualities of a nightmare. Repeatedly, Dickens stresses on the pointless terrors of revolution, the injustice, and the frightful blood lust of the mob, the mass-butcheries and longstanding terror of spies. The definitions of the Paris mob, for example, the crowd of killers struggling round the grindstone to sharpen their arms prior to butchering the prisoners in the massacres demonstrates the revolutionary terror. The terror of revolutionary madness as highlighted in the novel was deep, "with their heads low down and their hands high up" (Glancy 70). People were mistreated and merciless killed by their oppressors.
Madame Therese Defarge is truly a fearful figure, most probably, Charles Dickens most triumphant trial at a malignant character. Madame Defarge and others are the new oppressors rising from the old destruction. The cruelest, lowest and worst population controls the revolutionary courts. Charles stresses on the nightmare insecurity of the period of revolution, and through this, he demonstrates a great deal of insight, "A law of the suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one. Prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing" (Grancy 70). Dickens impulse exaggerates the horrors of revolution from a historical outlook. Through the highlight of tumbrils, rolling back and forth and blood knives, Dickens creates a special sinister vision in his mind. Tumbrils refers to an open handcart that skewed backward to pour out its load, in particular, one utilized to deliver censured prisoners to the guillotine.
A Tale of Two Cities offers a radical distillation of the historical novel's major convections and topics. For instance, Charles Darnay is a version of all, but a pensiveness of Scott's wavering hero, caught between opposing forces in a revolutionary crisis that involved by two cities, London and Paris (Bloom 22). The French Revolution, the archetypal historical incidence of contemporary times, demonstrates something more than an ultimate case of the historical novel's topos, a time-honored subject...
Sydney Carton, the infamous esquire with a personal life of ill repute, pulled the strings that led to acquittal, despite famous attorney Stryver's best attempts. Pointing out that he looked similar to the defendant, Carton was able to refute the prosecution's argument that the criminal was unmistakably Darnay. Much to the joy of himself and his associates, Darnay is now free. Jacques Strikes Again The latest in a string of murders
Tale of Two Cities Wealthy Aristocrat Stands Trial for Treason. Charles Darnay stands trial for the high crime of treason today at the Old Bailey Courthouse. Darnay is suspected of being a spy for the French monarchy, under direct orders from King Louis XVI. The Crown has accused Darnay of divulging top secret information regarding the war in the colonies. John Barsad, an agent of the Crown, is set to testify
He arguably represented some of the worst vices of humanity, and in saving innocent lives he demonstrates some of the best characteristics of humanity. His choosing to squander his ability and intellect by drinking to excess shows great foolishness, yet his decision to save his friends shows a degree of wisdom. It is also important to notice the religious implications of this quotation. The reference to the time of
He then goes to the guillotine in Darnay's placed, disguised as his friend, and acting with the assurance that it is a "far better" thing that he is doing than anything he has ever done before. 2. Political Themes: The Loss of Personal inside the Political Dickens uses characters, language, metaphor, and other literary elements in order to link his characters to the political themes in his book. It was been
Tale of Two Cities An Analysis of Duty and Sacrifice in Dickens' a Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens' 1859 A Tale of Two Cities deals with the dichotomous nature of man: the good and the bad, the selfish and the selfless. These two natures are observed in the two (ironically look-alike) characters, the dutiful Charles Darnay and the derelict Sydney Carton. Yet, just as the novel embodies a dichotomy, shown
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke. Specifically it will compare the two novels, answering the question: "Given that our two authors are English, what do Reflections on the Revolution in France and A Tale of Two Cities tell you about English attitudes towards revolution in general and the French Revolution in particular?" Both of these countries were in
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now