Dickens is often held to be among the greatest writers of the Victorian Age. Nonetheless, why are his works still relevant nearly two centuries later? One reason for this is clearly shown in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. In the novel, he uses imagery to sway the readers’ sympathies. He may kindle empathy for the revolutionary peasants one moment and inspire feeling for the imprisoned aristocrats the next, making the book a more multi-sided work. Dickens uses imagery throughout the novel to manipulate the reader’s compassion in the peasants’ favor, in the nobles defense, and even for the book’s main villainess, Madame Defarge.
With imagery revealing the poor straits and desperation of the peasant class of France, Dickens influences the reader to pity them. He writes, “The cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy—cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, want were the lords waiting on the saintly presence—nobles of great power all of them; but most especially the last” (Dickens 22). Through hunger, want, etc. being personified and compared to nobles through language such as “nobles” and “lords”, Dickens shows the extent of the suffering of the peasants, their deserving to be pitied, and the human nobles’ apathy towards them. The peasants of Saint Antoine suffer in the 1770s, and the town’s name is made into a play on words with “saintly presence”, with the cloud of cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want looming forming the imagery of irony. Another description of the peasants’ plight is revealed in the quote saying, “Ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere...Hunger was the inscription on th...
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...reader feel empathy for even the book’s villainess, and he succeeds.
Throughout the novel, Dickens employs imagery to make the readers pity the peasants, have compassion for the innocent nobles being punished, and even better understand the antagonist and her motives. His use of personified hunger and description of the poor’s straits made the reader pity them for the situation caused by the overlord nobles. However, Dickens then uses the same literary device to alight sympathy for the nobles, albeit the innocent ones! Then, he uses imagery to make the reader better understand and perhaps even feel empathy for Madame Defarge, the book’s murderous villainess. Through skillful but swaying use of imagery, Dickens truly affects the readers’ sympathies.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Ed. Paul Negri. Mineola: Dover
Publications, 1999. Print.
Although the passage foreshadows the events later throughout the novel, Dickens ultimately uses a pathetic tone toward the social conditions of France before the French Revolution through the use of anaphora in the first half of the passage and the diction throughout the second half of the passage.
During a time of conflicting warfare, a person’s social position and temperament play a significant role in the ideals of society. A Tale of Two Cities manifests society’s response to the French Revolution. Times like this result in two options, either to keep moving on with life, or give in to the vengeance. Charles Dickens portrays both sides of humanity through his characterization. Madame Defarge is the most prominent character that represents the inability to resist violence during the Revolution. In Madame Defarge’s quest for revenge, her continuous knitting and dominance prompt her character development, establishing her character as the antagonist.
On the subject of the French she says, “I am a subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third and as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks…God save the King.” (338) Since she is such, she is the perfect foil for Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge epitomizes chaos and violence. With her unrelenting bloodthirstiness and unceasing desire for revenge she symbolizes the intensity and bloodiness of the French Revolution. “The Evrémonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father.” (418) Madame’s chilling certainty and willingness to kill an innocent mother and child show the hatred that makes up the revolution she personifies and the peasants that were a part of it. Although Madame Defarge and Miss Pross are foils they share a common ground. They both have an uncompromising sense of duty; Miss Pross to Lucie’s safety and happiness, and Madame to a new and better France. They are both willing to do anything for these causes, including lying down their lives. As Miss Pross says, “I don’t care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird.” (427) Dickens uses these similarities he suggests that even seemingly opposites can have underlying
In this passage, Dickens’ juxtaposition, personification, detail, and diction reinforce Dickens’ tone of empathy and pity for the social conditions of the people of lower class France. When a large cask of wine spills open on the streets of France there is a mad rush to collect a taste of the spoiled wine. The people’s reactions consisted of “...frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing a dozen together.” This exciting and scene of much happiness is juxtaposed by the “gloom that gathered on the scene that appeared more natural than sunshine” that occurs after all the wine has run out. This juxtaposition of the momentary happiness that the peasants of St. Antoine experience provide a contrast
Dickens used his great talent by describing the city London were he mostly spent his time. By doing this Dickens permits readers to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the aged city, London. This ability to show the readers how it was then, how ...
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’ choice of sentimental expression had an excellent effect on the readers’ responses to the characters. The use of exaggerated sentimentality helped create a clear picture of the story’s issues in the readers’ minds; it gave a feel for the spirit of the times, and made it easier to understand the characters’ points of view. It was this very sentimentality that Dickens strived to achieve.
Dickens uses wine to represent the blood to be spilled in the war as well as to show how divided the classes are. Through the depiction of the poor rejoicing over spilled drops of wine against the backdrop of the aristocratic town of St. Antoine, Dickens is able to evince the polarity of rich and poor existent at the time. Dickens describes the scene of the broken wine cask, “When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the woman who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away to descend again; and a gloom gather on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine” (Dickens 21). The townspeople run to collect, drink, and play in the wine. The aristocrats are living lavishly while these townspeople are celebrating over a few drops of wine. He further describes how a townsperson, Gas...
Most of the imagery described the terrible conditions of the people during this time. The main form of imagery I found that really showcased the terrible outlooks for these people was one used to describe wine as blood. In chapter 5, page 22, Dickens writes “The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.. The darkness of it was heavy- cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want.” (Dickens, 22) This quotation summarizes the events that are too come. That soon, the wine- which is really the blood- will be spilled and people will start to die at an alarming rate because of this famine and true ignorance. When it talks about the description of Saint Antoine, it mentions sickness and want, like the people will never receive any of their desires and either will die from sickness or famine. This is what comes to mind when I think about the ties between the wine, which represents famine, and the blood, which represents the future events of the French
Throughout A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens repeats a number of symbols and motifs. By employing these two literary devices throughout the duration of the story, Dickens is working to emphasize the importance of these specific components of the story. Motifs and symbols represent repeating ideas that help the reader to understand, as well as highlight the author’s central idea. Dickens employs the usage of symbols and motifs, such that by using both he adds a layer of significance and deeper meaning to actions, people, as well as objects. Additionally, by using symbols and motifs, Dickens is able to create a story in which both the characters, and the plot are interwoven.
Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, has many metaphors, including “the great blue flies,” knitting and the sea to explore the important theme of human inhumanity towards the fellow man into his story. The metaphors are perfect symbols to explain how insensitive and cruel people can be towards one another, despite their pain and suffering. Nevertheless, Dickens includes not only moments for the reader to feel empathy for the victims of the revolution, but also moments of love. This story shows that inhumanity towards the fellow man is a problem in societies that will never be overcome; however, the world would be a better place if everyone strived to have compassion and respect for everyone, regardless of social class, religion, race, or money.
Throughout the book, Dickens portrays his objectivity between the classes through a series of graphic descriptions. For example, the horrid events that occur when the Marquis murders the child is a time when Dickens most definitely favors the rebels. Dickens’s attitude when Jacques kills the Marquis is that justice has been supplied. There is a definite tone of approval in his voice after these actions. On the other hand, Dickens’s attitude towards the mutineers is not always one of endorsement. When the activists nearly kill Gabelle and burn the Chateau, Dickens’s attitude changes from one of approval to one of disbelief. His disposition is almost one of sorrow for all the beauty being carelessly destroyed. As the reader can see, Dickens’s opinion varies greatly in accordance to the portion of the story the person is reading.
...to revenge. She turned into this cold killer to kill the entire Evermonde family for what they had done to her family. She uses her power in the revolution to take revenge on the Evermonde family. Madame Defarge loses her true self and becomes someone who disregards the lives of people include hers. Dickens’s theme of how history repeats itself appears again when Madame Defarge kills innocent people similar to what the Marquis of Evermonde did.
In society today, all people determine their lifestyle, personality and overall character by both positive and negative traits that they hold. Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was a drunken lawyer who had an extremely low self-esteem. He possessed many negative characteristics which he used in a positive way. Carton drastically changed his life and became a new man. Sydney is not the man he first appeared to be.
At the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens once again expresses his concern. The novel opens in 1775, with a comparison of England and pre-revolutionary France. While drawing parallels between the two countries, Dickens also alludes to his own time: "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" (1; bk. 1, ch. 1). The rest of the chapter shows that Dickens regarded the condition to be an 'evil' one, since he depicts both countries as rife with poverty, injustice, and violence due to the irresponsibility of the ruling elite (1-3; bk. 1, ch. 1). As the novel unfolds, however, England becomes a safe haven for those escaping the violence perpetrated by the French Revolution. In this paper, I shall argue that A Tale of Two Cities reflects the popular confidence in the stability of England in the eighteen-fifties, despite Dickens's suggestions at the beginning. A Tale of Two Cities thus becomes a novel about the England and the English of Dickens's time. And yet, many people today would believe that the novel is essentially about the French Revolution, which brings me to my second point. If in the nineteenth century the novel served to affirm the stability of Britain, in this century it has been greatly influential in the formation of the popular image of the French Revolution, mainly thanks to film and television adaptations. The purpose of this paper is to look at the popular reception of the novel from the time of its first publication in 1859 to the nineteen-nineties.
The main focus of Dickens’ novel is the French Revolution. This was a tragic time that took place between the years of seventeen eighty-nine and seventeen ninety-nine. It was the lower class revolting against the corrupt authoritarian government. The ideals that the French stood for were liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Dickens uses this for the background of his novel. Marie Shephard once said that Dickens was helped by his friend Carlyle for a background on the French Revolution, and tried to focus more on the plot than a character (51). Another historian said that “the French Revolution exists in the novel only insofar as Dickens’s characters vivify it, live through it, react to it, and make its reality manifest to the reader”(Allingham). Dickens understood this and used it to help him write the novel, and to help us in understanding it.