A Critical Analysis of A Tale of Two Cities
Three Works Cited A Tale of Two Cities is a novel that is very complex and intense. Once you get to know the characters you can feel what they are going through and form a kind of bond with them. A Tale of Two Cities grabs the reader’s attention with the history of revolutions in the nation and the generations of that time, but it also keeps the reader reading with a sense of a pure violence that is hard to create.
The combination of critical literary and historical methods brings out the novels complex structure and intense impact on the reader. Dickens brings out the historical side of the Victorian age with examples and details of the French Revolution and Victorian Revolt. Lee Sterrenburg says that Dickens' vision of the revolution was probably influenced by "a personal day dream only he can fathom. But he is able to render his day dreams in terms of a publicly Victorian Iconography". (Hutter 37) The Victorian revolt happened late in the Victorian Age and was a turning point for the novel. The Victorian revolt was a revolution against authority similar to the generation of the time. The novel covered not only two historical revolutions but also two generations with many problems and revolts of their own. The conflicts in society related greatly with family life. Asa Briggs said that the revolts originated "...in mid Victorian society. What happened inside families then influenced what happened in many areas of public life later."(Hutter 37)
These results soon changed the Victorian father-son relationship and reshaped society as a whole. A Tale of Two Cities portrays social upheaval and the restoration of social order. The hidden conflicts recur several times throughout the novel. The damming of the Euremonde to the last of their race by Doctor Manette shows up throughout the entire novel and leads from one generation to the next. The Euremonde who raped and murdered and escaped an earlier generation raped again and was killed finally by the generation that followed. Every thing is connected and flows from one generation to the next without a single pause.
A Tale of Two Citiesis not a revolutionary novel in the sense of political revolts but more as social revolts. Humans have a rather fundamental need for liberating change. "Dickens novel is different kinds of confinement...in this novel violence is a vehicle for such release (Kucich, 58)." The pure self hatred in his own struggle for freedom. This shows and acceptable violence opposed to cruel violence. "The novel makes clear that while a desire for the destruction of psychological and social limitations may be profoundly human, it is always related to a desire for the destruction of restructive personal identity in violence and death (Kucich, 62)." This summarizes the social plot of the novel. Everyone is struggling to over come their limitations and violence weather pure or cruel is usually needed to do so and most of the time their true identity is found in death.
A Tale of Two Cities is a dramatic combination of the individual concerns and social concerns of the Victorian age. All of which is cpnsumed by society and the problems or revolutions of that time. As far as the pure violence, the reader must understand the relationship between Sydney Carton's death and the death's significance. This is when the reader realizes the ultimate release and survival of Sydney Carton and the tale of these two cities.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold.Modern Critical Interpretations of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, AMS Press 1980
Hutter, Albert D. Nations and Generation in A Tale of Two CitiesAMS Press 1980
Kueich, JohnThe Purity of Violence: A Tale of Two Cities AMS Press1980
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