A Tale of Two Cities - Book I (Chapters 1 - 4)
Summary
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . ."
Dickens begins A Tale of Two Cities with this famous sentence. It describes the spirit of the era in which this novel takes place. This era is the latter part of the 1700s - a time when relations between Britain and France were strained, America declared its independence, and the peasants of France began one of the bloodiest revolutions in history. In short, it was a time of liberation and a time of terrible violence. Dickens describes the two cities at the center of the novel: Paris, a city of extravagance, aristocratic abuses, and other evils that lead to revolution and London, a city rife with crime, capital punishment, and disorder. In both cities, the capabilities of an angry mob were a dangerous thing, to be feared by all.
The tale begins on a road between London and Dover (in southern England) in 1775. Three strangers in a carriage are traveling along this dangerous road. The carriage encounters a messenger on a horse who asks for one of the passengers, Jarvis Lorry of Tellson's Bank. They are wary, because the messenger could be a highwayman, robber, or other undesirable. However, Mr. Lorry ventures out into the rain to receive the message. He recognizes the messenger as a man named Jerry, who works for Tellson's Bank, as well. Jerry tells him to wait at Dover for the young lady. Lorry tells Jerry to relay to the people at the Bank this message: Recalled to Life. Jerry has no idea what it means and rides off into the rain.
Dickens then ponders how the heart of a person is a true mystery. Lorry can tell who or at least of what class the two other passengers are. Traveling on, Lorry dozes in and out of dreams. His dreams reveal to the reader that his mission is to metaphorically dig a man out of the grave. He dreams of imaginary conversations with this man he is to recall to life. "Buried how long?" Lorry always asks. "Almost eighteen years," replies the man. Lorry brings the man in his dreams to see a woman (the young woman of which Jerry the messenger spoke). But the man does not know if he still wishes to live or if he can bear to see the young lady after having been "buried" for eighteen long years.
A Tale of Two Cities Essay Throughout history, the powers of love and hate have constantly been engaged in a battle for superiority. Time and time again, love has proven to be stronger than hate, and has been able to overcome all of the obstacles that have stood in the way of it reaching its goal. On certain occasions, though, hate has been a viable foe and defeated love when they clash. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens presents several different power struggles between love and hate.
Often in life, influences by people’s social and cultural environments reveals many characteristics of their personalities. Similar to life, authors will write novels based on their surroundings. Author Charles Dickens wrote many novels and stories that relate to his life during the Victorian Era. One of Dickens works that can reflect his life and true historical events of this era is the novel, A Tale of Two Cities. The novel sets in the two cities, England and France, and follows the issues of characters that lead up to the French Revolution. Influences from Charles Dickens childhood and life allow him to write the novel A Tale of Two Cities and make it relate to his own experiences creating a deeper understanding to readers of how people
Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy Of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66-85. doi:10.5465/amp.2012.0088
Charles Dickens was an English writer born in the 1800’s. Dickens named this book A Tale of Two Cities because it is a parallel between London and Paris. In A Tale of Two Cities, there are many wrongs done by peasants who want to do right. Dickens is very descriptive partly to get across the idea of mans inhumanity towards man. Charles Dickens creates scenes like the guillotine, the use of the blue flies analogy and Madame Defarge’s hate stricken heart to develop the theme of mans inhumanity to fellow man.
Native Americans were using alcohol long before Europeans colonized America. Alcohol was consumed mainly for spiritual reasons, and their beverages contained only diluted alcohol, as much effort was required to produce it. Native Americans used alcohol to communicate with spiritual forces, and only highly ranked priests had access to it. Distillation, then a European process of making more potent alcoholic beverages, was unknown to them, but when the Europeans started trading with the Native Americans, the newcomers introduced them to methods of making more potent drinks. The sudden abundance of more potent beverages did not permit the natives to regulate their use of alcohol, in contrast to the Europeans, who had thousands of years of experience and had regulated its distribution centuries before. Due to the history of alcohol in the New World, factors such as socioeconomics, culture, and genetics have influenced modern Native Americans to abuse alcohol comparably more than other ethnic groups, and it has had a destructive effect on their society.
Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., Erodogan, B., & Short, J. (2013). Principles of management. (2nd ed.).
The theory of goal setting was developed by Edward Locke and Gary Latham (1990) and states that there is a direct relationship between the setting of specific high goals and task performance. A higher degree of employee performance is obtained when specific goals are set compared to the performance achieved when employees are simply told to do their best (Latham & Locke, 2007). These findings have helped shape leadership styles and improve employee performance and job satisfaction (Posthuma & Al-Riyami, 2012).
A Tale of Two Cities takes place in England and France, during the time of the French Revolution. A Tale of Two Cities is a classic novel, where Charles Dickens presents to the reader archetypal main characters. From the beginning of the novel, the reader can know whether the characters are evil or not. In the novel, the main character, Sydney Carton, also contributes a lot to the theme of the novel-every individual should have both moral and physical courage, and should be able to sacrifice everything in the name of love.
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.
A major factor was the introduction of fortified and distilled alcohol, first by the Europeans and later the Americans, to an indigenous population whose physiology (metabolism and neural compensation) was not accustomed to this concentration of ethanol. Another factor was the introduction of alcohol outside of traditional customs and folkways. While there is evidence of substance use during aboriginal times, notably of fermented corn or cactus juices and psychoactive agents such as peyote and cocoa leaves, these substances were confined to prescribed rituals and were not known to be abused” (French, Laurence 2000). The general public is not aware of the current problems that face Native Americans. They can have alcohol and substance abuse problems, just like any other culture group. Native Americans are also subject to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression as they can only live on reservations for those of the same
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is a classic novel written in the 1850’s by Charles Dickens. The novel is set in London and France during the French Revolution. The novel features an amazing use of themes as well as sensational development of characters. Charles Dickens and his feature style of the poor character who does something great is very evident in Sydney Carton, a drunken lawyer who becomes the hero of the book.
Charles Dickens’s voice varies from being sympathetic with the revolutionaries, to a feeling of discord with their method of revolting. A Tale of Two Cities revolves around the French revolution and the tension in England. Dickens gives the tale of a family caught in the conflict between the French aristocracy and radicals. In the course of the book, the family handles extreme difficulty and obscurity. Dickens’s neutrality, though sometimes wavering from side to side, is apparent throughout each book in the novel.
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is a story set in the year 1775 and through the turbulent time of the French Revolution. It is of people living in love and betrayal, murder and joy, peril and safety, hate and fondness, misery and happiness, gentle actions and ferocious crowds. The novel surrounds a drunken man, Sydney Carton, who performs a heroic deed for his beloved, Lucie Manette, while Monsieur and Madame Defarge, ruthless revolutionaries, seek revenge against the nobles of France. Research suggests that through Dickens’ portrayal of the revolutionaries and nobles of the war, he gives accurate insight to the era of the Revolution.
"Leadership in Organizational Settings." The Dynamics of Leading Organizations and People. N.p.: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 288-301. Print.
Jones, Gareth R. and George, Jennifer M. (2011). Contemporary management (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.