Although the nobles persistent ignorance towards the poor people’s right ignited the flame of the revolution, the revolutionaries brought the brutality of killing to another level.
Charles Dickens, the author of A Tale of Two Cities portrays the aristocracy as an oblivious body of self-entitled people that wholeheartedly believe in their destiny of wealth. Their understanding of the poor people’s fate as stepping stools to their success allow them to injure and even murder them without any repercussions. This constant abuse of the rich to the poor fuels the fire that is the French Revolution. The Marquis St. Evrémonde shows an extreme sense of ignorance when, after running over an innocent child, he simply, “threw out a gold coin” as a token
Charles Dickens writes this book explaining the French Revolution, in which the social and economic systems in France had huge changes and the French monarchy collapsed. This causes high taxes, unfair laws, and the poor being mistreated. Charles Dickens shows that cruelty of other people will lead to a revolution and in addition to the revolution more cruelty will occur. He explores the idea of justice and violence through the use of ambiguous characters with positive and negative qualities, meaning that they have to different sides to them; for example, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Dr. Manette. Throughout the story of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles dickens uses ambiguous characters to shows how violence and cruelty can be stopped through the power of true sacrifice.
Essentially, the rural bourgeoisie attempted to shift social hostility away from issues of wealth and land, but rather focuses such hostilities towards individuals and the aristocratic “caste”. “[The rural bourgeoisie] exaggerated the importance of genealogy; it caricatured the pride and insolence of the noble, which were no doubt a crueler torture for the bourgeois than for the peasant; it criticized the ways in which the aristocracy strove to maintain social distance; and it sought to persuade peasants, who also hated the aristocracy, that the nobility’s arrogance was the chief source of social conflict.” Although anti-noble attitudes existed long before the Revolution, the rumors started by the rural bourgeoisie began to remind the peasantry of the caste system that was in place under the First Republic. The fear that resulted in this believed renewal of the caste system only strengthened the peasantry’s anti-noble ideology into hatred. Corbin argues that the importance of rumor was imperative to the murder of Monéy claiming, “they highlight the contrast between the depth of the social tensions, the intensity of the anxiety, and the restraint of violence.” It is no surprise then that with such heavy issues weighing on the minds of the peasantry, that there was such a surge of violence with
Charles Dickens writes this book explaining the French Revolution, in which the social and economic systems in France had huge changes and the French monarchy collapsed. This caused high taxes, unfair laws, and the poor being mistreated. Charles Dickens shows that cruelty of other people will lead to a revolution and in addition to the revolution more cruelty will happen. He explores the idea of justice and violence through the use of characters that are ambiguous, meaning that they have to different sides to them; for example, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Dr. Manette. Throughout the story of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles dickens shows the ambiguous characters through the power of true sacrifice.
A Tale of Two Cities clearly portrays very distinct divisions in the behavior of men. The aristocrats, or upperclassmen, rule and control all of France. The members of the aristocracy never have to undergo hardships; they always have everything presented to them on a silver platter. They do whatever they want with total disregard for the peasants. On the other hand, the peasants always have to work hard for everything in life. Due to the aristocracy, the peasants are constantly starving, enough as to drink spilt wine from a filthy street (24-26). They loathe the wealthy people who have created these horrible living conditions. This drives the peasants to revolution, and the decapitation of the aristocrats via the guillotine. They have a mob mentality and kill everyone who they believe is the enemy. Neither the aristocrats nor the peasants show any compassion toward the other social class.
A Tale of Two Cities In every great novel, there is a theme that is constant throughout the story. One of the better known themes portrays the fight of good verses evil. Different authors portray this in different ways. Some use colors, while others use seasons to show the contrast. Still, others go for the obvious and use characters.
The blue flies, Madame Defarge’s knitting, and the sea are just three of Dickens’ many symbols that develop the theme of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man in A Tale of Two Cities. Although Revolutions are not particularly humane in themselves, the individual characters and the majority of the peasantry in this book took inhumane to its extreme. Because the revolutionaries follow their ruthless leader, Madame Defarge, they do not question the humanity or morality of the massacre of the aristocracy. In a Revolution meant to free peasants, peasants should be last on the list of those being murdered, and this injustice should be realized. In the French Revolution as well as A Tale of Two Cities, the oppressed become the oppressors and the main cause behind the revolution is lost.
Wealth and power, two of the most influential means to govern over those who have none. In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, A man that goes by the honorary title, Monseigneur, is depicted in such a manner that it would be a great shame to his family to employ less than three servants to prepare his morning hot chocolate. That is one of many examples of how the wealthy live while thousands of mothers and children are dying from starvation on the streets, and men serve severe prison sentences because they commit a petty crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread to feed their starving family while a wealthy man finds it necessary to employ four men to make hot chocolate. The difference in life between those who had money and those who didn’t were drastically different; the rich thought everything in life was paid for, and this is what leads to the revolution. Go backwards in time to a moment that caused a depression in the history of France that future societies will look back on as to not allow fathom and poverty of this caliber to strike again.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” This quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. expresses that ignorance and stupidity can crush one’s chance to have success and happiness. This idea is conveyed in Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which is set in Maycomb County, Alabama during the Great Depression. The story is narrated by a girl named Scout Finch, as she grows up in a “tired old town” and struggles with the ignorance of the citizens in Maycomb during the trial of Tom Robinson; an African-American man accsused of beating and raping a white woman. Throughout the novel, Lee shows that ignorance clouds one’s judgement, which leads to prejudice, and only through seeing from
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.
Archetypal Characters: Characters are presented from the start of the novel as good or evil. There are no characters that the reader see as good and turn out to be evil at the end or vica versa. Their goodness or evilness is clearly shown from the beginning. 	
The inequalities of the estate system was one of the main causes of the French Revolution. In France, the estate system divide the people in three groups. The first estate are made up of clergy men, the second estate are made up of nobles and aristocrats, and the third estate consisted of the bourgeois, peasants, and urban workers. The estate system made it impossible for the third estate to have equal or fair rights as the first and second estate. A political image was created showing a weak older man, representing the third estate, carrying two well dressed and fed males, representing the first and second estate which are clergy men and the nobility (Document 1). This image shows that the third estate does all the hard and painful work for these clergy men and nobility. This image was created to show how un...
During the 1800s, the aristocracy of England and France lived in luxury and possessed an enormous amount of power in the society while peasants live in poverty. Dickens links the two countries with the theme of how history repeats itself. Dickens compares the social rankings, rulers, and events of the two countries and warns how if the English aristocracy did not change their ways, what happens in France would happen to them. In the novel, Dickens portrays the character, Monseigneur as an individual character as well as a social class of France. Monseigneur is a character who Dickens portrays as the entire class of the French aristocracy in the way of which he abuses his power. Dickens describes how the Monseigneur was having chocolate prepared for him by four men who are wearing gold watches as peasants were starving and dying. Dickens uses the actions of the Monseigneur to represent the entire population of the aristocrats in the city of St. Antoine. Another way in which Dickens shows how the Monseigneur was corrupt was how he appointed people to be officials not by their skill but by the way they would appraise him or by their status. Dickens foreshadows how France would become corrupt over time from the action...
Foreshadowing is used in many of Charles Dickens' novels. It can bring about a sense of wonder and imagination of what might occur later in the novel. The conceopt of foreshadowing means to present a warning sign, or hint beforehand. Dickens is able to use this concept in three examples. The threatening footsteps in the Manette home, Gaspard's illustration of "blood," and Mr. Lorry's dream of brinnging a man back to life, are all examples of warning or foreshadowing. that Dickens' uses in his novel A Tale of Two Cities.
Long ago in France, there were three types of people. There lived the poor people whom lived off of their land and the business of other people, which created the bottom of the social classes. There lived the rich people whom lived off of themselves and their businesses that they owned, which granted them noble power. Finally, there lived the royalties: King, Queen, and their people. These people belonged to their explicit social classes in France, which is the basis of the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Dickens uses these classes in his story to express the French Revolution and show how the poor were mistreated by the rich, and how the royalties were the most corrupt of the land. The French Revolution was the turning point of France at the time, which turned the entire basis of France’s monarchy around thanks to the classes of France banding together to stop the King. The social classes of France comprised the Revolution that turned France around and became a more civilized and fair society, and this is quite evident in Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities.
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.