The French Revolution was a chaotic, destructive time. This is clearly illustrated in the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. In this novel, there are many examples of inhumanity, especially during the revolutionaries’ attacks against anyone who was believed to be treasonous or aristocratic. Men were very cruel to their fellow men, even creating the monstrous guillotine to kill people faster and more efficiently. Charles Dickens portrays such violence from the French Revolution very well with the symbols of the blue-flies, the storm, and red wine.
For example, the blue-flies represent the people’s lust for blood. During Charles Darnay’s first trial, “a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become” (Dickens 50). When this quote is said, Charles Darnay, a prisoner at the time, is being tried for treason, with a punishment of death. The people seem to gravitate towards the prisoner, just as flies would on a dead body. Not only that, but there is also a “buzzing” in the courtroom, which could represent the spectators’ whispers. After Darnay has been acquitted, it is said that “the crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz swept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in search of other carrion” (59). These people are confused, probably because they are disappointed about the prisoner’s sudden acquittal. The use of the word “carrion” enhances the metaphor of the flies; these people are suddenly searching for new victims. Also, the fact that they pour out of the courtroom with vehemence and passion clearly shows their morbid fascination with death.
Secondly, the m...
... middle of paper ...
...e are all metaphors used to display the inhumanity that these men had for other men during the French Revolution. The blue flies, used to portray the fascination with death that most peasants seemed to have, clearly shows how these people are eager for the death of an innocent man. The metaphor of the storm, with its quick and unforgiving lightning and crashing thunder, displays how brutish and monstrous these revolutionaries are with their thunderous cannons while killing innocent victims. Last but not least, the metaphors of wine and wine stains represent how everyone is guilty of this bloodshed and the creation of the monster of the guillotine. Overall, Charles Dickens uses these metaphors very well to portray the violence of war, and, with that, the inhumanity that man has for man.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. N.p.: Dover, 1999. Print.
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.
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 comparative study of Sydney Carton in Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, and Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, requires the reader to analyze various aspects that the transforming effect love can have on a personality. As we study each character, it is relatively easy to see that no matter how painful love can be, it is usually to one’s betterment to have experienced it. Love affects each person differently. Some become more introspective, searching to better themselves for the sake of themselves or another. Others do not recognize what they are lacking in their lives until they find love. In either event, it permanently redirects the course of one’s life. Or causes one to end it in some cases. We see that all three characters learn to love themselves better, to love others anew and in the end, make the ultimate sacrifice for their love for another.
The French Revolution was a period of social and political uprisings in France from 1789 to 1799, which is when the novel A Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens takes place. The French Revolution marked the decline of powerful monarchies and the rise of democracy and nationalism. As it is said in the first sentence of the novel, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. During the extensive period of time during the conflicts of the revolution, every man is fighting for themselves. Due to this state of helplessness and solitude of the men in the revolution, many symbols in the novel were concocted and displayed to demonstrate a specific and powerful theme. In the novel, the symbols of scarecrows and birds of fine song and feather, wine, and knitting all demonstrate the theme of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man.
In Lord of the Flies, Golding extensively uses of analogy and symbolism like the dead parachutist in Beast from Air to convey the theme of intrinsic human evil through the decay of the character’s innocence and the island itself. In this essay, I will view and explain Golding’s use of specific symbolism to explain the novel’s main themes.
The French Revolution was a time when many people sacrificed their lives for their beliefs. As the French Revolution moved on, more people joined the movement and risked their lives. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is set during this time. Many people who sacrificed their lives for the Revolution felt like it was their fate to do this. This idea of fate is described many times in Dickens’ novel to magnify the story. The theme of fate is prevalent in the novel through the lives of many characters. This theme is used to show how a person is unable to escape their fate because it is already decided. The metaphors and symbols in the novel are greatly used to contribute to the theme of fate through the symbols of knitting, the fountain and water, and the wine.
...lier the townspeople were compared to them. The townspeople’s similarity to the flies is emphasized because the people walk by Gaspard hanging in the square, by the guillotine, and witness many deaths without any remorse. Then at some point, they are eventually killed too. The blue-flies are a prime example of humans at their worst.
The Lord of the Flies novel contains several symbols throughout the story. William Golding used symbols to cultivate themes and emotions; without symbolism the novel would have had a lesser meaning. William Golding contrasted many events with the use of symbolism, making a fire represent both protection and brutality. The three major themes I will be outlining is power, savage human nature, and the need for social order.
At first, violent brutality of the peasants on the aristocracy is look at as revenge for years of discrimination, such as when the Marquis is killed. “. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” (Dickens 99). This one act opens the floodgates for much more of this type of malice, with the peasant mob becoming less justified with each one. When Madame Defarge is able to get revenge on Foulon, she does so in an excessively cruel fashion, “Madame Defarge let him go—as a cat might have done to a mouse—and silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth.” (Dickens 173). At first when power shifts in French society, the reader feels like the peasant mob is obtaining justice when they commit acts of violence on those that used to be higher up than them. John Kucich says in his article, “Acceptable and Unacceptable Violence in A Tale of Two Cities”, “The purity of self-violence clearly belongs at first to the lower classes, who “held life as of no account, and were demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it (II,21). Thus, the concrete effects of the revolutionaries’ violence as an annihilation of their humanity—and, therefore, a violation of their human limitations—are actualized before us.” (Kucich 41) As the mob commits act after act, however, it becomes apparent that these heinous acts serve no other purpose but to fill the Peasants huge appetite for violence, further alienating the classes from each
The French Revolution was a movement from 1789 to 1799 that brought an end to the monarchy, including many lives. Although A Tale of Two Cities was published in 1859, it was set before and during the French Revolution and had over 200 million copies sold. The author, Charles Dickens, is known for being an excellent writer and displays several themes in his writings. Sacrifice is an offering of an animal or human life or material possession to another person. Dickens develops the theme of sacrifice throughout the story by the events that occurred involving Dr. Manette, Mr. Defarge, and Sydney Carton.
Power can allow one to make decisions for others than will benefit them, but too much power can cause one to become corrupt. In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, the author, Charles Dickens, views power as a way in which corruption arises. Throughout the novel, Dickens speaks about three characters who starts to abuse their power as time passes in the novel. Dickens portrays the characters of the Monseigneur, the Marquis of Evermonde, and the revolutionaries as characters who goes through a change as a result of power.
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.
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.
Charles Dickens, a very successful writer who was born in 1812, wrote many famous novels during his life. Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities about the French Revolution in 1859, sixty years after it ended, and was still able to capture so many details in the captivating yet heartbreaking novel. Dickens’ usage of many symbols and metaphors throughout the novel is extremely effective. Through these symbols, Dickens skillfully incorporates various themes in the story. Fate is a significant theme that he expresses by using the symbols of the shadow, knitting, and fountains.
History has not only been important in our lives today, but it has also impacted the classic literature that we read. Charles Dickens has used history as an element of success in many of his works. This has been one of the keys to achievement in his career. Even though it may seem like it, Phillip Allingham lets us know that A Tale of Two Cities is not a history of the French Revolution. This is because no actual people from the time appear in the book (Allingham). Dickens has many different reasons for using the component of history in his novel. John Forster, a historian, tells us that one of these reasons is to advance the plot and to strengthen our understanding of the novel (27). Charles Dickens understood these strategies and could use them to his advantage.