Absolute Power In A Tale Of Two Cities

As taught through history, absolute power can metamorphosize moral intentions to the malignant and treacherous human nature. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens portrays how power can corrupt even those who were once threatened by it, as the peasants wield their new source of power to seek vengeance on the nobility under whom they had once suffered. In an ironic twist, Dickens proves that abuse of power creates an infinite cycle of the oppressed becoming the oppressor as the targets of tyranny gain power and use their control to spread violence. As the story progresses, the French townspeople undergo an about-face from being the abused to the abusers, and through various mediums, they demonstrate whoever is in power will fall prey to the

In A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge is a vivid portrayal of absolute power corruption and the violence that occurs as a result. She is so driven by her power and bloodthirst that she continues to hunt down Lucie and her young child even after the eradication of the entire Evremond family, despite knowing that they are innocent of all crime. Madame Defarge’s abuse of power reveals the reality that although power may shift, without justice and mercy, any ruler will inevitably exploit their power and influence which, as depicted by the death carts carrying their doomed human cargo to the swift drop of the guillotine blade, can only result in brutal inhumanity. Additionally, the megalomaniac revolutionaries, once an abused people, now use their power to destroy all that is not a part of their reign of terror. In an effort to retain their absolute control, they imprison and execute the seamstress, a guiltless peasant accused of plotting, out of irrational paranoia. The pitiful seamstress symbolizes all the innocent lives taken by the revolutionaries who have become so consumed by their newfound power that they have come to disregard the lives of others just as the nobility before them had. Finally, the people’s morbid fascination with the execution of their prisoners during the revolution is personified by the wood-sawyer, aka Jacques Five, who attends every guillotine ‘shaving’ and regards them with disturbing interest. At his trial at La Force, Darnay finds himself in the presence of "the lowest,cruelest, and worst populace of the city", who intent on seeing the jury "take off his head" The description of the trial’s proceeding is similar to Charles’s trial in England creating parallels that suggest La Force has merely