Irresponsible And Abuse Of Power In A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

Alex Brisan

Mrs. Lynch

English 9H Period 1

25 April 2023

Irresponsible and Abuse of Power

No one should be entitled to more power than another group of people just because of their family’s archaic status. This idea is encountered in Charles Dickens’s book A Tale of Two Cities which tells a fictional story of the time before and during the French Revolution in Paris. In the book, the revolutionaries are seen fighting the aristocrats and nobility for the absolute power that they hold over them. Although many people may believe the revolutionaries to be cruel and unjust in the executions of thousands during the Revolution, Charles Dickens’s book A Tale of Two Cities shows that the aristocracy and nobility are far worse than the revolutionaries for their lack of awareness and care of the Third Estate and the amount of power they hold compared to the Third Estate.

To start, the aristocracy and nobility are worse than the revolutionaries due to their lack of care and awareness for anyone below them. For example, when Monsieur the Marquis, an aristocrat, hits and kills a

For example, when Monsieur the Marquis is debating with his nephew, Charles Darnay, he states, ‘“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend,’ observed the Marquis, ‘will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,’ looking up to it, ‘shuts out the sky.”’(Dickens 112). The aristocrats and the nobility are seen repressing the Third Estate with their great power using fear and slavery. Some might think that the revolutionaries showed more repression but the First and Second Estates were repressing more people and to a greater extent. Connecting to what had happened in history, the upper two French Estates were a very small percentage of the population but had all the power with many