Similarities Between A Tale Of Two Cities And Les Miserables

Extra Credit Opportunity: A Tale of Two Cities vs. Les Miserables
The Oscar-nominated Les Miserables and the highly acclaimed A Tale of Two Cities both portray the horrors and chaos of the bloody French Revolution. These two pieces have startlingly similar characters and portrayals of human nature. However, even with these similarities, they have differences in the depiction of the poor and their struggle against the authorities. For example, in Les Miserables, Jean ValJean risks his life to save his daughter’s love interest, Marius. In this scene, Jean ValJean, despite his age, drags a wounded Marius from a battlefield through a dirty and foul sewer. He stumbles across a huge complex system, risking exposure to soldiers, but ultimately saves Marius’s life. Likewise, in A

Manette uses his skills to acquit Charles Darnay, the love and husband of his daughter. When Charles is arrested and tried for being the heir to an aristocratic family, Dr. Manette steps up and “showed that the Accused was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile” (A Triumph). The valiant acts of these two fathers show that human compassion and kindness can show through whatever situation, even during such a turbulent and chaotic time period as the Revolution. Another example would be the similarity between Marius Pontmercy and Charles Darnay. In the movie, Marius is from a rich family, but he leaves his past behind to help the students of the French Revolution. In one scene, his grandfather finds him at a riot and tells him that he is “bringing shame to the family”, but Marius shakes him off and continues to help the rebels. Similarly, Charles Darnay is known to be the only heir to the Evremonde wealth and land. However, he tells his uncle “‘This property and France are lost to me...I renounce