Tale Of Two Cities Corruption

Love, as both a feeling and a concept, is corruptible and this corruption leads to a lack of freedom for one if not both persons involved. A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens and The Four Loves, written by C.S. Lewis both give prime examples of love and how it can be corrupted. Since a Tale of Two Cities takes place during the French Revolution, it is understandable to see how and why society’s vision of the different kinds of love can become corrupted. This essay is meant to explain how the different loves of Charity, Eros, Affection, and Friendship can become corrupted and lead to a limitation of freedom. Before this essay goes any further, the proper definitions of each of these loves are necessary to fully understand the context

In Eros, one experiences deep passionate feelings for a person and this can also make one vulnerable, as Eros is also completely trusting the other person to see one’s self as an equal in the relationship. Corruption of this would include one person becoming more dominant over the other, one or both persons using lies for personal gain, usually in Eros it is for some form of sexual pleasure, wealth, and/or power, and one person seeing the other as inferior and thus either viewing themselves as doing the other a favor or using them to make themself look good in the eyes of society. An excellent example of this would be Mr. Stryver from a Tale of Two Cities. In Dickens’s story, Stryver wants to marry Lucie with the idea that he will be doing her a favor and doing so will pleasure himself and make him look good in the eyes of society, thus seeing her as inferior to him and treating her as if she was an object. Stryver states “... and I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction; it is a piece of good fortune for her ,but she is worthy of good fortune,” clearly saying that he wants to please himself and do Lucie a favor. Stryver clearly only wants Lucie for parts of her and for pleasure, not her

As a form of love, Friendship is tricky because it is the most unnatural and the true definition of what Friendship should look like has been warped throughout time. A corruption of Friendship leads to one person being given a false sense of security and ultimately becoming manipulated by the other person. Tale of Two Cities also gives an example of this kind of corruption with the character of Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge has had her family destroyed by the Evremonde family and has promised herself that she will have her revenge for what happened to her family, this leads to Defarge forming corrupted friendships with Lucie and Charles. Charles, being an Evremonde, becomes the target for Defarge’s revenge and Lucie and her daughter end up becoming targets as well. Madame Defarge lures them into a false sense of security by hiding her intentions from them until she is able to efficiently put her plan of vengeance into action, with her husband supporting her by adding, “Extermination is a good doctrine, my wife.” This limits the freedoms of both Defarge and Charles and his family. Defarge loses freedom by not being able to see past Charles’s family name and not seeing him for who he really is as a person and Charles and Lucie lose freedom because they are ultimately lured into a trap of revenge. As Lewis states, “This love, like the other