The Horrific Bloodbath In A Tale Of Two Cities

Power and corruption go hand in hand, which often means that the people without power are crushed under the weight of the people who do. Throughout history, there are countless instances where the lower class, tired of not being valued or heard, rises up to seek revenge on their oppressors, which often ends badly for everyone involved. The French Revolution is a famous example of this cycle, and Dickens believes that this horrific bloodbath could have been avoided altogether. There were clear signs of discontent from the people of France who were starving in the streets, being constantly threatened with brutal punishment from the upper class, and being treated as vermin. In his novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens outlines the causes of the French Revolution to serve as a warning for future generations to close the gap between the upper and lower classes in order to keep

The punishments for a wide variety of crimes were far worse than death, and one man describes how “into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil” (172). This is just one item on a list of the torture that could be performed to a man guilty of a crime. This excess brutality towards the lower class not only made them fearful, but also made them angry that the wealthy felt they had the power to inflict such pain on others. The upper class did not even need a solid reason to torture the lower class, and a young boy met a gruesome demise on the flimsy accusation that he “had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards ” (4). By seeing how the wealthy abused their power in this way, it is clear to future generations that treating others with fairness and mercy can avoid