Violence In A Tale Of Two Cities

Throughout history, violence has been a landmark that brought about change that in turn shaped the future. Revolutions helped pave the way to liberty and equality in the future, even when not successful. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens creates a realistic story based on the events that occurred in actual history. By staying true to the time it takes place, Dickens forms a story that is simpler for the reader to comprehend, as it is comparable to the actual French Revolution. A Tale of Two Cities encompasses many key parts of the Revolution including the Guillotine, Jacobins, Storming of the Bastille, and Reign of Terror. By creating characters that can fit into these parts, Dickens can establish a basis for the reader to build upon and use

However, the revolutionaries had more valid reasons for spilling as much blood as they did. Revenge is one of the main reasons that the revolutionaries continued to ruthlessly kill others and create a kill list to build upon as they make enemies (Madame Defarge’s knitting). These revolutionaries achieved their revenge by executing via the Guillotine, storming the Bastille, and overall purely eliminating their rivals in their task of climbing the social ladder to a more free society. A Tale of Two Cities closely follows the story behind the French Revolution and how it formed new ideas and relates to society today. The harshly imposed taxes and lack of representation of the people in an ongoing power struggle not only sparked the French Revolution, but the American Revolution and others as well. In this story Dickens criticizes society, and the different social classes. He focuses more on showing the struggles of the lower class, and in doing so is able to relate to the non-fictional world on a historical

Violence appears in history to be the solution not only to create change but to achieve personal and often difficult goals. A Tale of Two Cities begins in 1775, years before the actual beginning of the Revolution and all it encompassed. The story picks up pace by 1780, when Carton is accused and tried. However, by beginning the story earlier, Dickens shows the struggles of the people and how their anger builds up to pure hatred and malicious violence. He is able to build up the Revolution and foreshadow, stating how echoes “began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising” (Dickens 261). By 1789, the Revolution has begun with the Storming of the Bastille, which occurred in history on July 14. In his writing, Dickens strategically plants this event, showing the Defarges and a mob of people attacking the Bastille in Chapter 21 of Book 2. He continues to describe them as an ocean wave that swept over the area destroying everything in its path. Later on, Dickens threads the idea of the Guillotine into his writing, as this was a very important symbol of the French Revolution in history as well. In history, thousands of people were killed via the Guillotine in what is known as the Reign of Terror, and Dickens actually relates to this by having one of the main characters executed this way (Sydney Carton). During the Reign of Terror, masses of