Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” a Historical Novel
A historical novel deals with historical events. "A Tale of Two Cities" is a historical novel in the sense that it focuses on the period before and during the French Revolution. In the novel Dickens gives the picture of England and of France during the 1780s.
The novel takes place
in England and France in 1775. The age is marked by competing and contradictory
attitudes. In England the public worries over religious prophecies popular
paranormal phenomena in the form of ‘the cock-lane ghost,’ and the messages
that a colony of British subjects in America has sent to king George III.
France on the other hand witnesses excessive spending and extreme violence a
trend that anticipates the erection of the guillotine. In both countries the
poor were exploited by the rich. While there was light and hope for the
aristocracy there was darkness and despair for the insolvent. So it was best
time for the rich while the worst of time for the poor.
The marquis is very
cruel. He imposes heavy taxes on the poor villagers who don’t have the money to
buy food or care for their children because they’re sending all of their money
to the Marquis. He has no pity for the poor. While returning from Monseigneur’s
party his carriage runs over a small child at Saint Antoine. When the father of
the child Gaspard charges at the carriage he looks at him with disgust and
gives him a gold coin to pay for his dead child. At last he is killed by
Gaspard. Dickens sets up the Marquis as a representative of the French
aristocracy and a direct cause of the imminent revolution.
The fall of the Bastille
is one of the historical events in the novel. the poor were oppressed by
aristocrats. People who raised a voice against the monarchy of France were
imprisoned in the Bastile. So people attacked the Bastille first of all. The
storming was led by Monsieur Defarge and his wife Madame Defarge. Being armed
with every kind of weapons the revolutionaries attacked the Bastille on 14
July, 1789. The crowd seized the governor of the Bastille and brought him to
the Defarges. The governor dropped down dead under the rain of stabs and blows
from the crowd. Madame Defarge then put her foot on the neck of the governor
and cut off his head with her knife. They released seven prisoners and beheaded
seven guards and hoisted their heads onto pikes.
The ghastly aspect of the
bloody revolution is hinted at by the hanging of the old Foulon and his
son-in-law by the angry mob. Another aspect is found in the burning of the chateau,
the home of the Marquis. The violent aspect of the revolution is further
stressed in the frightening description of the sharpening of the weapons by the
revolutionaries on the grindstone the terrible account of the dancing of the
Carmagnole the working of La Guillotine and the sentencing to death of such
harmless person as the poor seamstress.
However Dickens is not
a historian. In A Tale of Two Cities he interweaves personal lives with the
French Revolution. Through the treatment of the French Revolution he has tried
to show that violence leads to violence and hatred is the reward of hatred.
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