Monday, November 3, 2008

The Tale of Two Cities



Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities is considered by many to be one of the best novels of all times. Set in the time period of the French Revolution, it focuses on various characters and takes place primarily in Paris and London, two cities used to contrast the two very societies. Charles Darney and Sydney Carton play the major roles in the novel, both in love with Lucie Mannette, and the stage is set for a story that most likely can only end in tragety.

PART A:
Obviously, during the time of the French Revolution, the revolutionaries were not only fed up with the oppressive French monarchy, but they also were angry with the arrogant, snobby French Aristocracy, and Dickens makes this very clear in his novel. The perfect symbol for the arrogance and coldness of the aristocrats takes the form of the French Monsieur the Marquis, Darney's uncle. He is a cruel, cold man, who like most of the French aristocracy of the time period, felt nothing for the peasants and saw them as the scum of the Earth. This is absolutely clear when Marquis runs over a young child in his carriage and feels nothing for the parent's loss. Instead, he feels a few gold coins can make up for the man's loss and is disgusted when they scorn his "charity". Two lines really sum up Marquis's feelings toward those of lower social status: "Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes" (84) and "I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the Earth" (85). These are two very powerful statements, in that they show just how little Marquis and the rest of the aristocracy care for the poor. Later on, Dickens describes Marquis as a Gorgon. This is not what one would want to be called. A Gorgon is a mythological monster, and Medusa is the most common of them all. To first be called a monster and then be compared to Medusa does not speak highly of the character. Medusa turned everything to stone with her gaze and when Dickens describes Marquis home, the entire first paragraph of the chapter "The Gorgon's Head" describes his home as stone. The stone symbolizes how cold-hearted and, by turning everything into stone as a Gorgon, how inhuman the Marquis and the rest of the French aristocracy are.

PART B:
The following passage truly foreshadows what is to come in this novel: the French Revolution. "The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there" (22). This passage occurs when the peasants are drinking and fighting over the wine that has been spilled in the streets. However, upon closer examination, it is seen how the wine flows between the cracks of the street, how a man writes "BLOOD" on the wall in muddy wine, and how people are sent into a frenzy over this wine. While on the surface ridiculous that these people are all over each other to get the wine, the passage foreshadows the peasants hunger to be free, how they are hungry to be rid of the aristocracy, and how they are physically hungry in a literal sense. The frenzy that these people are in over the wine relates to the frenzy that the people of the French Revolution were sent into once blood had been spilled and was running through the cracks of the streets of Paris. People were executed left and right, people were murdered in the streets, and the Revolution became a massive free for all, with death all around and blood knee deep. This perfectly goes along with what Dickens is foreshadowing in this passage: that soon, the French people will have had enough with their monarch and the cold hearted arisocrats like Marquis, and they will rise up. Essentially, the writing was on the wall for France only it was in blood-like wine.

PART C:
Overall, this was not one of my favorite novels. The difficulty to read and decipher Dickens's style of writing made a great story one that was very hard to follow. In my opinion, there were too many characters to keep track of, and the extremely longwinded sentences were hard to understand. Many times I found myself rereading passages to try and understand the meaning of what was said. On the other side, the story underneath all the long paragraphs was great. The story of a two men who are complete foils of each other struggling through a tumultous time, and in the end one making the ultimate sacrifice to save the other, is one that would captivate me on any occasion. However, the greatness of the story was seriously lessened by the difficulty of reading. If I had to recommend this novel, I would say that unless one really does not mind the styles of writing so common to authors like Hawthorne, to try another novel that is easier to read.

1 comment:

Mr. Klimas said...

The Marquis represents everything that was wrong with the French aristocracy.