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Positive effects of the revolution
The french revolution and the terror
The french revolution and the terror
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Recommended: Positive effects of the revolution
1.“It was the best of times…”
Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette, in the wake of the French Revolution, blithely married in England. (Book II, Chapter 18) Their marriage forged the loving ties between the two, and brought children to their household. To them, to be able to live with their loved one and to be able to caress their children was the best. They were oblivious of the rousing wraths of the peasants in France, and the time to them could not have been better.
2.“It was the worst of times…”
In Book II, Chapter 21, the Defarges and their supporters angrily stormed the Bastille and ruthlessly decapitated the governor of the prison. Although the breaching of the Bastille was not unwarranted, the inexorable murder of a man trying to do his duty reflected the merciless spirits of the rebels, mad and seething with rage like a bull. The act might have seemed inconsequential then, but soon it would rouse the bloody Revolution where even the suspected man would be killed. Indeed, the storming, and the murder of the governor, marked the beginning of “the worst of times,” when order was replaced with chaos, when peace was replaced with violence.
3.“It was the age of wisdom…”
At Charles Darnay’s first trial in France on charges of being an emigrant, Dr. Manette cleverly used his camaraderie with the mad mobs to liberate Charles. (Book III, Chapter 6) Manette had been a wronged prisoner in the Bastille charged by Evremonde, and, using his eminence and his relationship with Darnay, he was able to manipulate the jury. The wisdom of Manette saved his son-in-law.
4.“It was the age of foolishness…”
As the Revolution progresses, more people are executed per day, (“Fifty-two”, in Book III, Chapter 13) and the bloodthirstiness of t...
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...uries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country… was conspicuous in their rich furniture… diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France.” (Book II, Chapter 9) The Marquis’s house was large, extravagant, and decorated – he had everything.
10.“We had nothing before us…”
In Book I, Chapter 5, a cask of wine was spilt on the ground, and the people “suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine.” The ravenous drinking of the people reflects their hungry stomachs, their emptiness – “devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish.” Even a drop of wine was worth the effort. The nothingness that existed for most of the commoners would help incite the French Revolution.
Aside from giving the guillotine a purpose, the Reign of Terror stands as a necessity in the story of French independence. It might not have been the proudest of times, but the Reign began on a strong premise: holding together a new government by purging the bad apples for the betterment of the whole cart. While the Reign of Terror developed into an overly excessive bloodshed, it was justified by the war stricken circumstances and necessity for the support of the ongoing revolution. Despite the extreme heights the Reign of Terror reached, it was necessary to maintain the fragile presence of the government and preserve the new liberty a majority of the population had been denied before. In a 1793 letter from Vendée —a major counterrevolutionary hub— local government was fending off on-going riots and rebellion while being invaded from the north by Prussia.
They were angered and tired with Robespierre who recently said “Terror is nothing more than quick and strict justice, and we apply it only to protect our country’s most urgent needs”. He is advising the people that terror and violence is the correct way to do things and also the fastest. He was also saying things like “I say no mercy for the innocent! Mercy for the weak! Mercy for the unfortunate! Mercy for humanity! Society owes protection only to peaceful citizens.” This is a prime example of what a power hungy tyrant is.
Love waxes timeless. It is passionate and forbidden and a true head rush. Marriage, on the other hand, is practical, safe, a ride up the socioeconomic ladder. In "The Other Paris," Mavis Gallant weaves the tale of Carol and Howard, a fictional couple who stand on the verge of a loveless marriage, to symbolize the misguided actions of the men and women in the reality of the 1950s, the story's setting. By employing stereotypical, ignorant, and altogether uninteresting characters, Gallant highlights the distinction between reality and imagination and through the mishaps and lack of passion in their courtship mockingly comments on society?s views of love and marriage.
When interpreting a novel, it is easy to look too deeply into its meaning, particularly if you have never gone through the process before. To accurately excavate the meaning and or thesis within the novel the reader is required to think critically, develop a theory, and back it with details from the story. The reader cannot be afraid to become lost in the book, or speculate about the story’s implications. In the novel, April Blood, the author Lauro Martines spoils the reader by including every ghastly punishment implemented on the Pazzi conspirators. Martines’s writing does not lack in detail throughout the story, even providing an appealing and energetic approach to the story. However, he does not reach the climax of the events on April 26 until mid way in the novel. Martines greater goal here, is to show how that a mixture of aspects had to do with the attempted over throwing of the Medici.
Dr. Manette is imprisoned in the French Bastille for eighteen years by the cruel French government and unknown to him those many years of pain and suffering serve as a great sacrifice in the eyes of the Revolutionists. He is recalled to life from the time he served when he meets Lu...
Since he cares little for the affairs of the world, claiming they do not mean anything, then justice—a major concern of the world—also means nothing to him. His actions both before and after his decision to kill a man without provocation demonstrate his apathetic view of the world, and his indifference to justice. Therefore Meursault’s search for justice, culminated by the court’s decision to execute him, remains an example to all of the inability of society to instill justice in criminals. Meursault’s perpetual refusal to acquire a sense of morality and emotion instigates skepticism in all who learn of his story of society’s true ability to instill justice in the
The tight censorship employed in the city ensures that the very idea of resistance or rebellion continues to be a foreign notion, a necessary state of things if the rulers are to be able to continue to control the masses by purely mental and psychological means. The strongest of punishments – the death penalty – is reserved for “this one crime of speaking the Unspe...
The author’s purpose is to also allow the audience to understand the way the guards and superintendent felt towards the prisoners. We see this when the superintendent is upset because the execution is running late, and says, “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis.” And “The man ought to have been dead by this time.” This allows the reader to see the disrespect the authority has towards the prisoners.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is a classic novel written in the 1850’s by Charles Dickens. The novel is set in London and France during the French Revolution. The novel features an amazing use of themes as well as sensational development of characters. Charles Dickens and his feature style of the poor character who does something great is very evident in Sydney Carton, a drunken lawyer who becomes the hero of the book.
It is said that revolutions are the manifestations of an anarchic mentality that is fostered through widespread oppression on a variety of scales. This anarchic mentality is most evident in the infamous French Revolution of 1789. During the late 16th century, a schism began to grow between the aristocracy and the commoners in France. The common people of France wanted a government that better represented them than the monarchy, which was the ruling power. During this time, France had instituted a practice of dividing sections of their societies into what they called “three estates”. The “three estates” set specific boundaries on what people’s statuses were in the French Society, and established the competitive nature of class in France. Because of the competitive class structure in France, poor French citizens such as peasants and farmers decided that they wanted to do something about their status, so they took matters into their own hands; they initiated what how has come to be known as the French Revolution. By 1792...
“Love and Marriage.” Life in Elizabethan England. Elizabethan.org, 25 March 2008. Web. 3 March 2014.
This caption is intriguing not only for its’ uniqueness, but also because it is written by famous print-collector Michel de Marolles. Marolles, who clearly shares Callot’s anti-war sentiment, includes six-line rhyming couplets that both summarize the print and provide analysis on the background and events of the print. In “Les Grandes Misères de la Guerre,” the caption translation reads, “Finally these infamous and abandoned thieves, hanging from this tree like wretched fruit, show that crime (horrible and black species) is itself the instrument of shame and vengeance, and that it is the fate of corrupt men to experience the justice of heaven sooner or later.” Marolles uses sarcasm and detailed description in this caption to color the Thirty Years’ War as an act of evil. It is evident that Marolles and Callot share similar thoughts on the atrocities of
In the beginning of the book, Jarvis Lorry and Miss Lucie Manette meet and travel together to rescue Lucie’s father, Doctor Manette. The book jumps ahead to a time when Lucie has revived her dad, and the two are witnessing a trial against Charles Darnay, who is accused of treason. Sydney Carton, a goofy drunkard, saves Darnay from being convicted. Charles’ uncle, Marquis Evremonde, is killed by Revolutionaries in France going by the name “Jacques”. A year later, the two men profess their love for Lucie, but she marries Charles. Charles then admits to Mr. Manette that he is the descendant of those who imprisoned him, and Mr. Manette has a breakdown, but quickly recovers. Darnay travels to Paris and is arrested for emigration by the Revolutionaries, to then be rescued and re-arrested for the wrongs of his father and uncle—who killed a man and raped a woman, then blamed Mr. Manette, causing his imprisonment—once he is free. Awaiting the death of her husband, Lucie waits sadly in an inn when Sydney hears Madame Defarge plotting to kill the daughter of Luce and Lucie herself. In a desperate act of love for his friends, Sydney plans a course of action to save his friends: he planned an escape from the inn for the Manettes via carriage, then he ...
Charles Dickens, the author of A Tale of Two Cities portrays the aristocracy as an oblivious body of self-entitled people that wholeheartedly believe in their destiny of wealth. Their understanding of the poor people’s fate as stepping stools to their success allow them to injure and even murder them without any repercussions. This constant abuse of the rich to the poor fuels the fire that is the French Revolution. The Marquis St. Evrémonde shows an extreme sense of ignorance when, after running over an innocent child, he simply, “threw out a gold coin” as a token
A major change has occurred with respect to concepts of crime and punishment. Prisons have become a more physically healthy environment, and the use of capital punishment has evolved. The death penalty is much less widely used today, many societies have eliminated it, and those that retain it have attempted to find more humane methods of carrying it out. In the 19th century, prisons were harsh and dank, and execution methods were gruesome. In the story, Charles Darnay is taken to prison by the revolutionaries and will spend the rest of his life in prison until his execution date. The prison is described by the narrator as Darnay is locked away. The text states, “It struck cold and damp, but was not dark” (Dickens, 293). When first entering the prison, Darnay meets his fellow prisoners and they see a door leading to another area in the prison. They open this door and describe what the prison felt, and looked like. This is consistent with many of the other prisons that characters in “A Tale of Two Cities” were confined in. The La Force, where Darnay was kept, was not even the harshest of the prisons in France. These conditions were acceptable and quite normal for the time, but would never be considered acceptable in in the United States or in many other modernized