How Does Dickens Present Society In A Tale Of Two Cities

Imagine living in the 1700s surrounded by an era of revolution. You are poor, and survive off of whatever you can find on the streets. You live on the verge of death everyday, and you can do nothing about it. The little money you’ve earned goes to different types of taxes from the church, to the government, and even the lord. Around the world the exact same thing is happening, and it is destroying humanity. Chaos fills the streets, and the peasants demand blood. This is because less than one percent of the people living in France control all the money, and these nobles are corrupt. In chapter eight of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, he describes society and the people during that time. He express his views on the society by showing that the nobles are corrupted by power, and the common citizens have nothing. Charles Dickens suggests that society is broken, and that it is run by those who do not deserve the power given to them.

Dickens starts with a metaphor describing society. He talks about the landscape “with the corn bright in it, but not

abundant.” This is referring to the nobles that essentially rule society in France. They are the best type of crop, but they are so few in numbers, referring to the class division being imbalanced and unfair. He then goes on with “patches of poor rye where corn should have been...patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for [corn].” These patches of other crops represents the rest of society, weak and poor. Not only that but the patches represent the broken societies and imbalance between class. The other crops are inferior and not needed, just as the nobles look down on the citizens as a waste of space. Dickens uses this metaphor as a way of showing classes of society and the segregation of these two types of people. The main character featured in this excerpt is Monsieur the Marquis. Dickens uses this man as a symbol of corruption, which is demonstrated in a few ways throughout the passage. He is wealthy enough to travel by carriage (which is one of his many carriages), and have staff go with him. The setting sun stains him crimson, which is symbolizing all the blood on his hands. The crimson effect has another meaning, “the sun and the marquis going down together.” This is foreshadowing the death of the Marquis. Dickens uses him as a way to show the downfall of many other nobles in france and around the world. The people are starting to fight back to fix their country, and end the tyranny of nobles.

Dickens puts a lot of emphasis on the word poor in the second half of the passage to give readers a taste of the 1700s.

He describes the setting by referring to it as a “broken country.” The village has “one poor street...poor brewery...poor tannery...poor tavern...poor stable...poor apartments…[and] it had its poor people too.” The tone dickens provides is harsh and disturbing. The people live on nothing, and even eat whatever edible leaves and grasses they can find just to stay alive. Dickens then goes on to state why they are poor. “The tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general.” All of the money they own goes to tax, so they don’t have to go to jail. Dickens then states that this is “life on the lowest terms that could sustain it...or captivity and Death in the dominant prison.” You can either choose to barely survive, or rot away in prison until you

die.
Dickens does not stress enough the imbalance between classes, and the corruption in society. His attitude is represented throughout the poem by his somber tone provided. He uses the Marquis and crops as metaphors to nobles and segregation. Dickens does not agree with the fact that people give all their money to taxes just to barely stay alive a little longer. When the nobles do nothing and the rest of the population does all the work, yet they get nothing for it is disturbing. Dickens believes that this needed to be stopped and changed, because the nobles are corrupt and wicked, and will do nothing about the society that is falling apart and getting worse day by day.