The French Revolution was a war in France between the French royalty and the French serfs, which lasted ten years, from seventeen eighty-nine to seventeen ninety-nine. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is set before and during the French Revolution. In his novel, Dickens used many metaphors to add enhancement. He also used many themes throughout the novel, one of them being the theme of fate. Dickens improved his novel excellently through his use of the innovative metaphors of a storm, knitting, and water to convey the theme of fate.
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses the metaphor of a storm to represent the French Revolution. It was France’s fate to go through a war, and it was the French soldiers’ fate to fight in the war. The following quote describes the sheer chaos of the French Revolution. Dickens describes, “Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor's entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine” (Dickens 222). This quote displays the confusion of the French Revolution. Storms are usually very destructive, as was the French Revolution. This next quote describes men and women dancing together after the horrible French Revolution had ended. Dickens happily notes, “Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of c...
... middle of paper ...
...et, making it seem like it was stained with blood. This quote about water being stained with blood makes it seem as if it is Madame Defarge’s life fate to die. Water is a fantastic and original metaphor to represent life.
By using the innovative metaphors of a storm, knitting, and water to convey the theme of fate in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens is a famous and well-known writer. The storm representing the French Revolution comes down to simply social classes. The hit list that Madame Defarge knitted comes down to simply who dies and who does not. The flowing water comes down to simply the flow of life. Throughout the wondrous and enticing novel, the metaphors turn into symbols that relate to the theme of fate in a variety of ways.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Dover Thrift ed. Mineola: Dover, 1999.
Print.
Although the passage foreshadows the events later throughout the novel, Dickens ultimately uses a pathetic tone toward the social conditions of France before the French Revolution through the use of anaphora in the first half of the passage and the diction throughout the second half of the passage.
In Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm” it talks about love and lust. It speaks of two kind of storm that occurs. These two storms I find to be the central part of the story, and is being represented as a symbol within the story. The first storm is the most obvious one that Bibi and Bobinot are faced with. The second storm isn’t that visible for it involves Calixta and Alcee. Just as like most storms they come and pass.
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”, is a story filled with metaphorical references between a thunderstorm of rain and a thunderstorm of passion. Calixta, Bobinot, and Bibi led, what one would assume to be, a rather normal life. While Bobinot and Bibi are in town shopping they notice a storm approaching, and “Bobinot, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar.” However, a moment a Mother Nature’s fury unleashed a wealth of passion between Calixta and her former beau Alcee Laballiere.
The French Revolution took place at the time when the poor peasants who had been mistreated, revolted against the wealthy and cruel aristocrats. When they did this, it was bloody, chaotic, and no lived were spared in their conquest for revenge. In Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, the French Revolution is depicted through the lives of both peasants and aristocrats. The Marquis St. Evermonde and the whole Evermonde family treated many of the peasants cruelly and inhumanely. In the book, the poor townspeople from the suburb called Saint Antoine are among the many French peasants to revolt against the Marquis and all the aristocrats, but this is only the beginning of their revenge. Dickens uses the symbols of a whirlpool, a storm, and a sea, to portray the building of anger in the peasants, which drives them to seek revenge.
Through the symbol of knitting, the metaphor of the fountain and water, and the metaphor of the wine, the theme of fate is used fantastically by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities. Because fate determines the outcome of many situations, these metaphors help guide these situations to their outcomes. The outcomes for many characters were inevitable no matter what because of fate and could not be changed. Without the theme of fate in the novel, the story would have turned out differently because fate determined the events in the novel and how the novel continues. Because of this, Dickens’ use of the theme of fate is superb throughout his novel and enhances the story and to adds to the plot.
The French Revolution was a movement from 1789 to 1799 that brought an end to the monarchy, including many lives. Although A Tale of Two Cities was published in 1859, it was set before and during the French Revolution and had over 200 million copies sold. The author, Charles Dickens, is known for being an excellent writer and displays several themes in his writings. Sacrifice is an offering of an animal or human life or material possession to another person. Dickens develops the theme of sacrifice throughout the story by the events that occurred involving Dr. Manette, Mr. Defarge, and Sydney Carton.
Dickens uses different scenarios to put the revolution into a different perspective and sway the emotions of the readers towards the devastated nobles. The new form of government led by the rebels is deceitful and rigged, and under it new and unfair laws are constantly passed and innocent people are arrested. Dickens is showing that the new leaders are just as brutal and cold hearted as the old aristocracy was. The peasants are so caught up on revenge that stopping and making peace is not part of the picture, “Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only elicited from his wife a repetition of her last reply, ‘Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop, not me’” (265) Madame Defarge’s hate towards the Evrémonde family is just like the peasant class’ hate for the aristocrats; it has enveloped their souls. The peasants are now just as brutal and inhumane towards their fellow man as the nobles were before them.
Set during the French Revolution, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities remains one of the most influential books of the modern era. Within A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens provides an alternate social and political structure for society through the rehabilitation of Doctor Manette, the sacrifice of Sydney Carton, and the change that Charles Darnay undergoes.
In France, the years between 1789 and 1794 are a time of thoughtless inhumanity and brutality toward fellow man. These inhumane acts are carried through by the Revolutionaries and the nobility of France in these years and the years leading up to the French Revolution. One of the foremost illustrations of the inhumanity felt and shown during this time is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Dickens uses metaphors as symbols throughout this book to exemplify his theme of thoughtlessness toward people by other people. Dickens develops these metaphors throughout the novel and manipulates them to fit different circumstances. He uses everyday objects and ideas and makes them personifications of the Revolution and their unsympathetic mindsets
Dickens is often held to be among the greatest writers of the Victorian Age. Nonetheless, why are his works still relevant nearly two centuries later? One reason for this is clearly shown in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. In the novel, he uses imagery to sway the readers’ sympathies. He may kindle empathy for the revolutionary peasants one moment and inspire feeling for the imprisoned aristocrats the next, making the book a more multi-sided work. Dickens uses imagery throughout the novel to manipulate the reader’s compassion in the peasants’ favor, in the nobles defense, and even for the book’s main villainess, Madame Defarge.
The French Revolution was a harsh fight between two classes and was full of revenge. A Tale of Two Cities is a brilliant novel by Charles Dickens that illustrates the magnitude of the French Revolution. This war was the peasants going against the nobles and involved many innocent imprisonments and deaths. It was a rough time for many people and put many of the cities in danger. Dickens foreshadows the coming of the Revolution as revenge on the nobles with the symbol of the storm, the frenzy of the wine cask, and Madame Defarge.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859. Reprint. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble
A Tale of Two Cities promoted the image of a stable England by using revolutionary France as a setting to highlight the contrasts between the two countries, although Dickens seemed to believe in the eighteen-fifties that England was heading towards an uprising on the scale of the French Revolution. In the twentieth century, we see the French Revolution used as a 'lavish' setting in film and TV productions of A Tale of Two Cities. In the preface to the novel, Dickens says "It has been one of my hopes to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time" (xiii).
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us” (Dickens 3). Charles Dickens opens one of his most famous books with these words, which foretell how the entire novel is laid out and how conflicting viewpoints in the era were soon to be the causes of revolution. A Tale of Two Cities is historically important because it tells of life during the French Revolution, how people can change from a “civilized” society into a bloodthirsty army, and teaches the
During the French Revolution, there were many controversies between the peasants and the aristocracy. In A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, most of the peasants are revolutionaries fighting against their nobility. Dickens’ use of imagery throughout the novel tries to sway the reader’s opinions about the peasants. Charles Dickens depicts the French Revolution well with the images of the novel as well as the tone he uses. Throughout the novel, Dickens illustrates through his imagery how the peasants change from poor, secretive, and then on to vicious.