Mob Mentality in A Tale of Two Cities

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Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities follows the cruelties of the French Revolution. Mobs in France relentlessly imprison and kill citizens, including the novel’s main character, Doctor Manette, who stays in prison for 18 years before Lucie retrieves him. Only Lucie, can keep him young and free from his past. Doctor Manette and Lucie testify at the trial of Charles Darnay, defended by the lazy alcoholic, Sydney Carton. Both Darnay and Carton love Lucie, but Darnay ultimately wins her, and Carton never stops loving her. Meanwhile in Saint Antoine, Defarge and his wife plan the French Revolution. Darnay goes back to France, and Parisians immediately throw him in prison for being an Evrémonde. The novel ends with Carton sacrificing himself to save Darnay to show Lucie he loves her. Dickens creates chaotic and deadly crowds in A Tale of Two Cities in order to convey the theme of mob mentality’s destructiveness.
Dickens first introduces mob mentality at the Defarge’s wine shop when the wine cask breaks and a chaotic crowd breaks out. The citizens in the crowd display eagerness to get ...

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