The Cruelty of Man Toward His Fellow Man

Occurring in the late 1700’s in France, The French Revolution was a time of great emotion, ferocity, tribulation, and passion during which the peasants were treated completely unfairly by the egotistical and self-serving aristocratic class. Dickens captures this period beautifully in his brilliant and iconic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Massive bloodshed brought on by the rebelling of the peasants against their oppressors dominated this era. People were not sure whether life was getting better or worse, but things were definitely changing all around. Dickens’ excellent uses of the metaphors of scarecrows and birds of fine song and feather, knitting, and noble prisoners in La Force greatly contribute to the theme of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow man.

First, Dickens uses the metaphor of scarecrows and birds of fine song and feather to represent the oppressive relationship between peasants and aristocrats. The peasants are lifeless and pathetic, walking around like scarecrows, as a result of the aristocrats’ cruelty. They are starving, miserable, and desperate. To show just how desperate and oppressed they have become, Dickens states, “For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition” (Dickens 23). The peasants stare lifelessly at the lamplighter, imagining that they are themselves being pulled out of their oppressive, dark state by his system of pulleys and into the light, or a better life. Later on, they will revolt against the aristocrats as a result of their oppression, as Dickens presen...

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...ocrats. This metaphor of ghosts flawlessly shows that the peasants have gone overboard and become just as bad as the aristocrats were.

The use of the scarecrows and birds of fine feather, knitting, and noble prisoners in La Force achieves Dickens’ goal, which was to show how horrible man can be to his fellow man. The aristocrats ignored the peasants’ suffering, which definitely came back to affect them later as the roles were switched, similar to karma. Meanwhile, the peasants’ thirst and desperation for revolution grows, and their plans for revenge grow as well. The noble prisoners exhibit how the guilty and the innocent are all killed, regardless, and the mercilessness of the revolution. Dickens shows through his deliberate symbolism and metaphors just how the oppressed can become the oppressors, how easily the tables can turn, and how quickly things can change.