The Ferocity of the Peasants

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.

In the beginning of the story, the peasants live a harsh and depressing life. Dickens clearly states, “The time was to come when that wine was to be spilled on the street-stones and when the stain of it would be red upon many there”(Dickens 21-22). Through this quote Dickens shows how the wine is a representation of the bloodshed going on in the revolutionaries lives. Also, he states, “Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper.” This term, hungry, that he used is to illustrate how hungry they are for literal food as well as how hungry they are for revolution (22). The peasants feel strongly about revolting against their hierarchy. Dickens describes how they have been “worked down” by the aristocracy. He says, “The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign, Hunger” (22). The tone that he uses lets the readers know how the aristocracy is depriving the peasants of their general needs, like food and clean water. The peasants may live weak life, but they are very...

... middle of paper ...

...roke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then the rope was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Sainte Antoine to dance at the sight of ” (173). The revolution inspired the peasants to take it upon themselves to preform random acts of violence towards people who upset them in the slightest.

All through the book Charles Dickens provides us with imagery and tone that shows how poor, secretive, and vicious the revolutionaries really are. The revolutionaries would to the extremes to protect their lives from the hierarchy. They would even kill innocent people that did nothing to harm them at all. Even though Dickens makes it seem that the peasants are poor and live harsh lives, they are also ferocious human beings who have a hunger for death.