A Tale of Two Cities Structure EssayEssay Preview: A Tale of Two Cities Structure EssayReport this essayIn Charles Dickenss, A Tale of Two Cities, the structure of three different books is used to clearly depict the moral and to better understand the magnitude and complexities of the story being told. With the first book the reader is put into a politically tense time, a period of turmoil and inequality in France, when the people are on the brim of revolution, in order to set the context of the story and develop the conflict. War then breaks out in France and Dickens portrays how it can affect life on different levels with the complications and crisis. Through the climax and denouement of the story, Dickens attempts to portray a moral in his story, with many religious undertones, through the sacrifice that Carton makes. With these things in mind, the structure of the book becomes a very relevant element in how the story is told.
The book begins by establishing the almost tangible feeling of tension, distrust, and conflict in France between the aristocrats and the peasants. With this atmosphere, Dickens starts to develop the main characters of the book. The Defarges, particularly Mrs. Defarge, is said to have “a watchful eye a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner” (pg. 39). The way in which the Defarges are introduced leads to reader to believe they will play a part in the revolution. Also, the way in which the two communicate amongst strangers, with their subtle body language and quiet whispers, foreshadows the plotting or hiding of something. This something ends up being Mr. Manette and they are plotting the storming of the Bastille to begin the revolution. With the length of the three books, Dickens also portrays the prolonged duration of the Revolution. Through the three books of the novel, the main themes of the Revolution, tension, death, and sacrifice, are portrayed. After trampling a child in the streets with his carriage, an Aristocrat asks the commoners of Paris, “Why does he [the father] make that abominable noise?” (pg 129). This portrays the tension, or breach, between the two very different social classes and helps set the scene for the Revolution to begin.
With the Revolution spreading across France, Dickens shows the reader how war affects many people and many aspects of life. One of the first descriptions of the Revolution depicted to the reader entails the burning of one unfortunate Monsieurs Chateau, “The [People] stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillars of fire in the sky” (pg 271). This scene tells the reader that the commoners will no longer sympathize with the elite, and the following revolution will be a bloody one. Darnay, who revokes his title or aristocracy and moves to England, receives a letter from France begging him to return and he does, to save his innocent friend. This complication shows the reader that even though the Revolution is only taking place in France, it has a much larger magnitude than that, the effects of it can even span the English Channel. When the crisis of the book occurs, and Charles Darnay is arrested, Dickens
[Pg 4] has an important role to play, especially in the case of Charles Darnay himself. There are a number of interesting, but little understood, examples of his role. For instance, in a passage in 1774, Darnay claims that he and his companions attacked an English merchant in the midst of a violent riot, and that he was “disarmed for what he had done….The crowd fell at the bar and fell on one another at a headlong pace…”(page 150). However, Darnay never mentions the incident because it was taken to constitute a mere illustration on the part of the English press. Instead, he says that “it happened by accident, and it became so serious that Mr. James T. Giffen felt that he would never be able to stand a word to complain, since it was so far from a necessary thing to suffer for a certain duration of time before that of a man or company of men…Mr. James T. Giffen knew much, he had not known such a thing before, and, so far as he could understand it, so now and then some people will rise about him and say, in truth, I am the one who has done all my business for the better of man….” In 1827 he wrote an essay in which he argued against the necessity of war, and he did so often.
In 1829, in another section on the subject, he uses the name James Cook to attack the aristocracy of Paris, and to illustrate his point in a memorable passage: “In the year 1833, a thousand of the gentlemen of the City were in a state of riot. It happens that one morning when all the great men are out on the streets being beaten and all the houses and buildings are smashed to pieces by any one who is not a rich man, and every man has taken out his sword and is charging at their enemies with one shot, the people of Paris were so excited with anger and indignation that they burst out in a thousand great tears…. And there they are when all the houses are broken down, their windows so smashed with flames by the thunderbolts that that which is thrown over the window of the Court has now been taken out again, and the doors are not broken and the streets of Paris have been turned and broken like new stones, as if by some accident the King wished to set fire to all the town; they were all so excited with the fire that they threw out a hundred-pound cannon of all sorts of articles.”(page 150). His remark on the nobility of the French people would not have affected a lot of people if the aristocracy was not quite as savage as it is today.
In 1836 in the same section Darnay cites a story by Frederick Boussey where he relates a quarrel between the aristocracy and the commoners. Boussey mentions that the wealthy were going against their will but that they could not bear to leave their homes without a house for them. In 1836, an article at the Daily Literary Supplement called “How the British in France Are Coming to Terms With England” (p. 110), in which William Dickens discusses the situation, shows how the commoners and the nobility are in a very different situation today, and thus it will come as no surprise that one or the other will confront this crisis of a feudal character on the Continent. One of Dickens’ most famous battles in this historical story is in 1785 in which William Dickens, in a letter to Charles de L’Orleans, gives details of an event as it had occurred on the Continent. The following is an excerpt from one of my personal