Tale of Two Cities

Ruthvik Gali

2/18/2015

Honors English: Lund

A Tale of Two Cities

Ruthvik Gali

2/18/2105

Honors English: Lund 2A

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens shows history in the novel from the very first sentence to the very last. Growing up in Europe in the mid-1800s, he was exposed to the aftermath of the French Revolution from a very young age. Later in his life, he went on to take his experiences and managed to put them in his works in a very subtle way. He would then enrich his works with historical events to both make sure his works made sense and to give a sense of realism to his works like how he did in one of his more famous texts: A Tale of Two Cities. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens show how historical events and his own experiences affect the character development and the advancement of the plot. 

The very first sentence in the book was “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…” in a chapter called “The Period”. Dickens takes the first chapter to do two things. He sets the tone for the rest of the book along with establishing the time period and the problems that came with it. In the first sentence, we can see two sets of views. The best of times can be characterized by the lives of the aristocrats in France at the time, who were enjoying all the perks of being rich while the gap between the classes widened the worst of times were had by basically everyone that wasn’t an aristocrat. The example that Dickens uses when showing the aristocracy is Marquis Evrémonde. He develops the character by showing that he has a reputation of being a cruel aristocrat as he runs down a child with his carriage. At that time, his actions were quite normal. After the death, Evrémonde had no regrets and went on to even insult everyone else in the peasantry. Ironically, his actions only irritated Darnay who went on to curse his uncle and leave. The same night the Darnay leaves, his uncle is killed by revolutionaries, making him one of the many casualties of the French Revolution. The example of the struggling class in France that Dickens uses is the Defarge family. Everything that they go through is somehow tied into the history of the French Revolution in one way or another. For example, they are expected to pay a lot more due to them being owners of a wine shop. This extra expense puts them over as the cruel Madame Defarge knits her list of people to be killed in the revolution. Another example of historical events being used to add realism in A Tale of Two Cities is how Dickens writes how the events in 1789 as the French Revolution officially starts. The storming of the Bastille in the book has massive implications for Darnay as he is forced to go back to France to save Gabelle. In the book, as the storming of the Bastille starts, Dickens over exaggerates as he portrays thousands of Aristocrats killed and thousands more freed form the prison where in reality, the aristocratic death toll reached the mid-hundred and the amount of prisoners liberated barely reached double figures. The over exaggeration doesn’t stop as Dickens gives the impression to the readers that all emigrants during the revolution were imprisoned. In reality, a good chunk of the emigrants were left alone unless they were blatantly against the revolution because the revolutionaries had enough to worry about. At that time, their own government in shambles and their economy in decline. Because Dickens over exaggerates, Darnay is then captured which changes the course of the plot. As he gets arrested, Lucie and Manette also come to France where they miraculously don’t get arrested. Ultimately, Dickens uses over exaggerations in historical context but correct historical context to both advance the plot and the characters in A Tale of Two Cities.