Justice In A Tale Of Two Cities

Sometimes, an enforcer can become so fixated on bringing a criminal to justice that he fails to recognize that he is using forbidden methods. Because of this, his goals become prone to being perverted so that he becomes a harbinger of suffering rather than one of the law. In A Tale of Two Cities, which is written by Charles Dickens, peasants in France, such as the Defarge family, band together to overthrow the corrupt nobility. Although they only seek to make the living conditions of the common people better, they instead fall to a path of vengeance which claims a large quantity of innocent lives. These revolutionaries’ actions aid in the illumination of a major theme, which is that depending on one’s true intentions, he may either dispense
In order to incriminate Charles Darnay, a letter from the formerly imprisoned Doctor Manette is used as evidence. In the doctor’s memory, a young boy whose family is hurt by the Evremondé brothers, who were French aristocrats, says, “We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beings… I say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world” (Dickens 337). The boy and his family have been wronged a lot of his times by the brothers. For example, his sister is unwillingly taken away by them, he is dying of a wound from them, and his other sister has to be sent away at a very young age for protection. This has gone to the point that life became meaningless and negative, as said by the boy’s father. These are obvious examples of atrocities that the French nobles commit. Later on, the rebels burn down the Marquis’s mansion. This is because he would not stop disregarding others’ lives, including Gaspard’s child. This action is justified because the Marquis does not stop hurting innocents, and violence is the only
Near the end of the novel, Sidney Carton goes to the site where the guillotine is located. He then converses with the wood-sawyer, who says, “You mean the guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall amount to a hundred soon… Such a barber!” (324). This scene is one following the fall of the aristocracy, which means that the royalty is already no more. The rebels have already achieved their goal, which is freedom from the careless nobles. But rather than stopping the just violence, they continue executing people. Hundreds per day perish, as quoted by the wood-sawyer. When he goes on comparing the guillotine to a barber, it shows that the lost lives are as hair to a barber: they are insignificant, and many can be taken in no time. At this point, the cause of the revolutionaries has become one purely of vengeance, which can no longer be morally supported. This is because they have already taken over and can now live comfortably without being needlessly harmed by corrupt aristocrats. This shows that the revolutionaries have lost their way, and they no longer fight for a positive idea. This characteristic of the rebels can be traced back to the beginning, where a wine spill has “stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris… Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had