A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is not just about the struggles of Paris and London, during the time of the French Revolution. It is also about the social injustice and the struggle for class vengeance. One character, Madame Defarge, is tied into all of this. This stern, bitter woman has a loathing monster in her soul. Towards the end of the book, the reader discovers why she is so resentful of the upper class. Nevertheless, in the beginning of the book the reader ascertains that Dickens takes a side; he considers the rebels little better than savages. Dickens frequently makes the connection that the anarchy of the mob in France could also occur in England. For example, at Rodger Cly's funeral, the mob raids shops and sets fire to various objects. Dickens subtly points out how this is also happening in France during the French Revolution, except in France it is at a much higher scale. When this was written, in 1859, Charles Dickens tries to warn England not to allow the chaos of France to come to England. Even though Dickens says the mob is wrong, he maintain that the uppercases treated the lower class as human at their disposal. The story of the Marquis' murder of Madame Defarge's brother and the rape of her sister describes how the aristocrats maltreated the peasants and how that is past of the struggle for justice. On a smaller scale, the killing of Gaspard's boy is yet again a social injustice to the commoners of France. The Marquis St. Evrémonde has once more killed an innocent victim. The aristocrats have brought much pain, mental and physical, to the revolutionaries. Dickens, to show how cruel the aristocrats had been, has Monsiegneur momentarily stop and give the father a coin for the loss of his son. The working class of France was abused and demanded vengeance. But soon, paradoxically, the commoners are in charge. Social injustice again spreads, like a