CRITICAL ESSAY OF A TALE OF TWO CITIES

CHARLES DICKENS (1857)

By Reza Harun Al Rasyid

I. INTRODUCTION

A Tale of Two Cities is one of the novels by Charles Dickens. He is

was an English writer and social critics. He published this novel in literary
journal called All the Year Round in weekly installments from April to
November of 1859. This novel published by Penguin group, and printed in
many countries. Dickens narrates aspects of a major historical event, the
French Revolution. Charles Dickens explores the economic disparity
between rich and poor within in the two cities and topics during
enlightenment such as revolution in political thinking.
In this novel, there are two major cities, Paris and England. The
story focus on the the hunger of the French people and the brutality of the
French aristocracy, embodied in the novel by the Evrémonde family. We
might see some some characters in the story. Mr. Lory, Mr & Mrs.
Defarge, Sydney Carton and also dr. Mannete.Furthermore, Mr. Lory and
dr. Mannete helped Darny to solve his complicated problems resulted by
the nationality and the politic conditions between two countries; French
and England. The Defarge spouses also took a part in helping dr. Mennate
to meet his forcefully separated- daughter, Lucie.
Those characters tells dramatically illustrates the brutality of the

revolutionaries. We can see that Evrémonde family kill the others easily. It

is the one of the family that become the center of this novel. Since the

most dominant theme of this story is about Darnay, an aristrocracy French’

 Heir who run to England and married an English girl, Lucie and how he

jumped from a prejudice to others which came steadily.

II. SUMMARY

A Tale of Two Cities is begins with the description of a time when

French and England in the era of monarchy. Then the story tells about a

banker named Mr. Lorry made a meeting with a young woman, Miss

Lucie. They discuss about Miss Lucie’s secret. Then Mr. Lorry asked Miss

Lucie to meet her father after 18 years separated. After that, They decided

to go to England and brought his to new life. Lucie’s father is Doctor

Manette, he is housed in the Defarges' wine-shop with stress mentality, but

he starts to regain it when he meets his daughter and is transported back to

London.

After five years, Lucie met Darnay, Mr. Carton, and Mr. Stryver

and all fall in love with Lucie Manette. However, Lucie loves Darnay, who

was actually a defector and a French Heir. In France, the cruel Marquis

Evrémonde a typical of the aristocracy who treat the poor very badly, he

awaits the arrival of his nephew, Darnay, from England. Arriving later that

night, Darnay curses his uncle and the French aristocracy for its

abominable treatment of the people. He renounces his identity as an

Evrémonde and announces his intention to return to England. One day in

French Revolution, Mr. Defarge and Madame Defarge, French native

spouses, created the bad situation after the King Marques died. Mr.
 Defarge went to Brestille and found some letters of dr. Mannate who used

to stay in that place to find some evidences.

Finally Darnay should go back to save his friends in French who

was innocence. He left Lucie only with a letter. Unfortunately, Darnay was

arrested and enter dungeon. Mr. Lorry, Lucie with her daughter and her

father went to French to find Darnay. They knew that Darnay in dungeon

and dr. Mannate should help him using his authority. Next years, Darnay

could be free because when in the court he got help from dr. Mannate and

some whitnesses like Mr. Lorry and Carton. Just after some hours from his

freed, he got caught again because Mr. Defarge knew that he was one of

the King Marques family. There was no way to help Darnay, and Mr.

Lorry had idea to save Darnay. Carton had the plan to change the Darnay’s

position and sacrificing his life. He let him bring Lucie back to England.

The last, Carton decapitated in the knife of guillotine.

III. DISCUSSION

The French Revolution was one of the bloodiest events in modern

history. Between 1789 and 1799, French men and women went through

dramatic changes in their social and political systems: they overthrew a

monarchical system built on aristocratic and Church privilege and

attempted to replace it with a more democratic vision of society. That

process was not painless. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and

children in France paid for these political and social transformations with

their lives.

I took the brutality of the French aristocracy or the violenve in the a

tale of two cities, as the main subject of discussion of this novel. We can

see it in the Evrémonde family. In France, the cruel Marquis Evrémonde

runs down a plebian child with his carriage. Manifesting an attitude

typical of the aristocracy in regard to the poor at that time, the Marquis

shows no regret, but instead curses the peasantry and hurries home to his

chateau, where he awaits the arrival of his nephew, Darnay, from

England. Arriving later that night, Darnay curses his uncle and the French

aristocracy for its abominable treatment of the people.

Charles Dickens shows in his story that rich ones acted like evil

people, while the poor were not very much, like people at all; for the poor

were depressed. Charles shows the bad stuff happening to peasants, to

show how much of a necessity the French revolution was.

Charles views the French revolution as too bloody. People are becoming

like the rich, and not valuing people’s lives, exactly the opposite of what

they were trying to get out of this revolution. They acted like crazy

bloodthirsty animals, “the men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger

with which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and

came pouring down into the streets…” all the people thought about was

killing all the rich ones, making them pay.

The story given by the author is complex. All the characters are

focused when they have their own problems and how they solve them..
The plot of the story flows slowly and it makes the readers bored when

reading each chapter. The conflicts before the climax is not as interesting

as we predict. The climax arises dominates in the last chapters, way too

late just before the end of the story.

Finally, In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens shows how violence

can flourish due to the inequality seen in the lower classes. Dickens uses

violence to portray that a society filled with inequalities can lead to

violence.
 REFERENCES

Books

Dickens, Charles. 1857. A tale of two cities. England: Penguin books.

Online Source

Good reads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1953.A_Tale_of_Two_Cities

Collin Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/heroism

History beta :

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17339/what-did-the-nobles-do-after-

the-french-revolution

History extra:

http://www.historyextra.com/article/international-history/fighting-freedom-

storming-bastille-and-french-revolution