What does dickens mean by it was the best of times, it was the worst of times ? 2. discuss the resurrection theme in a tale of two cities. Which characters are recalled to life ? how? 3. describe how dickens depicts crowds and mobs throughout the novel. What does dickens seem to be saying about large groups of people? 4. a major criticism of a tale of two cities is that dickens does not fully develop his characters. 6. dickens represents women as being natural or unnatural in a tale of two cities.

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What characteristics does he idealize in women? what characteristics does he view as abnormal? do you agree or disagree with his perspective? why? 7. dickens is known for his humor, but a tale of two cities is noticeably somber. Do any comic passages and characters exist in the novel? if so, what are they? why are they humorous? 8. discuss dickens' views of the french revolution. Does he believe it was inevitable or preventable? what are his attitudes toward the french royalty and aristocrats? toward the peasants and revolutionaries? a tale of two cities essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of a tale of two cities by charles dickens.

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In his masterpiece, a tale of two cities, charles dickens strengthens his theme of paired opposites by juxtaposing the characters of sydney carton and charles darnay. In a tale of two cities, dickens asserts his belief in the constant possibility of resurrection and transformation, both on a personal level and on a societal level. Resurrection is a term that is often used to describe the rebirth of someone, not only after death, but often as a new person in their own lifetime. In a tale of two cities, a novel written by the famous english author charles dickens, the idea. Published in 1859, the book discusses the themes of resurrection, destiny, and concealment. When a man’s road to happiness is cut off by a wrong turn and a person finds themselves lost in an unknown state, a second chance is a miraculous hand that comes out at the person, opening up another path, even at his lowest of stages, to once.

How sympathetic is dickens towards the french revolution? which details illustrate his revulsion or attraction to the movement? compare the adherence to traditional gender roles by lucie manette and madame defarge. Is dickens constrained by literary or social conventions, for example by making a manly woman the villain and a feminine woman the sentimental heroine? how does religion color the attitudes of the characters in this novel? compare sydney carton to lucie manette, or jerry cruncher to the defarges. Does the plot 39 s reliance on fate and coincidence including the resemblance of carton to darnay, the discovery of dr. John barsad by miss pross and jerry cruncher make the story less believable or less powerful? how does dickens reconcile his distaste for the revolution with his identity as a social crusader? does he believe in the people 39 s right to revolt under an oppressive government? examine the motifs of light and darkness in this novel, and trace how they relate to carton, lucie, dr. The most recurrent criticism of this novel is that the characters do not have the psychological depth or development of other dickensian figures.

Does sydney carton 39 s transformation undermine this claim? is this criticism really fair toward the other characters? examine the theme of resurrection in the novel. Which characters are brought back to life and how? is there any situation from which resurrection is impossible? dickens focuses mostly on the lower class in france, but what sense does he give of the lower class in england? why was there no comparable class struggle in the same era? analyze dickens 39 s descriptions of mobs in england and in france. How do they differ? what makes a mob what it is? how do mobs make decisions?

how to cite nolan, rachel. Cite this page discuss at least one way in which dickens parallels the personal and the political in a tale of two cities. In his dual focus on the french revolution and the individual lives of his characters, dickens draws many comparisons between the historical developments taking place and the characters rsquo triumphs and travails. Perhaps the most direct example of this parallel comes in the final chapter of the novel, in which dickens matches sydney carton rsquo s death with the french revolution rsquo s most frenzied violence, linking the two through the concept of resurrection.

Throughout the novel, carton struggles to free himself from a life of apathy and meaninglessness while the french lower classes fight for political emancipation. Each of these struggles involves death mdash carton decides to give his life so that charles darnay may escape, and the revolutionaries make a spectator sport out of the execution of aristocrats. Nowhere is this promise more evident than in the prophecy that the narrator ascribes to carton at the novel rsquo s end. Here, carton envisions a new city rising up from the ashes of the ruined paris as clearly as he sees lucie, darnay, and their son celebrating and extending his life as a man of worth and honor. Dickens thus closes his novel with a note of triumphant hope both political and personal.

What is the effect of dickens rsquo s doubling technique? does he use doubles to draw contrasts, comparisons, or both? from early on in the novel, various characters seemed paired as opposites. Darnay, for instance, appears capable and accomplished, while carton seems lazy and lacks ambition. Similarly, miss pross represents respectable english order while madame defarge embodies its opposite: hot blooded revolution. As the novel progresses, however, these doubled characters come to relate more as twins than as opposites. Both carton and darnay share a common love for lucie, and lucie exerts a power over carton that enables him to shed his skin as a ldquo jackal rdquo and adopt a life that actually may exceed darnay rsquo s in terms of devotion and heroism. The two women share a sense of uncompromising duty, as becomes manifest in their confrontation in lucie rsquo s apartment. Miss pross proves as fiercely devoted to lucie rsquo s life and safety as madame defarge is to the idea of a new french republic purged of all aristocrats.

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In revealing these resemblances, dickens suggests that even seeming opposites can possess underlying similarities. This gesture, along with dickens rsquo s inclusion of multiple coincidences in his plot, contributes to the author rsquo s larger message that human beings inhabit a world of multiple hidden patterns and connections. Dickens makes frequent use of foreshadowing, as it allows him to build suspense throughout his narrative and imbue it with a haunting atmosphere. For example, the wine cask breaking in the street and the echoing footsteps that can be heard in the manettes rsquo apartment hint to the reader about the imminence of the great and violent mob that eventually overtakes paris. In this way, the reader becomes more aware of the situation than dickens rsquo s characters and feels ever more emotionally and psychologically involved in the narrative.

Given that dickens published a tale of two cities in short, weekly installments, this technique was a particularly effective means of sustaining the reader rsquo s interest in the novel. The reader was teased by hints of terrific events on the horizon and satisfied only by reading and first buying further installments. Some critics charge that dickens, in much of his work, failed to create meaningful characters because he exaggerated them to parodic extremes.