Social Upheaval in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
This paper examines Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) as a historical novel that critiques social injustice, class stratification, and political upheaval during the French Revolution. The paper provides a plot overview and then analyzes how Dickens uses historical fiction techniques drawn from Carlyle's history of the Revolution to illuminate the causes and consequences of revolutionary violence. Key themes include the exploitation of the poor by the aristocracy, the value of human life, the nightmare of mob rule, and parallels between French and Victorian English society. The paper argues that Dickens's social criticism retains relevance for the modern world, particularly regarding wealth inequality and the erosion of human dignity.
- Introduction: Dickens's biography and social themes
- A Tale of Two Cities: Plot Overview: Summary of characters, plot, and revolution
- The French Revolution as Historical Setting: Historical novel genre and Carlyle's influence
- Social Injustice, Class Struggle, and Revolutionary Violence: Class conflict and revolutionary terror in the novel
- The Value of Human Life and Dickens's Social Criticism: Human dignity, poverty, and modern relevance
- Dickens's Literary Techniques and Victorian Context: Symbolism, metaphor, and Victorian social critique
- Conclusion: Synthesis of French and Victorian revolutionary themes
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its literary analysis in historical context, showing how Dickens drew on Carlyle's The French Revolution and real events of 1789–1793 to construct his narrative.
- It moves smoothly from plot summary to thematic analysis, giving readers enough story context to follow the argument about social injustice and class conflict.
- The paper connects Dickens's 19th-century critique to contemporary concerns about wealth inequality, giving the analysis modern relevance.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the use of direct textual quotation to support thematic claims. Rather than asserting themes abstractly, the author anchors arguments in specific passages from the novel — for example, quoting the mob scene and the sealed letters (lettres de cachet) — and links them to secondary scholarship. This shows how close reading and secondary source integration work together in literary analysis.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief author biography that contextualizes Dickens's social preoccupations, then delivers a detailed plot overview before shifting into sustained thematic analysis. The analysis is organized around interlocking themes: the historical novel genre, revolutionary causes and consequences, class struggle, the value of human life, and Dickens's stylistic devices. A short conclusion synthesizes the dual French and Victorian revolutionary framing. This introduction-to-analysis-to-conclusion arc is a reliable undergraduate essay structure.
Introduction
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was a British novelist widely considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian period (Bloom 11). Born in Portsmouth, Dickens was the second child in his family and faced a difficult childhood marked by poverty; his father was imprisoned for debt. Dickens began working at the age of twelve to help clear his family's arrears (Bloom 11). The hardships he endured provided him with rich material for his fiction. His novels, among them A Tale of Two Cities, offered a sympathetic account of the plight of the poor and examined social injustices and upheavals during the nineteenth century.
A Tale of Two Cities: Plot Overview
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most innovative and celebrated works, written in 1859. The novel follows the lives of several characters in the years before and during the French Revolution. The story begins in Paris approximately fourteen years before the outbreak of the revolt. Doctor Manette is released from the Bastille prison after being unjustly imprisoned for eighteen years for attempting to bring members of the St. Évremonde family to trial (Dickens 25). His daughter Lucie, whom he last saw as a young child, travels from London to Paris with Mr. Lorry. Lorry and Lucie arrive in Paris at the wine shop of Madame Defarge and Monsieur Defarge.
Madame Defarge and her husband are deeply involved in inciting a peasant revolt. Doctor Manette is too frail and disoriented to recognize his daughter Lucie. The Manette family is later called to give evidence at the treason trial of Charles Darnay. The Manettes had met Darnay on their return journey from France. Darnay is a French language instructor and the nephew of the Marquis St. Évremonde; he is accused of being a French spy. He is acquitted when his lawyer, C. J. Stryver, confuses an eyewitness by presenting Sydney Carton, a legal colleague who closely resembles Darnay. The witness cannot positively identify Darnay. Sydney Carton, Stryver, and Darnay are all attracted to Lucie, and all seek to marry her. They become regular visitors to the Manette household, which is presided over by Miss Pross.
Conditions in France deteriorate as the population grows angry and discontented with the French aristocracy. Although Darnay has adopted his mother's maiden name to sever his ties with his noble family, he feels compelled to return to France after his uncle, the Marquis, kills a peasant child by running the child over with his carriage. Darnay urges his uncle to acknowledge and remedy the wrongs the family has committed. That same night, the Marquis is murdered by Gaspard, the father of the dead child. Darnay eventually returns to England. Six years later, the Bastille is stormed and the French Revolution begins. This prompts Darnay to return to France in order to save a loyal family's servant from the revolutionaries. When his identity is revealed, Darnay is arrested and brought to trial.
Doctor Manette and Lucie join Darnay in Paris. The sympathetic testimony of Doctor Manette at trial secures Darnay's release, but Darnay is rearrested shortly afterward. An unidentified party and Defarge accuse him of criminal offences. At the new trial, Defarge testifies against Darnay and declares that Doctor Manette is Darnay's second accuser. Defarge presents papers he discovered in Doctor Manette's Bastille cell, in which Manette had recorded the crimes perpetrated by the Évremonde family (Dickens 301). The papers reveal that Darnay's family was responsible for Manette's unjust imprisonment. Darnay is condemned to death.
Sydney Carton tricks Barsad, a prison informer, into granting him access to the cell where Darnay is held. Carton drugs Darnay and arranges his escape, taking his place as the condemned man. While attempting to prevent the Manette family from fleeing Paris, Madame Defarge is killed in a struggle with Miss Pross. Darnay and Lucie escape to England, while Sydney Carton sacrifices himself and goes to the guillotine in Darnay's place (Dickens 301).
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