A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

• The most popular novelist of his time• Critically well-received AND

popular• Wrote during the Victorian Age• Most of his novels were

serialized• Grew up poor, but worked his

way up to the Middle-Class• Mostly self-taught

1812 - 1870

Charles Dickens

Features of Dickens’ writing Emphasis on Sentimentalism

Emotional response Melodrama Characters with high sensibility

Serialization Cliffhangers

Emphasis on the poor and the weak Sensationalism Social Criticism Autobiographical

Charles Dickens

(cont.)Notable Novels and Short Stories:

• The Pickwick Papers (1836-37)

• Oliver Twist (1837-39)• Barnaby Rudge (1841)• A Christmas Carol

(1843)• David Copperfield

(1849-50)• Hard Times (1854)• A Tale of Two Cities

(1859)• Great Expectations

(1860-61)

Overly Sentimental

Melodramatic at times Manipulative at times in his use of reader’s

emotion Verbose / Wordy Caricatures

E.M. Forster notes that ALL of Dickens’ characters are flat (no truly round characters) I don’t fully believe that due to A Tale of Two

Cities

Criticisms of Dickens

Victorian Age (1837-1901)

Period of time under the rule of Queen Victoria England’s longest-ruling monarch

Period of peace and stability (no wars) Emphasis on domestic affairs

Things seemed prosperous on the surface BUT:

Growing wealth gap Mistreatment of women, criminals, and orphans Poor living conditions for the lower class

Two Cities: London

The Victorian Age

London, 1888

Started at the end of the Industrial Revolution and took place during the Second Industrial Revolution (Technological Revolution)• Science-based innovations

and inventions• Rapid breakthroughs in

science, communication, transportation, industrialization and mass production

The Victorian Age

Notable inventions / innovations:

Victorian Age

Steamship – SS Great Western

Stagecoach

Steam Engine Railroads

Victorian Era: Social

IssuesIssues addressed in Dickens’ writings (Issues with industrialization)

• Poverty• Wealth Gap• Poor Working Conditions

(Factories)• Workinghouses• Child Labor• Prostitution• Poor Living Standards

Victorian Architecture merged elements of

Medieval Gothic Romanticism with the introduction of steel as a building resource.

Architecture

Palace of Westminster(1870)

The “Red Brick” Victoria Building(1893)

Manchester Town Hall

Victorian School of Art and Science

The John Rylans Library

Victorian

Romanticism The Victorian Age occurred during the

Romantic Movement in literature Focus on the corruption of the city

Especially its results on the poor and destitute Emphasis on sentimentality Movement away from Gothic exotic settings set

in far off places to the harsh reality of the everyday working-class Emphasis on domestic affairs Women and children

“Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits

of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart.” - Wikipedia

Victorian Literature

Many of Dickens’ works employ social criticism

by employing satire and irony and sentimentality. Key Points of Emphasis:

Wealth Gap The Problem of the Poor The “Overindulgent” Aristocracy The “Blind” Middle / Working Class Mistreatment of Women and Children

Dickens’ Social Commentary

Written in 1859

Written originally in serialized form (periodical) and was written in 31 installments Cliffhangers

Takes place during The French Revolution (1789) The “two cities” are London and Paris

Purpose: To warn the English people to heed the warnings from the past (The French Revolution)

A Tale of Two Cities

Features:

Social Criticism Satire Motif

Footsteps, knitting, blood imagery, light vs. dark Sentimentalism Symbolism

The jail, wine cask, guillotine Omniscient Narration

Authorial Interjection

A Tale of Two Cities

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

(1789) The Storming of the Bastille (1789) March on Versaille (1789) Declaration of “Republic” (1792) Execution of King Louis XVI (1793) The “Reign of Terror” by the Jacobins (1793 – 1794) Removal of the Jacobins; establishment of The

Directory (1795-1799) Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte (1799)

Key Events: The French Revolution

(1789-1799)

The Seven Years War (1754-1763) and The

American Revolutionary War (1776-1783) France was bankrupt

HUGE wealth gap Citizens were starving; nobles were extravagantly

wasting the nation’s resources Citizens witnessed a successful revolution from

the upstart Americas Excessive taxation and abuse of the low and

middle-classes (sans-coulotte and bourgeoisie)

Factors

King Louis XVI

Palace of Versaille

King Louis XIV “The Sun King” ("L'État, c'est moi")

Weak ruler who inherited the

absolute power established by Louis XIV Divine Right of Kings Abolition of the Estates-General

(Louis XIV) Forced to convene the Estates-

General in 1789 Executed in 1793 by guillotine

along with his wife, Marie Antoinette

Louis XVI

Estates-General (1789)

Convened to discuss financial issues Three Estates

The First Estate – Clergy The Second Estate – Nobility (2% of the

population) The Third Estate – Representative from the

commoners and bourgeoisie (middle class) Inequality in voting (by estate NOT by population)

Result: The National Assembly Declared themselves a Republic (not a monarchy)

Factors

The Bastille

The Storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789)

• French prison seen as a symbol of monarchial authority• Only seven prisoners

(!)• Symbolic beginning of

the Revolution

The Republic appointed the “Committee of

Public Safety” during the Revolutionary Wars A dictatorship established to deal with external

threats Led by the Jacobins

Maximillien Robespierre Estimated 40,000 total deaths of French citizens

Institution of fear as a doctrine Executions on the basis of suspicion of treason

Guillotine

The Reign of Terror (1793-1794)

The Guillotine

Symbols of the Revolution

The Bastille