Human Hypocrisy - a Tale of Two Cities

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Human Hypocrisy : A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens, in his novel, A Tale Of Two Cities, vividly captures the lives of the people before and during French Revolution. Dickens uses this novel to illustrate the dark hypocrisies ever present in humans. The commoners, in trying to seek vengeance and justice, exhibit the same negative characteristics as the rich they damn. The mass executions of the aristocracy, the assassination of Marquis Evremonde, the justice system and Dickens’ final thoughts about the subject through the narrator, all contribute to this dark theme of escalating violence when following the path of vengeance. Dickens examines the irony and hypocrisy, in the French Revolution, through the cruel and violent mass execution of the aristocracy, carried out by the commoners, in retaliation to the cruel and violent capital punishments imposed by the aristocracy on them. Dickens personifies the guillotine as a drunken noble who consumes human lives. By doing this, Dickens shows us the cruelty of the mob as they much rather serve this more violent noble, “La Guillotine”, rather than the previous aristocracy. He describes the frenzy of executions as, “ ...all red wine for La Guillotine...” (487). The guillotine was a device originally made by an aristocrat, Antoine Louis, to use for capital punishment, mainly on commoners (Klein). Ironically it was the commoners who made the use of the guillotine famous during the French Revolution. The commoner’s service towards “La Guillotine” highlights the irony in their revolution as they become the cause of the violence and oppression they are trying to uproot. Another example of hypocrisy in the French Revolution, caused by the cruelty of the mob, would be the unjust execution of the seamstress towards the end. The seamstress speaks to Sydney Carton, on death row, telling him, “I am not unwilling to die, if
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