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A Tale of Two Cities

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.

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A Tale of Two Cities

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  1. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. Charles Dickens (cont.) • Notable Novels and Short Stories: • The Pickwick Papers (1836-37) • Oliver Twist (1837-39) • BarnabeyRudge (1841) • A Christmas Carol (1843) • David Copperfield (1849-50) • Hard Times (1854) • A Tale of Two Cities (1859) • Great Expectations (1860-61)

  5. Criticisms of Dickens • 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

  6. Two Cities: London • 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

  7. The Victorian Age • 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 London, 1888

  8. The Victorian Age

  9. Victorian Age • Notable inventions / innovations: Steam Engine Railroads Steamship – SS Great Western Stagecoach

  10. Victorian Era: Social Issues • Issues addressed in Dickens’ writings (Issues with industrialization) • Poverty • Wealth Gap • Poor Working Conditions (Factories) • Workinghouses • Child Labor • Prostitution • Poor Living Standards

  11. Architecture • Victorian Architecture merged elements of Medieval Gothic Romanticism with the introduction of steel as a building resource. Palace of Westminster (1870)

  12. The “Red Brick” Victoria Building (1893) Manchester Town Hall The John Rylans Library Victorian School of Art and Science

  13. 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

  14. Victorian Literature • “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

  15. Dickens’ Social Commentary • 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

  16. A Tale of Two Cities • 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)

  17. 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

  18. Key Events: The French Revolution (1789-1799) • 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)

  19. Factors • Spread of Enlightenment ideals: • “The Social Contract” • Thomas Hobbes The Leviathan • John Locke The Social Contract • Jean-Jaque Rousseau On the Social Contract • Other sources: • Voltaire • Thomas Paine Common Sense • The Declaration of Independence

  20. Factors • 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)

  21. King Louis XVI Palace of Versaille King Louis XIV “The Sun King” ("L'État, c'estmoi")

  22. Louis XVI • 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

  23. Factors • 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)

  24. 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

  25. The Reign of Terror (1793-1794) • 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

  26. Symbols of the Revolution • The Guillotine The Bastille

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