A Tale of Two Cities

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A Tale of Two Cities
FRONT FRONT FRONT FRONT FRONT FRONT
Livija Alex Y. Spencer Adrian Shannon Michael
Julia Chad John Alex F. Sam Andrea
Caleb Thomas D. Thomas B. Luis Ethan Joe
Will M-M Katie Duncan Keegan Chris Will M.
x x x Will G. Jacob Sadie
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Todays objective

• To be able to describe how Dickens uses devices
  such as paradox to enhance and deepen his comment
  on good and evil in the world
• Recall The significance of paradox in the
  beginning
• It was the best of times, it was the worst of
  times

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Light and dark

• Dark

• Light

• personal disclosure that invokes Blaise Pascal's
  concept of a God-shaped vacuum inside each human
  heart
• "You told me that I would find a hole within the
  fragile substance of my soul."

• couples his stark confession with an affirmation
  of redemption that echoes Jesus' parable of the
  prodigal son
• It seems that all my bridges have been burnedBut
  you say that's exactly how this grace thing
  worksIt's not the long walk home that will
  change this heartBut the welcome I receive with
  the restart.

4
Make a connection

• Your group will be assigned one of the sample
  texts to compare to Dickens last lines in A Tale
  of Two Cities
• Be prepared to present your conclusions

5
Dickens social commentary

• Dickens uses the figure of Miss Pross to
  emphasize the power of love
• As the devoted servant battles with Madame
  Defarge, he notes that the vigorous tenacity of
  love is always so much stronger than hate.
• The showdown ?
• a commentary on social order and revolution

Mme Defarge Miss Pross
may prove fiercer and wilder ? but the social order that Miss Pross represents emerges as stronger and steadier
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Recall

• It was the best of times, it was the worst of
  times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
  of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
  was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season
  of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was
  the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
  we had everything before us, we had nothing
  before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we
  were all going direct the other way - in short,
  the period was so far like the present period,
  that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on
  its being received, for good or for evil, in the
  superlative degree of comparison only.

• Through paradox, Dickens reveals the coexistence
  of polar opposites
• Good and evil

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• Explanation

• Evidence

• Good prevails but
• Dickens ascribed to Carlyles theory on history
• One era must be destroyed before a new one can
  develop and thrive
• Carlyle noted, each new age is born like the
  phoenix out of the ashes of the past.

• And yet there is not in France, with its rich
  variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a
  root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to
  maturity under conditions more certain than those
  that have produced this horror. Crush humanity
  out of shape once more, under similar hammers,
  and it will twist itself into the same tortured
  forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and
  oppression over again, and it will surely yield
  the same fruit according to its kind.

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The revolutionaries

• Does Dickens condone or romanticize the
  revolutionaries?
• The violence may serve to cleanse society of the
  injustices of the French aristocracy, but it
  nevertheless creates its own sort of pollution
• In describing the peasants carefree return to
  eating, playing, and loving after their
  bloodthirsty execution of Foulon in Chapter 22,
  Dickens points toward a fundamentally corrupt
  side of the human soul

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Paradox comes full circle

• Christian paradox life is achieved through death
• Cartons sacrifice of his life enables him to
  live in a way that he otherwise could not
• He undertakes one truly meaningful and valuable
  act before dying
• Cartons life is extended beyond the moment of
  his death
• Lives on in Lucie and Darnay
• Cartons love of Lucie allows him to overcome the
  purposelessness of his life