Social Inequality In Charles Dickens's A Tale Of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel which describes the lives and events of people living during the time of the French Revolution. The story takes place in London and Paris from 1775–1793. It is written in an ominous and dark tone, since it deals with a considerable number of rebellion and violence occurring during this time. Not only does it deal with violence, but it also focuses on the social upheaval and inequality between those of the aristocrat class and the peasant class. Dickens starts the story with an ironic element, by stating “It was the best of times, It was the worst of times,” (Dickens 3). Within the story, Dickens demonstrates how paranoid the citizens of the city become due to fear of burglars and thieves, which eventually …show more content…
According to Isabel Ford, author and publisher in The English Academic Journal, A Tale of Two Cities helps one to interpret how revolution impacts on individuals, how crises can change a person, and how much the innocent suffer. These issues are contemporary in relation with today’s world in the fact that there are common news stories concerning such issues. Furthermore,in the book, Dickens portrays how the poor have to live such lowly lives because of unfair treatment by the aristocracy. As a result,people of today’s world are able to relate to Dickens’s contemporary writing and depictions of social inequality. Dickens also expresses how he feels about the corruption of the governmental administration in the eighteenth century. He brings forth awareness to the plight of the poor by emphasizing the shamelessness and greediness of elites who possess large political power. He also writes that people rebel against their status as …show more content…
He uses incredibly ominous situations to prove his point. For instance, in the book a wine cask is dropped on the street in a poor suburban area. Everyone in the area immediately rushes toward it to kneel and scoop up the spilled wine into the mouths of their babies.These are the extremely poor people who live under harsh conditions, such as insufficient means to buying food due to the greed of the aristocrats. Dickens even goes so far as to include this symbolic scene where a man dips his finger into the tainted muddy wine, and scrawls the word “blood” onto a wall (Dickens 28).This scenario heavily depicts the tragic tone of how the lower class is greatly suffering at the hands of the aristocrats. By doing the previously mentioned, Dickens is setting the tone of his book as a discussion of social disruption. He is then able to create a dramatic scene using highly expressive effects in order to capture the emotions of this scenario.The Victorian Era encouraged novelists to write on the status of the inherently inferior lower class. As a result, Dickens demonstrates this in A Tale of Two Cities throughout the