Friday 27 March 2020

Discuss A tale of two cities as a historical novel, historical fiction notes

                   A TALE OF TWO CITIES
  
Discuss A tale of two cities as a historical novel, historical fiction notes
A tale of two cities as a historical novel


"The domestic life of a few simple private people is in such a manner knitted and interwoven with the outbreak of a terrible public events that the one seems put part of the other,Discuss this view about "A tale of two cities". 
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How far is a A tale of two cities a complex marriage between the private life of a few individuals and public events.
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Comments on the view that the revolution has been well integrated with the main story in a tale of two cities .
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How far is A tale of two cities a blend of history and fictions?


Dickens as a novelist of the Victorian era was more or less a moralist. As a social reformer and a humanitarian he used fiction for arousing social conscience,through he is out to expound in Gospel,he still remains an artist who integrated fact and fictions,realism and fantasy.

A tale of two cities is a two stories of a group of individuals and a story of the French Revolution. The revolution is used a background against which the story is narrated . Fact ,fiction,imagination,history,public and private events are all artistically woven in the story .

Dickens does not portray-the entire drama of the revolution,but he has focused on a few causes and effects of the revolution , the reign of terror and a group of private individuals who are influenced by the turn of events against their will . He has highlighted scattered accounts of the revolution,His main aim is to point out the meaningless terror of the revolution , and the fact that suffering of the people lead to violence which in turn leads to bloodshed and cruelty . His major success lies not in the vivid account of the revolution but interweaving the personal lives of a few characters with the revolutions . 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES AS A HISTORICAL NOVEL 


The main character  are swept into the event of the times as innocents victims , for the sake of love and humanity. The major character Dr. Manette, Lucie, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton and Jarvish lorry are all linked to each other and the revolution .

Dr.Manette daughter, Lucie is married to Charles Darnay , Nephew of Evremonde . Her benefactor Jarvish Lorry is a devoted to her as Sydney Carton ,her admirer ,who is willing to sacrifice his life for her. Later when Charles goes to France to help Gabella, the caretaker of his ancestral chateous ,he is arrested by the revolutionaries and condemned to death. Sydney ,who has promised to give his life for Lucie,Sacrifice his life and dies in the places of Charles .Thus,preface the various characters are swept by the revolutions because of their relationship to each other and France. Directly or indirectly most of the characters are related to France.While Dr.Manette and Charles are French ,Lucie is half french. Sydney however gets swept by the turn of events as an admirer Of Lucie.


Thus unwilling all the characters are linked to each other, French and the revolution. Dr.Manette's arrest and acquittal, Charles arrest and acquittal are all linked with wider pattern of history due to which they suffer time and again,the novel moves from England to France ,from private events to public events. However there is no discontinuity as we moves from domestic to revolutionary scenes. Dr.Manette is a victim of the tyranny of the Evremonde and the letter written by him while he was in prisons ,paves the way for Charles condemnation as he is an Evremonde. The revolution compels him to go to the Paris and there the revolutionaries condemn him to death. Madams Defarge ,the leaders of the revolutionaries naturally wants to have Charles execute because the Evremonde had been responsible for her suffering.

It is ironical that all these characters are swept into the whirlwind of events, not because of any revolutionary ideals, but because of destiny , Sydney as well as the other suffers because Charles belongs to the callous aristocratic Evremonde's family and he has been marked to death by the revolutionaries . Charles past and French , political events sweep all the characters in a web from which their is no escape .

Since the novel moves from the figure like Marquies who represents a class to these like the doctors who cannot escape the historical process, Dickens seem to suggest that private and public events are so closely linked that man is a part of history and he cannot evade it . History is ambigious and in complete is to compromise at first we are with the Defarge as they seems to be on the side of liberty and justice later they are persecutors and thus the ambiguity is highlighted.
To sum up, A tale of two cities is an excellent example of fact and fiction being artistically interwoven . The novel is complex marriage of private and public events . The event in France invade the peaceful life of the people in England. The footsteps of the French revolution echo in England and the private lives of the characters become the part of the revolution. They are unwillingly drawn into the spiderweb and they have to suffer. Such in life man cannot escape public events as history is a part of life . 

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