#France and #England in A Tale of Two Cities

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#France and #England in A Tale of Two
Cities
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What, then, could A Tale of Two Cities signify
for Dickens's readers, if the writer's fears of
a massive uprising similar to the French
Revolution appeared groundless?
.
The answer
may be found by a closer look at the
contrasts, and not the similarities, between
France and England as they are depicted in
the novel. Rather than drawing readers'
attention to the current problems of the
country through a comparison with the
condition of pre-revolutionary and
revolutionary France, these contrasts serve
to reaffirm the stability of England.
.
* To illustrate, when Lucie Manette finds
her father Dr. Manette in Paris after his
eighteen-year imprisonment in the Bastille,
she tells him that they will "go to England to
be at peace and at rest"
.
Charles Darnay, while explaining his decision
to renounce his title and privileges as a
member of the aristocratic Evrémonde
family, refers to England as his
"Refuge" Jarvis Lorry
complains about the difficulties of
communication brought about by the
Revolution between the London and Paris
branches of Tellson's Bank: "At another time,
our parcels would come and go, as easily as
in business-like Old England; but now,
everything is stopped"
In
contrast, France becomes more and more
dangerous as the novel unfolds. The acts of
violence committed by the revolutionary mob
are among the most memorable scenes in
the novel. To give but one example, when
the Bastille is stormed, the mob kill the
governor "with a rain of stabs and blows,"
and Madame Defarge decapitates him "with
her cruel knife"
* It may be argued that Sydney Carton's
silent prophecy about the future on his way
to the guillotine compensates for the
negative image of revolutionary Paris and
France in the novel. "I see a beautiful city
and a brilliant people rising from this
abyss,"
thinks Carton to
himself. And yet, his prophecy seems to be
inappropriate, as the novel has never given a
sense that Paris is likely to become a
'beautiful' city that ennobles or is ennobled
by its people. Carton's "solemn interest… in
the streets along which the sixties rolled to a
death which had become so common and
material, that no sorrowful story of a
haunting Spirit ever arose among the people
out of all the working of the
Guillotine…") is one of the
best examples of the feeling of revulsion that
is associated with Paris and its people
throughout the novel. Nor has the novel
shown any characters who may become the
'brilliant people' of France who will make
their country rise from "this abyss" in the
future. Dr. Manette comes closest; he has
suffered the evils of both the ancien régime
(a term referring to the rule and the way of
life in France before the Revolution) and
revolutionary France, but his future is clearly
with his daughter and son-in-law in England.
None of them is likely to return after their
escape, not only because it will be politically
unwise, but also because a happy and safe
future awaits them in England, as Carton
prophecies: "I see the lives for which I lay
down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous
and happy, in that England which I shall see
no more"
.
* The future awaiting the "villains of the
piece," on the other hand, is death in France.
In the penultimate chapter of the novel,
Madame Defarge, who has been driven by a
desire to see each and every descendant of
the Evrémonde family executed, dies by
accidentally shooting herself in a struggle
with Miss Pross, Lucie's faithful maid.
Although the deaths of the other "villains"
are not narrated directly in the novel, Carton
foresees their fate on the guillotine: "I see
Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, the Vengeance, the
Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new
oppressors who have risen on the
destruction of the old, perishing by this
retributive instrument [the guillotine], before
it shall cease out of its present use"
.
It is interesting to note that
Carton's list contains not only those French
characters associated with the Revolution,
but also two English characters, Barsad and
Cly. Their careers as spies have finally
brought them to Paris, where they work for
the revolutionary French government. The
pattern is one of poetic justice: the
characters who have been depicted
sympathetically will end up in England,
whereas the villains, both French and
English, will finally pay for their crimes on
the guillotine in France.
.
* The only character to contradict this
pattern is Sydney Carton, who is executed on
the guillotine in Paris. However, his death is
not rendered as part of the workings of
poetic justice, as in the case of the villains,
but rather as a divine reward. From the
moment that he decides to sacrifice himself
by dying on the guillotine instead of Darnay,
he repeats the lines from the Scriptures,
beginning with "I am the Resurrection and
the life." This theme of resurrection
reappears with Carton's prophecy, where he
envisions a son to be born to Lucie and
Darnay, a son who will bear Carton's name
(357-8; bk. 3, ch. 15). Thus he will
symbolically be reborn through Lucie and
Darnay's child. This vision serves another
essential purpose, however. In the early
parts of the novel, Lucie and Darnay have a
son, who dies when yet a child (201; bk. 2,
ch. 21). Why the vision of another child, and
a son, apart from the continuation of the
theme of resurrection? If the Darnay\Carton
family is to survive into the future, they need
a son to bear their name. But much more
importantly, this second son will be born free
of the aristocratic stigma that has almost
destroyed his father Darnay's life. In this
way, the descendants of Lucie and Darnay
will live as English citizens free of any
association with France and its violent past.
When viewed from this perspective,
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A Tale of
Two Cities becomes a novel not about the
French Revolution, but about the
reaffirmation of England as a safe haven
and English citizenship as something to be
proud of. As Miss Pross says, "the short and
the long of it is, that I am a subject of His
Most Gracious Majesty King George the
Third… and as such, my maxim is, Confound
their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On him our hopes we fix, God save the
King!"