Violence Cycles in Tale of Two Cities October 29, 1998
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             Charles Dickens, one of the most esteemed British writers of the nineteenth century, used to his famous work, A Tale of Two Cities, to give several important messages. One of the most important of these messages was that the use of violence only causes more violence. Specifically, he uses the repression of the France people by their rulers, the callous murder of the son of Gaspard, a poor French peasant, and most dramatically, the incredibly violent acts committed by Madame Defarge, led to her incredibly violent death, and how the use of violence begets more severe and more life-consuming acts. The violent oppression of the French people in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, by the ruling class of eighteenth century France is infamous throughout history. The aristocrats had no respect whatsoever for the less fortunate of their nation. Dr. Manette, a prominent physician in France during this time period, describes how one aristocrat treated his servant who failed to answer the door within a pleasing amount of time. "...one of my two conductors struck the man who opened it [the door], with his heavy riding-glove, across the face. There was nothing in this action to attract my attention, for I had seen common people treated more commonly than dogs. The other of two, being angry likewise, struck the man in a like manner with his arm...." To those two aristocrats, their servant was below contempt. The treatment of the common people by the nobles was so abominable that one man, Ernest Defarge, suggested to another man whose baby had died, "It is better for the poor little plaything to die than to live. It has died in a moment, without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?" The common people considered their lives to be so horrible that many of them wished that they ...