Abstract
Almost every Englishman is aware, however slightly, of the wonderful novels of Charles Dickens. <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>, one of the historical fictions, set in the context of the French Revolution, begins with the miserable plight of the French people living under the exploitation of the aristocrats in the years leading up to the revolution and ends with the exceedingly blind and terrifying revolt and vengeance demonstrated by the revolutionaries. It has been vastly studied from different aspects, like the territory and disciplinary frontier-crossings, revelation of personal and national identity, uses of caricatures and ironies. We apply the quantitative method to the study of verbs related to violence so as to uncover Dicken’s attitudes towards the French Revolution and investigate deeper into the double theme - violence, madness, terrorism and love, reason, forgiveness. “How does Dickens’s approval of the capital punishment influence his writing of <i>A Tale</i>?” “As readers are drenched in the heart-rending sentiment and intoxicated by the sacrificial love at the end, why do hatred and violence, as claimed by many commentators, serve as the main theme of the novel? In fact, the answer is embedded in the use of verbs related to violence. We will first compare the political stands of Burke, Carlyle and Dickens, and then proceed to the two lists of words related to violence and a diagram displayed on AntConc, followed by the analysis of the three main characters in <i>A Tale</i> - Doctor Mannette, Madame Defarge and Sydney Carton.
Highlights
A Tale of Two Cities is considered as one of the most popular and innovative works written by Charles Dickens
Just as Colin Jones revealed in his French Crossing I that “Dickens's personal attitudes towards France and in particular Paris suggests a more ambiguous and complicated history.”[1]. Since Dickens is a reformist who advocates a less violent way to resolve social problems, why does he firmly approve of capital punishment instead of a total abolition? How do hatred and violence serve as the main theme of the novel? As the influence of Burke and Carlyle on Dickens are immense, we try to give a broad view to the two philosophers’ political stance before tackling Dickens attitude towards the French Revolution
Two lists of words related to violence and a diagram will be presented at its very beginning, from which we hope to find out the answer to questions we’ve brought forward
Summary
Foreign Language Department, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. Received: October 23, 2019; Accepted: December 12, 2019; Published: January 4, 2020
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