Barnaby Rudge and the Struggle for Brotherhood

Abstract

Dickens’s other historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is concerned with a revolution, but Barnaby Rudge is concerned with an anti-revolution. Gordon and his mob of rioters are opposing a change rather than trying to precipitate one. The riots, in trying to preserve an old status quo, are an attempt to hold back progress towards a more enlightened society with a stronger element of brotherly love. Dickens presents a sharply critical view both of the rioters and of the society from which they emerge. Gordon and his followers are supposedly adherents of Christianity; the writer brings out that they, like their society, lack what he sees as the essentials of Christianity. Centrally, in their attitude to Roman Catholics, the rioters lack any sense of the brotherhood of man and of ‘Universal Love’ (p. 239).1 Indeed, their professed Christianity does not go deep at all, the result of which is the terrifying events and situations which arise during the riots. The events of the novel, and the historical occurrences that are at their centre, are used to expose the urgent need for each of the individuals who make up society to adopt Christianity and its ethic of brotherly love.