understanding
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities has been quoted countless times. But I guess the people who know it don't know what kind of story "A Tale of Two Cities" tells or why it's said. If you want to understand the original meaning of this sentence and why it is said and written, it is natural to read the original.
"-- In short, that era is so similar to this one." This sentence actually explains two things about the classic sentence above: why and to whom. This is one of the reasons for the novel, which Dickens hoped to express his fears by describing the disaster of the French Revolution to the general public, while warning of the danger in England. A revolutionary history, two cities representing two countries, several people in turmoil, constitute the main elements of the novel.
Although A Tale of Two Cities is a classic novel, because it clearly states that the background of the revolution is the French Revolution, the representation of the revolution is regarded as the author's historical view. This is the focus of numerous controversies over the novel. In the novel, Dickens not only showed the cruelty of aristocrats with exquisite words, but also showed the irrational destruction of revolutionary masses. Revolution, he argues, is the substitution of one kind of oppression for another, a direct, heavy, bloody insurrection for another. The storming of the Bastille Prison and a series of descriptions of the rioting populace - blood, cruelty, cunning, vicious is the most striking place in the novel.
Dickens devoted a great deal of ink to the description of the evil of the mob, showing his hatred of the mob, which can be said to be hatred of the revolution in a certain degree. Of course, Dickens, as a humanitarian, also pointed out the cure for the world: love. This kind of love is reflected in the novel, including family love, love, friendship, such private feelings, but also includes the kind of universal love to abandon the nobility and save the life. Among them, the most brilliant is the description of Carton's love.
I like Carton very much. In fact, Carton is the embodiment of Dickens, and Dickens first thought of Carton and his spirit and then conceived the novel. So, what was Carton like? The novel describes: Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.
This is a young man who has lost his talent and his youth. Why has he been like that? There doesn't seem to be anything in the novel, ever since he came out, and there's not much about his family background. Personally, I think this person represents Dickens himself, so he does not need to describe too much -- Caton's depravity stems from his own disappointment with the deteriorating society.
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