Blood & love
Blood can't heal pain, but love can
The Chinese version of The Tale of Two Cities has been read more than 5 times since I was 15 years old. With years lapsed, the English version which is still read by me for English class reminds me of more details and provokes deeper thinking. As I read, I felt a little uneasy in my heart. An indescribably complex emotion drive me to cry. What distinguishes it from several other works by Dickens is that while satirizing the social state at that time, there is an irreplaceable sacred love. This is a reflection of the French bourgeois revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
A Tale of Two Cities takes the turbulent French Revolution as the background. The story spans the two cities of London and Paris, and starts a love-hate story with the Dr. Manette family and his friends Defarge and his wife as the main line. The gist of the whole story is that blood cannot wash away hatred, let alone replace love.
Beginning with the well-known golden sentence in the opening chapter, this novel does not have the bitterness or the deliberately fake pattern that is common in other Dickens works, but the writing style from beginning to end is cold and reserved, emotionally restrained. The tension is full, the needles are hidden in the cotton, and the interlocking lays out a period of grievances and hatreds against the background of the French Revolution.
The author, Dickens, is truly a master storyteller. His thorough observation of human nature and his profound thinking about social warfare made him cherish words like gold. Love, revenge, war, three independent clues are intertwined, making the plot mysterious and complex. and the structure is exquisite and complete. The author said that it was the best of times and the worst of times. Both London and Paris are cities with long histories that are not far behind and are constantly evolving. In A Tale of Two Cities, the boundaries between the two cities are no longer so clear as the characters' stories develop. The book describes the current situation in Paris in the middle of the 19th century. The disparity between the rich and the poor — the rich are extravagant and promiscuous, the poor have no food, the grievances of the bottom society are spreading, and a terrible revolution is brewing .
To the suffering of the people, the author is sympathetic. The brutal oppression and exploitation of the aristocracy finally aroused the resistance of the people at the bottom, and the revolution broke out. In the name of liberty, break the order and build a new France, these slogans show the determination of the French people to fight for freedom and equality. Sounds like the best of times. On the one hand, the author sympathizes with the people at the bottom and understands their desire for resistance. On the other hand, he is helpless against too much turmoil and barbarism and chaos. The author takes us closer to the distant 18th century from the perspective of calm debate.
In any country, in any period, in any war year for any reason, the common people are the victims of the ancient times, and the tragedies are repeated one after another. From ancient times to the present, the current peace that has evolved over centuries of time is indeed worth cherishing by everyone.
Each of Dickens's works not only exposes the ugliness of the society at that time, but also exposes different human natures, some of which are even uglier. The reason for Dr. Manette's imprisonment, the experience of Madame Defarge's family, the cause of death of Gaspar's child, and the subsequent revenge all vividly reflect the various devastations of the French aristocracy to the poor in the 18th century. It's real, not made up by the author.
The book also taught me another side of the French Revolution. It is about love and redemption. Not until the end that it seems I can vaguely see the whole picture of the whole building. At the end, I can understand why Dr. Manette became mentally ill so far, and why the disease relapsed on the day of his daughter's marriage. Every little character in the book is full of images, the unsatisfactory Carton, the kind Lucie, and Darnay, who voluntarily gave up his aristocratic status but ended up trapped because of this status.
I was moved by the sincerity of Sidney Carton. Carton fell in love with the heroine Lucie at first sight in court. He was not reckless but just kept silently guarding her. He who was always an unimportant guy in the society made a fatal decision that he will replace Lucie’s husband to go to the guillotine. It is this sacrifice that made him from nobody to a great man. He loves Lucie but he choose to be a virtuous man. At the end of the reading, I found that he is the real protagonist. The last indifferent smile and quiet expression, as if possessed by a god, gave people endless shock. Although he sacrificed himself for love, in another way, he will forever occupy an irreplaceable position in the hearts of those he loves. This is what Carton deserves! Although Carton was uncomfortable in some respects, Carton, a self-serving and self-serving lawyer, undoubtedly shone a different light at the end of his life compared with Stryver. I see a redemption in him. In the end, I was really moved to tears by Carton. His death composed an ode for a tale of two cities and a praise song for every reader. I believe this novel and hero Carton will guide me to know what love is and how to love others forever. I think it is Carton's transformation from a mediocre, self-abandoning tragic life to dying for love and being willing to sacrifice to fulfill the deep affection that contributed this person's personal charm. The experience of the character Carton reflects Dickens' humanism in this book to the greatest extent, that is, self-sacrifice and dedication for love, and the influence of love can save people's spirit.
The novel also depicts many other flesh-and-blood characters, each of which is not a brushstroke, but has its own distinct character,such as the indifferent and cruel Mrs. Defarge. At first I was very disgusted with this character. Monsieur Defarge and Madame Defarge turn themselves into abusers from the sufferers. In the beginning, they carry out violence out of hatred or fear against the aristocrats, yet gradually they become irrational about violent revenge, and become extremely cruel and fierce. Dickens criticized this evil era throughout his articles, but at the same time he did not forget to pin his inner tenderness on a few little people. If you are willing to look carefully for the praise of human nature in the book, then your attention will most likely stop on Dr. Manette. Compared to Dr. Manette, Madame Defarge was completely blinded by hatred, and even became a slave of hatred. Unrestrained desire is the sharpest knife that anyone can hold and swing at innocents and chop off their heads in the name of "freedom". But then when I learned of her family tragedy, I felt compassion for her again.
Mr. Manette, Carton, Darney and so on are people who dissolve their hatred with universal love for humanity. They embody the humanism spirit during a period when everybody else is obsessed with violent revolution. Mr. Manette had had great hatred against the family of Darnay, which had imprisoned him without reason for 18 years. However, out of his love for his daughter, Lucie, he willingly accepts the marriage between Lucy and Darnay, casting away all the enmity. Darnay, being the nephew of the dupuis, abandons the rank of nobility and property after recognizing the hideous crime of his family, and practice for “redemption”. On the one hand he is the sufferer of the aristocrat being tolerant, while on the other hand is the successor of the aristocrat being humane. They enhance each other’s sublime images with the linking of the universal love. Among the crowd of bloody revolutionists, this group has been highly idealized or say, sanctified, yet this is probably the intention of Charles Dickens--putting forward another possible peaceful solution to dissolve the social conflicts. And this reminds me of something expressed in the Unbearable Lightness of Being: history rolls on and on, with hatred or hope along. Maybe the sentence by Carton at the end of the novel better illustrates the opinion of Dickens--“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
There are roughly two different methodologies in this world about the pain people endure. One is that you have endured that kind of pain yourself, and you know that it is unjust. When you can, you should eliminate that kind of painful power and let it not work on anyone again; the other is to endure it yourself. Know that it's unjust, and when you can, take that pain-making power and use it on others but yourself. Obviously, in Dickens' view, the former is the light of hope for mankind.
Dickens's calm and objective description of the French Revolution in this novel, his sympathy and criticism of the restraint of peasants and revolutionaries, are not only rational but also saturated with the brilliance of human nature. A Tale of Two Cities is not just a work that criticizes reality. Under the guise of "criticizing everything", I still feel the author's expectations for a new era in the future. After all, in such a bad era, the brilliance of human nature has not disappeared. What a comforting thing it is!
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