A Tale of Two Cities Essay
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens whom we have already talked about in one of our previous blogposts. It is one of the most popular English-speaking novels written by him. It has become a bestseller long before the appellation itself appeared. More than 200 million of copies were published in the original language only. It is a story of violent passions and exciting adventures in changing times, which French revolution affected two big cities London and Paris. A ward in the Bastille and guillotine were as real then-a-days as gatherings by the fireside and lace umbrellas and love and persistent hatred, touching devotion, self-sacrifice and vile betrayal created different edges of the Dickensian characters` world. 
The idea of the novel came to Dickens during playing the role of a man in Wilkie Collins` play who sacrifices himself for the sake of his beloved woman`s happiness and happiness of her cherished man. This was a situation similar to the situation in life of Dickens himself and he combined it with thoughts of French revolution he was inspired with by reading a book written by Thomas Carlyle, a writer Dickens admired and learnt from.
A special attention is given truly to the French revolution on the pages of the novel. It was the time of reevaluation and soul-searching for not Frenchmen only but all the Europeans. Revenge following the characters along the whole novel and even representing its main character of sorts. Revenge leads to violence, violence causing revenge. A circle with one way out only – revenge, violence and death. There is self-sacrifice born by love goes along with these monsters. Love always empowers people. Love is stronger than hatred.
Despite there to be no descriptions of executions, tortures and violence, the novel remains frightening. Surprisingly but the scariest episode of the novel is a triumphant cavalcade dancing carmagnole. Fanaticism is nasty in all its ways. There are no names of famous revolutionists from history books and even the names of the king and the queen are spoken poorly. There is only a story of one family whose destiny got caught up in the mincing machine of the revolution. The language Dickens speaks is so rich and the novel is another evidence. The plot is very unusual and the finale is very unexpected due to the fact that not the characters a reader expects play a critical role in the conclusion.
The novel is genius based on history due to the French revolution. It is all about evil made by the revolution as L. Tolstoy said. G.K. Chesterton said there is no other as rich in his language as Dickens was. Enjoy reading and you will definitely enjoy writing an essay on this marvelous novel.
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