Oppression was a highly protruding fact in the 19th century. One could even consider it a calamity. It completely overwhelmed the way people in France lived. Various implements were executed in order to "control" the people during this time period. Within those implements was the disastrous mechanism known as the guillotine. A deadly instrument used for the decapitation of people. The british author G.K Chesterton stated in one of his pieces of writing, “ the guillotine is not the calamity, but rather the solution of the calamity.” Meaning that the guillotine was not the problem but the solution to the problem: the oppression. In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens we get a viewpoint on the guillotine and its institutionalization during the French Revolution. The guillotine in fact worsened the oppression or “calamity” reigned upon the people. It was not the solution to the “calamity” . By taking on a life of its own and by brutally submerging the people in its power and increasing their need to use it, it was only the calamity itself. Through Dickens’ tone and use diction, to characterize the guillotine, one is able to understand how the guillotine is brought to life and maintained alive by the people’s blood thirst to constantly use it. …show more content…
This inanimate object became alive but in the most horrible of ways. In a way that it merged all possible monsters that could be imagined. Through the author's tone during this especidic part in the novel, Dickens would most likely not consider the guillotine to be that of being useful. The voice within his words doesn't show any significant point of agreement with what the guillotine caused. It is almost as if we catch a hint of the author actually being displeased when mentioning the guillotine. This happens to contribute to Dickens thinking that the guillotine did not improve the
Our first piece of evidence is people in the revolution were being murdered without any reason. My support for this is in document E and F. Document E talks about the people and the National Convention. Document F is talking about what the Guillotine and how big of a part it played in the reign of terror. The second piece of evidence I will use to show that it wasn’t justified was the fact that it became very hypocritical. My support for this is in document A and G. These are the main two reasons the reign of terror wasn’t
In 1793 and 1794, were conditions in France serious enough to require such a violent response by the revolutionary government.The Reign of Terror lasted less than two years, from the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 to late July 1794.During those eighteen months, more than 20,000 French people were put to death by guillotine.The behavior by the revolutionary French government was not justified because Any society that invents the machine to publicly cut off people’s heads is off base. The action is unjustified because it is barbaric.The reign of terror was not justified because Robespierre’s s Desperate times required desperate measures not justified In a government that says it values liberty, passing a law like the levee en mass is unjust because it requires people to do things they do not want to do wrong in a government that says it values freedom and liberty. The revolutionary government made too many demands on individuals who were right to rebel against the oppressive revolutionary government. speech sounds rational, but he is out of touch. When a government has to “smother” its own citizens in order to eliminate individuals who challenge it, the government is not promoting freedom.To lay the foundations of democracy and the rule of law, rulers need to follow democracy and the rule of law, not the blade of terror. Any society that invents the machine to publicly cut off people’s heads is off base. The action is unjustified because it is barbaric.Nine people
The radical turning point of the revolution, marked by the Reign of Terror, was an atmosphere of mass executions and imposed paranoia, with more than ten thousand “counterrevolutionaries” (vaguely defined, which at the end turned out to be anyone with dissent) sent to death under the Law of Suspects. Robespierre himself states that “Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue… The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny”. “Severe and inflexible”, as justified by Robespierre, the revolution needed a push in order to reach its goals. France under the committee's total control sent anyone with dissent to the guillotine because they were considered to be a threat to the new government, which ironically named itself “for the people”. An anonymous eyewitness during the reign commented on the Reign of Terror collection of authentic narratives that “It seemed as if their blind fury was particularly directed against the weakest and most amiable.The loveliest, the youngest, and the most interesting females, were dragged in crowds into this receptacle of misery, whence they were led, by dozens, to inundate the scaffold” (325). The sickening extent of human toll
Chop! Chop! You hear as they behead large amounts of people using a guillotine also nicknamed the “national razor”. This machine was invented by, Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, which consisted of a heavy weighted angled blade that would slide down and behead the person who was sentenced to death. People liked the invention because it was fast, efficient, and painless. This was the beginning of the eighteen month period known as the Reign of Terror. It started when the horrible leader, King Louis the sixteenth was guillotined at the public square on January 21st of 1793. This era was led by Maximilien Robespierre and he believed that the government was there to protect the peaceful citizens. If anyone said anything negative about the way they
The Reign of Terror grew to be unlawful, denying those accused their rights. The accused were denied a lawyer and the right to defend themselves, all things given to them in the Declaration of Rights of Man. The government that was supposed to be protecting the rights of the people was taking them away, something that can't be explained. Lastly, the methods used to punish and control the citizens was inhumane. In document F, an engraving of King Louis XVI's death by Faucher Gudin, it makes known that '20,000 to 40,000 people were killed by the guillotine'.
A careless word of criticism spoken against the government could put one in prison or worse” i chose this quote because it shows how a person could be convicted of a crime and be incense.the tribunal sentenced 2,750 to death most likely more than 20 percent of those people were innocent and an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 were killed by guillotine in total. The method of punishment did not show that the reign of terror was justified more
In addition, Dickens includes many anaphoras in his writing to describe how a female was seen as a form power instead of weakness. Firstly, the Revolutionaries’ mass murder weapon is described as “the sharp female called La Guillotine” in Dickens' writing (212). Throughout the novel, the personification of a female weapon is repeated to put emphasis on the new perception of the strength of women. The Guillotine is a merciless machine, killing many day after day, similar to how many women participated in the bloodshed that ensued. Dickens uses this repeated symbol to define women as powerful machines who execute the task at hand without wavering. According to Dickens, no longer is a woman an individual, with the ability to console and have
During the course of the French Revolution, the persistent rebels finally achieved their goal and overthrew the tyrannical monarchy. However, even after this initial struggle came even greater bloodshed, for the rebels proved they could be just as brutal as their old oppressors. Yet, this brutality would never have been as extreme as it was were it not for the invention of the infamous guillotine. A dark machine designed for decapitation, it consists of a tall, wooden frame in which a heavy, sharp blade is suspended. Through the use of rope, this blade could be raised to its peak and then, upon releasing the rope, would be allowed to fall freely so that it swiftly crashes down upon its victims' soft necks. While
The novel’s opening words (Book 1, Chapter 1) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . .” Provided, Dickens conveys the relationship between poverty and aristocracy through the use of parallelism, paradox, and other poetic techniques. In addition to, Dickens's technique functions not only to draw opposites, but to reveal hidden parallels.
In the book, Dickens portrays the people as having the hatred necessary for mob violence. Immediately, the book shows us an example how such hatred was created. When a youth’s hands were chopped off, “tongue torn out with pincers” and “his body burned alive” it shows the violence and torture that led to the French revolution. The youth represents the weak in French society
The opposition is correct when they say that La Guillotine killed many, but they fail to consider how each of the people who were killed were killed for a reason. The peasants wanted to kill all of those who did bad deeds because they did not find them fit to live in the new France that they were
In the short story, In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, we are introduced to a horrible device that is used to torture and execute prisoners. This apparatus does this by repeatedly writing the word of the law that the condemned person had broken into their flesh like a bizarre tattoo artist made of pain and blood. It is both sickening and fascinating to read the account of how this machine operates from the character named the Officer as he describes in gross details just what this monster of metal does to someone. But, why would Kafka write about these grisly details of blood and torn flesh? It was a metaphor for what happens when a punishment system has lost sight of reform and justice. In this paper, we will see how the machine is many metaphors of fear, injustice and what happens when a justice system becomes one of torture and about how people can view the system and how it may seem unfair to the common person about to face it.
Charles dickens does not agree with the results of what happened in the French revolution. They were allover the place with their laws and imprisoned people for no reason. “you are consigned, evre'monde, to the prison of La Force… under what law?... we have new laws and new offences…”[4] an innocent man is sent to prison, exactly how it has been before the French revolution.
"They are murdering the prisoners," says Mr. Lorry to Darnay after arriving in France (260). Again Dickens uses capitol punishment as a way to show the reader the atrocities that humanity can create when consumed with hatred and evil. Dickens can be seen approaching the subject of the guillotine with cynical sarcasm when he writes, "it was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning gray…who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack" (271). Just as with the Aristocrats, Dickens does not condone the Jacques use of capital punishment. His disdain is apparent in his tone; which gnaws away at any inkling the reader may have that the treatment of the prisoners is fair.
In the sociopolitical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens analyzes the events of one of the bloodiest revolutions in history, the French Revolution, characterized by its violence after no less than 40,000 people were sentenced to death. The violence of the revolution put irreversible change into motion, helping to bring greater equality between French citizens as a result of the upheaval, and causing political changes that affected millions. Through his changing tone, Dickens conveys that rebellion is necessary to amend the ever-growing divide between the social classes, but the mindless nature of the violence, as a result of mob mentality, is excessive, and blood is unnecessarily spilled.