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Tale Of Two Cities Comparative Essay

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Change is something that must come and will always come, whether it be for better or for worse. This is especially the case in the changing of power in our world, to spark this change, people will fight until they die. Everybody can justify their plight with speeches of justice and necessity, but whether or not the ends justify the means is something that every person must decide for themselves. The theme of revolution is explored in both A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein, but their portrayals of it differ greatly. Throughout his Novel, Dickens clearly shows that he sympathizes with the peasants, but that he has very mixed feelings towards the way that the revolutionaries get what they want. …show more content…

Both author’s perspectives on revolution are displayed in the ending of their respective works and they could not be more different. A Tale of Two Cities ends with the hero of the story: Carton about to be executed at the guillotine. The story does not end with a huge celebration, but it ends melancholic and ambivalent. It is then stated, “Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms” (Dickens 659). He is saying that regardless of the intent of the revolutionaries, since what they did was through similar means of the aristocrats, everything will still end up the same way. He continues by saying, “Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind” (Dickens 659). Since the revolutionaries used violence to get what they wanted, they are no better than the aristocrats themselves and once they get into power, they will become the same as the aristocrats. They will continue the same cycle, but they will now be the ones in power. The ending of A Tale of Two Cities emphasizes that the revolutionaries’ violent means were contradictory to their original

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