Hey Decathletes:
I hope you are all ready to celebrate the 4th of July! Remember, if there hadn't been a 4th of July there would have never been a French Revolution! We inspired the French to throw off the shackles of tyranny. But we did it in a more peaceful manner.
Let's go back to that theme of Redemption and Resurrection, specifically Resurrection. It pops up throughout A Tale of Two Cities. We see it in Jerry Cruncher's night job. He robs graves of their corpses...thus he is referred to as a "Resurrection Man."
The Guillotine is referred to (on page 278) by such nicknames as the "National Razor which shaved close" and "the sharp female". But Dickens also writes of how it "superceded the Cross" and how it was considered as the sign of the regeneration of the human race." In writing this Dickens wants to emphasize how the Cross had traditionally been seen as regenerative because according to the Bible Jesus had died on the Cross and had then been resurrected from the dead; but now the Guillotine served that same purpose--some people died so that the country of France could be resurrected again.
Regarding the Guillotine, go back and re-read pages 277-279 and pay attention to Dickens' description of the deadly "terrors" that overtook revolutionary France. As he writes the Guillotine "hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and the good." It was as if the mobs really thought they could purify their country by putting everyone through this terror. Horribly, other people have tried this very thing in recent history. The Khemer Rouge killed about a million of their fellow Cambodians in the mid-1970 in an attempt to purge their country of Western influence.
I hope you are all ready to celebrate the 4th of July! Remember, if there hadn't been a 4th of July there would have never been a French Revolution! We inspired the French to throw off the shackles of tyranny. But we did it in a more peaceful manner.
Let's go back to that theme of Redemption and Resurrection, specifically Resurrection. It pops up throughout A Tale of Two Cities. We see it in Jerry Cruncher's night job. He robs graves of their corpses...thus he is referred to as a "Resurrection Man."
The Guillotine is referred to (on page 278) by such nicknames as the "National Razor which shaved close" and "the sharp female". But Dickens also writes of how it "superceded the Cross" and how it was considered as the sign of the regeneration of the human race." In writing this Dickens wants to emphasize how the Cross had traditionally been seen as regenerative because according to the Bible Jesus had died on the Cross and had then been resurrected from the dead; but now the Guillotine served that same purpose--some people died so that the country of France could be resurrected again.
Regarding the Guillotine, go back and re-read pages 277-279 and pay attention to Dickens' description of the deadly "terrors" that overtook revolutionary France. As he writes the Guillotine "hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and the good." It was as if the mobs really thought they could purify their country by putting everyone through this terror. Horribly, other people have tried this very thing in recent history. The Khemer Rouge killed about a million of their fellow Cambodians in the mid-1970 in an attempt to purge their country of Western influence.
i have to say, Dickens discription of the guillotine was simply genius.
ReplyDeletehm..Frances people had an interesting view of fixing things.
you would think that since the clergy started to abuse their power that the citizens of France wouldnt base their opinions on the very things they teach.
[or was that in england? hm.. either way the enlightenment philosophers came in after that time.]