Image: Mindspace Studio via Unsplash Charles Dickens was heavily influenced by a world of transition around him, especially as he lived through the Revolutions of 1848 that had ensnared most of Europe. A Tale of Two Cities is arguably a product of this feeling, as France is pictured on the cusp of revolution. In thinking about liminality and existing in a state of the unknown, there is no more suitable novel.
Dickens was fascinated with writing change, but also provided messages which would transcend generations. Set during the French Revolution of 1789 and its horrific aftermath, Dickens explores the social injustices that accompanies moments of instability. He portrays the unnecessary deaths of countless French citizens who have their lives taken away by the surveillance state born under the rule of Maximillien Robespierre in the 1790s.
The characters in the novel are transitional themselves. Lucie Manette was rescued from France as an orphan during the Revolution and taken to England. Charles Darnay, her husband, fled France during the Revolution. The main characters exist in the very idea of liminality, as they both exhibit an identity torn between France and England. Half of the novel depicts the fever of revolution in the build-up to 1789, and the second half depicts the oppression of the Reign of Terror. Dickens eloquently captures the sense of revolutionary spirit in evocative language but also the brutality of the regime.
Dickens hints that moments of change are not always positive, as he reflects on whether such moments are able to produce better societies. In a sense, he is offering a critique of the historical moment, and that moments of great change which we imagine to be progressive, don’t always live up to expectations. Regardless of how transitional, change can be negative. Despite its brutal aftermath, it can be easy to romanticise the French Revolution.
The heart of this is explored through Charles Darnay, who is accused of being an emigrant in leaving France for England during the Revolution. He is imprisoned in the Bastille and deemed a traitor of the Republic. Throughout his trial, Dickens depicts the brutality of the regime in the merciless killings of citizens, through the infamous guillotine that took the lives of the ruler themselves: King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette.
Dickens displays a period of contrasts, and a society existing in a liminal state, most famously through the opening passage, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The sense of revolutionary spirit conveyed undeniably results from a moment of transition, as France was on the brink of merging into a modern State, but Dickens questions whether the means of transformation was just, or meaningful.
Dickens’ poignant words have the ability to cross generations. In the age of the pandemic we should turn to Dickens for his crucial message of hope, even in the darkest of times. Despite the inevitable terror outlined in A Tale of Two Cities, it remains full of optimism: “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss”.