Sunday, November 10, 2013

Why is Charles Darnay upset with the circumstances in the village in A Tale of Two Cities?Chapters 8 and 9 in book 2

He isn´t just upset with the circumstances of the village,
he is actually upset with the circumstances in France. You need to realise that Dickens
selects "Monseigneur", Darnay´s uncle, as a symbol of the aristocracy in France. This
could explain why Monseigneur is just really a cruel caricature of a person - he
represents the attitudes, beliefs and actions of upper class French society. The damage
of this is evident in the description of the village in Chapter 8. Note Dickens´style at
the beginning of the Chapter - he doesn´t write in complete sentences, but just writes
snapshots of what he sees, making it almost an editorial, fragmented style focussing on
particular sights as if it were a newspaper:


readability="15">

A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in
it, but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor
peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate
nature, as of the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an
appearance of vegetating unwillingly - a dejected disposition to give up, and wither
away.



Notice how the picture
is painted here - poverty and want are features of the village from the very first. The
landscape doesn´t have corn but poor, "coarse" substitutes. The people are described as
the crops as they have a "dejected disposition to give up, and wither away." This scene
is heightened by the contrast to Monseigneur in his carriage - he has a blush on his
face, but not because of any sense of embarrassment through the living conditions of his
tenants, but because of the setting sun. Monseigneur does not accept or register the
poverty that he sees, except to see it as their "lot". Note how later on the country is
described as "broken" and then the description of the village repeats the word "poor"
many, many times to reinforce the point:


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The village had its one poor street, with its
poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relay of post-houses, poor
fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were
poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like
for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such
small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them
poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for teh church, the tax for the
lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to
solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any
village left
unswallowed.



Notice the
metaphor at the end of this vivd description: the village is depicted as being literally
gobbled up by the various people that are taking money from it. It is this that leads
Darnay to reject his inheritance and involvement in this tragic situation. Note how, in
the next Chapter, Darnay describes his "legacy":


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"... seen in its integrity, under the sky, and
by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt,
mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and
suffering."



Darnay, as befits
his generous, kind and responsible character, feels culpable for the actions of his
relatives and descendants, and thus sees it as his duty to renounce his title and
involvement with the situation.

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