On Comparing ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘Persuasion’ May 18, 2011

I was really excited when I discovered this month’s theme for the Classic Circuit Tour managed by Rebecca Reid – Duelling Authors, Dickens vs. Austen. The first thing that came to mind when I saw this topic was, great! I’ve read a book each from both these authors in 2011 so far. Now the question was, so what? Do I write something on Austen? Or do I write something on Dickens? But a comparison would be more interesting, right? After all, they were in a duel!

So, I figured that was what I would do – compare the two books I’ve read so far this year (A Tale of Two Cities and Persuasion) and my response to them.

From the outset, it doesn’t particularly look plausible to compare the two writers. They both have their strong points and their weak ones. But to compare? However, as my reading has taken on a whole new level of observance, understanding and motive, I figured, putting these two writers up side by side, would not be a hard thing.

As noted before, I’ll be comparing A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Persuasion by Jane Austen. I will, at first discuss the fact that writers do not belong to the same era, thereby making their fiction of two different categories. Then I shall be addressing the setting of these two novels, the information we glean from these novels (both set around the same time, give or take a couple of decades), their themes and finally the kind of impact they have made on me and my response to them.

The One, Victorian; the Other, of the Regency

Dickens was a writer during the Victorian period. And for those who might not be very much aware, his novels most often dealt with the injustices meted out to the poor. He was a social writer, voicing out the maladies and the evils that had been wrought in the lower classes of England due to the machine of industrialisation. He sought to bring to the notice of the higher classes, the suffering and the poverty that existed alongside the wealth of the country. Austen, on the other hand, belonged to the Regency period, nearly half a century before Dickens. Hers was an era that was rife with so much political and social changes and unrest throughout, not only England, but the whole of Europe. However, Austen’s stories paint a tiny canvas of the English landed gentry, dwelling deep into the nature of the kind of people she knew best – their eccentricities, idiosyncrasies, petty-villainy and ordinary daily entertainment. Not one of her novels, at least of the four I am familiar with, deal with the scenario of the exciting period she lived in.

The Genre of, Setting and Background Information on A Tale of Two Cities and Persuasion
A Tale of Two Cities is, I believe, the only Historical Fiction Dickens ever wrote. [I stand corrected. Apparently Barnaby Rudge is also a historical novel set in 1780. Thank you Karen for setting me straight.:)] . The story is of love and sacrifice, set during the time of the French Revolution in the late 1700s. As for Austen, her stories are very much like today’s contemporary romances. They deal with crushes, young love, unrequited love, lost love and love through the years.

Dickens gives us a great amount of detail regarding the time of the overthrow of the French monarchy. This attention to little details I have seen many writers of historical fiction are prone to do. This is so, mainly because of the era in which they write and the contemporary audience they write for. Period detail then becomes a very important part of historical fiction for the reader needs to be familiarised with the age dealt with as much as possible. Hence, Dickens sets the stage implicitly and clearly taking us well into an era that he has captured better than any other fiction writer of the eighteenth century.

With Austen, on the other hand, we see nothing of the age she belonged to except in terms of social manners in a gentleman’s country manor. One never reads of anything to do outside of the class of the landed gentry. Earls and dukes are as remote as the poor. The ambitious wars of Napoleon Bonaparte are as remote as America, the new world. Austen’s world is small, minute, isolated from the rest of England and Europe. Her characters are so completely involved in their tiny, mundane lives, where nothing from the outside world touches the routine of their social circle. 

In A Tale of Two Cities we see much that was the cause of the Revolution, and much that was the result of the same. In Persuasion we see only the lives and loves that involve two or three families during the Regency period.

Writing and Style
They are two masters of the art.

Dickens’ eye for detail is incredible. He creates atmosphere and moods so well, exacting a response from the reader. It struck me, as I read his novel, that he wrote as though he were writing a script for the stage or the screen. A director choosing to do this movie would not have to imagine much on his own – Dickens has provided every ounce of information a director might need in terms of dress detail, expressions, hand and leg movements, detailing rooms, backdrops et al. You could so easily be ‘watching’ a movie of A Tale of Two Cities, whilst reading it! Of course, his novel is episodic in nature, being one of many written for a newspaper.

Austen’s art lies in her ability to bring out every aspect of human nature. Though her world is small, her heart is large, painting a picture so great that one does not miss anything else. One is drawn to her characters in varying degrees. Read these posts and comments in Austenprose and Jane Austen Today to see how much people are able to relate to her characters. Like Shakespeare, Austen is able to dispassionately read human character and artfully portray both its follies and its goodness without being judgemental. Perhaps it is this very ability of hers that has allowed her works to survive into the twenty-first century. Contemporary works her romances might have been, but the fact that she does not have background of her era detailed does not detract but adds to the power of her works, simply because you could take any of her novels and place them in any era you like – they would still be the same.

My Response to these Novels
Quite truthfully, I am not much of a Dickens fan. Much as I admire his writing style, I find that his characters are either too good or too evil. There is no grey. And there is so much of syrupiness in his characterisation – too much melodrama for my taste. Yet, A Tale of Two Cities now ranks among some of my favourites, simply because of how beautifully he captured and portrayed the French Revolution. To me, the story of Lucy, Charles and Sydney Carton were of no account. They served only as a means to explore the deprivation of the French poor, the excesses of the French aristocracy and the slow, yet steady build up to, what was later to become, a bloodbath in France. Madame Defarge, the wicked Marquis, these were the characters that stood out, larger than life, for me. They stand for the evil that the Revolution turned out to be – the latter for its cause, the former for the degeneration of its purpose. It was the historical aspect of this novel that captivated me so much. And while the end did affect me, it was not for Sydney Carton’s sacrifice for his love, but the consolation he lent a poor french girl destined for the guillotine, and what he finally represented – peace within a world of red.

Persuasion elicits no such passionate response from me. But my enjoyment of it was quite different. Again, to me, it wasn’t particularly the romance between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth that held me. I think, I just allowed myself to get lost in Austen’s prose. I love the way she writes, truly. Persuasion is so uncluttered and unpretentious. It flows smoothly and naturally, dwelling here and there on thoughts that give us insight into her characters actions and motives. Everything is so true. And sometimes, it is just nice, to be able to hold a mirror up to yourself and see yourself for what you are. As regards the story, I did enjoy. My favourite part, perhaps, was when Wentworth took to scribbling so profusely of his love for Anne. The way Austen describes that scene is incredible! I also like the fact that the two main characters had to learn to love each other again. Eight years is a long time to be apart, especially if one was very young when separated. Oh, yes, this was a pleasurable read.

To Conclude
So, there you have it – a comparison between Dickens and Austen, A Tale of Two Cities and Persuasion. Two incredible writers who have elicit Sense and Sensibility up for a read this year!

So, any of you read Dickens and/or Austen before? Which one of their works is your favourite? Any reason why?

Please don’t forget to stop by at the blogs who are participating in this tour.

If you would like to read more of what I have written on the two books mentioned here, including quotes, you can find them here:
A Tale of Two Cities
Persuasion

P.S. – I apologise for the lack of images to relieve the monotony of too much print. However, my browser is having so difficulty with uploading any. It seems to have given out on me once the Circuit Tour logo was up.:(

Character Connection: The old Marquis, Mm. Defarge and Carton February 1, 2011

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, has quite a few characters, most of whom are as important as the next as they all help move the story along. For years, when I heard people talk of the novel I only ever heard the name of Sydney Carton. And yet, he wasn’t the main character, and is perhaps remembered mostly because of the sacrifice he makes. Each of Dickens’ characters in this novel are interesting in their own way. But three of them stand out in my mind – The old Marquis de Evremonde, Madame Defarge and, it can’t be helped, Sydney Carton.

The Marquis de Evremonde:Any Georgette Heyer fans out there? Anyone who has read The Black Moth and/or These Old Shades? Anyone remember the Duke(s) of Avon? In the first book he plays the villain. In the second, the Duke is the hero. But they are exactly alike in physical characteristics and personality – tall, slender, handsome, with a sense of cruelty about them. Yet in the first book we cannot help being drawn to the Duke, and in the second…well….he’s the hero – we love him!

Read this description…

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril…they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. …it’s capacity to help such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes…still in the effect the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. (p.104)

I found the description and many others of the Marquis so strikingly similar to Heyer’s Duke(s) of Avon. It struck me, that had it not been for the heroine that redeems the Duke (I speak of These Old Shades here) this description (and the others) would be him to the life!

I despised the Marquis. He wasn’t human. There was nothing in the least bit humane about him. It was easy to see, then, why the mass populous was bound to turn on their masters if they (other aristocrats) were like him. He is responsible for the death of a small boy, when we first come across his lordship, but treats the whole affair as though he had run over a rat. And when he’s murdered in his bed, I couldn’t help but thing ‘Go, Jacques!’ – the common name in use for many of the peasants at the time. He didn’t think it at the time, but as I read further I realised he had had a greater role to play in the story, and one can’t help but wonder what manner of man, what manner of background and upbringing could make one so carelessly indifferent to life!

Madame Defarge:I didn’t think this Frenchwoman was going to play an important role in the story when I came across her first. She sat in a corner, and nothing missed her eye even as she seemingly concentrated on her knitting. I found her fascinating, and she grows to be even more so by the end of the story. Her husband and others have been planning the rebellion for years, but it would seem that she, Mm. Defarge was the real backbone. Her hatred for the nobility is simply stunning in it entirity, making her almost demon-like. She grows so blood-thirsty towards the end, and you look so desperately, almost in vain, for something that would redeem her; that would make the reason why she helped begin this revolution the “spring of hope” rather than the “winter of despair”. A character that is a rather strong, dominating one – something that we realise in full only towards the latter half of the novel, although one feels her presence quite insistently whenever she appears throughout the story.

Just to give you a sample of what she is like, here’s a quote (you’ll find a better portrait of the Marquis in the quote as well!):

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on hisface on the pavement oin that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

‘You dogs,’ said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: ‘I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels.’

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. (p.107)

She later leads the women folk to revolt, all of them marching to the Bastille with anything they can lay their hands on, and they were just as much a terror to be reckoned with as the men.

Sydney Carton [THIS CHARACTER SKETCH CONTAINS SPOILERS]:
Carton is an Englishman without a life. He is brilliant, as Dickens portrays him, but he has no ambition and no sense of purpose. The worst of it (for Carton), or the best of it (in terms of what it says of him as a man) is that he knows his life is nothing, and that he hasn’t the drive to do anything about it. But, this seems to hit home only when the lovely and gentle-hearted Miss Mannette comes into his life.

We see the foreshadow of Carton’s impending sacrifice when he tells Miss Mannette that he loves her and that he knows he isn’t worthy of her. But he tells her that should she or anyone she loves need him in times of trouble he will do anything for her sake. I found this particularly beautiful and poignant in Carton. He loved her enough to know that her marrying him wouldn’t do her much good. And towards the end, when he prepares himself for death, he knows that for her it is worth it.

As I read this novel I couldn’t quite understand why Carton was made such a deal of. No one seems to remember anyother character from this novel besides Carton. Everyone else is treated as a minor character in comparison to him. Thus, I always thought the story was about him. It isn’t. His role is small. But at the end, he play the part that helps his love and her family escape. And for Sydney Carton I knew only a sense of wistful joy as he dies, a man finally and completely at peace with himself.

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. (p.369)

Perhaps, after reading the final pages of A Tale of Two Cities it isn’t a wonder after all, that people remember Sydney Carton so well. His sacrifice as he drugs Darnay, whose place he takes in prison, his strenght and support that he lends a lonely peasant girl also in line to be beheaded, his calmness as he rides in the tumbril towards his death and his salvation; it all stands out so poignantly in the heart of the reader and leaves you with a sense that it was all about Carton.

A Tale of Two Cities published by Dent Dutton, edition 1979

How Dickens’ Tale of the French Revolution Had Me Floored! January 31, 2011

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

This one has been more than a week coming! When I first finished A Tale of Two Cities I was so fired up and had so much I’d wanted to say. The passion has cooled down somewhat, but I hope to recapture my thoughts and feelings on the book.

I went into this novel with mixed feelings. One – this was a story by Dickens. I’d read Oliver Twist and Great Expectations  and had been impressed by neither. I didn’t care much for Dickens’ style. This is the reason it took me five or six years to finally pick this book from off my shelf and read it. Two – this was about the French Revolution. A good point, that. I’m interested in anything to do with this era. However, three – my mom had told me how it ended and I wasn’t too keen on reading something that was sad. I overcame my feelings for point three sometime ago, was still into point two, and finally decided to give point one just one more chance.

The result? It was simply beautiful!

I don’t know that I would like to read Dickens again (except for re-reading this novel sometime), but I began to appreciate his skill. Actually, admire him for his skill.

The story…isn’t simple. It has a lot of twists and turns that to try and summarise it here would really give away a great deal. I will, thus, just stick to saying, it’s a story about a French doctor and his beautiful, sweet-natured daughter, the people who love them, and the small part they all play during the course of the French Revolution. Personally, for me, the main story itself didn’t do much, except for its end, and that for different reasons than what most who have read the book would think. (I shall elaborate on this point a little later). What I loved about this book was the unbiased portrayal of the mood and atmosphere of the French Revolution. As G K Chesterton** says:

Dickens’s French Revolution is probably more like the real French Revolution than Carlyle’s.

To better understand the above quote, I would like to point out, that Charles Dickens new nothing about the French Revolution until Carlyle had written its history. Dickens’ only source was Carlyle’s account. And yet he is supposed to have captured the spirit of the revolution way more clearly and more accurately than the historian ever did.

It is necessary thus to insist that Dickens never understood the Continent, because only then can we appreciate the really remarkable thing he did in A Tale of Two Cities. It is necessary to feel, first of all, the fact that to him London was the centre of the universe. He did not understand at all the real sense in which Paris is the capital of Europe. He had never realized that all roads led to Rome. He had never felt (as an Englishman can feel) that he was an Athenian before he was a Londoner. Yet with everything against him he did this astonishing thing. He wrote a book about two cities, one of which he understood, the other he did not understand. And his description of the city he did not know is almost better than his description of the city he did know.

What then was his source? His inspiration?



The Storming of the Bastille



…the fact of his dependence upon another of the great writers of the Victorian era. And it is in connection with this that we can best see the truth of which I have been speaking; the truth that his actual ignorance of France went with amazing intuitive perception of the truth about it. It is here that he has most clearly the plain mark of the man of genius; that he can understand what he does not understand.

If this is indeed true, that Dickens had no idea about the details of the French Revolution, until he read Carlyle’s history (and Carlyle was said to have given a detailed yet biased account of the Revolution. He apparently never believed in it.), then he is truly a genius to have woven this amazing tapestry on the same.

I love the way (and I know I am not alone or among the few in this) the novel begins:

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, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. (p.1)

Apart from the way he handled the background and setting for his story, I enjoyed some of Dickens’ literary devices. I was amazed at how detailed his description was – not that it would go on for pages, but that it highlighted such tiny aspects as the slant of an eyebrow, a ray of light, the position of a hand. It is all done with such finesse and the directions of a film script. I also loved his rhetorical phrasing, an example of which can be found here (apart from the above quote):

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room.

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the new comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unread ride, was, their at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in the coming there. (p.250)

Isn’t this passage so achingly beautiful? It is so full of pathos and so filled with gentle irony. But, I think also, with much sympathy, for not all of the aristocracy were responsible for the state of the common Frenchman, though, perhaps, unwittingly. However, it was the wickedness of a few, as represented by the old Marquis of Evremonde, that led to the Reign of Terror. By the end of the novel one sees how much out of control the revolution had gone with the blood-thirsty madness of the likes of Madame Defarge and her entourage, and the death of not only the innocent once-rich, but the poor as well. As I mentioned before, it wasn’t the main story itself that moved me, but the era in which it takes place. I shed my first tears when I read of the young peasant girl going to her death for something she didn’t do. Her words:

‘I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor weak little creature!’ (p.349)

I shed my second and last set of tears for this:

‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, that I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.’ (p.370)

These tears, though, were of a sort of relief and happiness for the man who found no joy (except one) in his earthly life, but was able to redeem himself so wonderfully at the end.

I had been speaking of Dickens’ writing style before I went down another road: he used a great deal of personification. And he picks out interesting quirks in each of his characters that we begin to know them by. These are little things, but they made the reading a pleasure. However, two things about his writing that I truly dislike were ever present here as well. One – his tendency to have a rather intrusive narrator’s voice. I dislike the fact that it distances you from the story, makes you feel more like an outsider looking in through a window of a house where interesting things are happening that you so much want to be a part of. This ‘intruding narrator’ seems to take a back seat in the third part of the book, though, which was probably why the last section of the novel is the most interesting (apart from its being involved solely with the revolution). Two – it has always annoyed me, the way everything falls together way too perfectly in terms of the plot line, in Dickens’ novels. Someone once used the word saccarine to describe Dickens’ works and I’ll have to agree. It’s like reading a Daniel Steele novel, I presume.

Yet, there are some memorable characters from this novel, of which I would like to mention three – The Marquis Evremond, Madame Defarge and Sydney Carton. I’ll be writing up a separate post for this mini-characterisation. At this point, I would like to mention how there is no one main character in this book. The whole novel is carried by the intricate plot.

I shall stop here. I had no idea, when I began this, that it was going to turn out so long!

If you have read A Tale of Two Cities I would love to hear if you agree with what I have said or not. What was your opinion of the novel? How has it affected your opinion about Dickens? If you haven’t read this novel, would you give it a try? I would highly recommend it!

If you would like a crash course in the French Revolution before you get started on the book, or even after you have finished it, here’s a good, succinct article for you to peruse.

A Tale of Two Cities published by Dent Dutton, printed 1979
** Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens by G K Chesterton

On starting out with a “Tale of Two Cities” January 2, 2011

It is only in the past year or two that I began reading prefaces and forwards and introductions to novels and anthologies. I don’t why it never occurred to me to read them before…but perhaps I thought they would be a dead bore and that I didn’t need to know. I’ve realised how much they can really help with understanding what you’re reading better!

In my copy of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, There is an introduction to the novel by G K Chesterton. Here are a few interesting things I’ve learnt.

1. Cockney was a term once used to refer to a person who is city-bred and who loves the city. Apparently, Dickens was one of those. These days the term has a different, rather negative meaning, or so Chesterton says.
2. Dickens loved London and didn’t know much about the other major cities in Europe. It would seem that while many other men of his day who took they Tour of Europe and enjoyed themselves, Dickens was only too glad to be home.
3. As a result of point two, Dickens was actually rather ignorant of the political scene in France around the time the Revolution broke out.
4. A Tale of Two Cities, then, is a tale that Dickens had wonderfully wrought out of all that he had read in Thomas Carlyle’s history of The French Revolution.
5. However, it would seem, that while Carlyle did not particularly understand the sentiments of the mass populous in France, Dickens did. And so, his account of the French Revolution in this novel is supposed to be more accurate than that of Carlyle’s!

On this note I’m excitedly gearing for a relishing read!