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Excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The new era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame
There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head of the king—and now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it grey
A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; these things became the established order and nature of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world—the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine.
It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied.
How do the historical conditions of this period affect this excerpt from the novel?
The relentless violent horror of the Reign of Terror expresses itself in the long, gruesomely detailed descriptions
The fact that there is terror in all periods of history is revealed in the description of the Reign of Terror continuing night and day without a pause
The rightness of the cause of the revolution is proven by the description of the thousands of revolutionary committees that sprang up
Dickens's lack of understanding of the revolution's horror is shown in his comical description of the guillotine.
The fact that there is terror in all periods of history is revealed in the description of the Reign of Terror continuing night and day without a pause
Explanation:
The text shown above may influence the novel as a whole, due to its declaration of terror and constant violence. In all periods of the text we can see descriptions of terror situations, which, as the text itself presents, happened day and night, without pause or relief.
With this, this text can give the novel a sense of urgency, despair, fear and tiredness, showing that something really uncomfortable was happening in the place and that it influences the narrative efficiently.
