Can modern-day humankind learn from the mistakes of individuals from history to prevent those same mistakes and their dire consequences from repeating themselves? That is the indirect question which the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens discreetly put forth in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, which primarily portrays the folly of France’s arrogant nobles and the turbulent wave of Revolution which the French peasants brought against them in their terrible desperation. Dickens’ initial audience was mainly the well-off and often frivolous Victorian upper classes who were deeply indifferent to the status of the toiling Victorian lower classes. This author and activist looked back at the deeds of France's leaders and their deadly consequences, and he saw sobering parallels between eighteenth century France and nineteenth century Great Britain. Indeed, the stifling and oppressive social conditions of the then contemporary England in which Charles Dickens once lived deeply influences the manner in which this author portrayed both the nation and people of France leading up to the violent French Revolution.

As a major point, Dickens wanted to show how the vast ignorance and apathy of the wealthy toward the lower classes' standard of living led the rich leaders to bring exorbitant repression upon these peasants. This repression was mainly brought about back in Victorian Great Britain by egotistically barring both the middle and the lower classes from the English political system, leaving only the rich voices to be acknowledged (Cody-Social par 2). Because of their lofty view of their privileged position, the upper classes had the draconian idea that they could ignore people of a lower position who simply wanted a fair say in their government. As a result, the lower and middle classes had no voice in the political process of their own country. Similarly, the cruel, apathetic and equally draconian Marquis Evremonde in the France Dickens portrayed has the longstanding belief that “Repression is the only lasting philosophy [fit for the French peasants’ lives] (Dickens p 142).” In a manner alike but somewhat more severe than the British upper classes, Dickens' French aristocracy feels that the nation's poor must not be allowed to have their small yet desperate voices heard. The aristocracy takes away the rights of the peasants to answer to themselves or their own needs by forcing the agendas of the nobles upon the poor. Unable to make political or social changes in their nations, the poor had no choice but to continue living in the manner which they have been forced to live for untold centuries.

Sadly, none of the poor in either England or France lived in what could be called the most remotely sumptuous conditions. In particular, a large portion of the urban Victorian lower classes had to live in the east partition of London's span in barren and highly unsanitary slums (Cody-London par 7). Without even the faintest political voice of their own, these poor people had to live in a place which they neither wanted to live in nor should ever have had to live in. Every day was filled to the brim with sickness and general misery for the English lower classes. In the same manner, the French peasants of Dickens' Paris are shown to not “know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death (Dickens p 40).” Like the Victorian poor, the French must eat unsanitary food while living through the doldrums of a miserable existence. They had been reduced to living so long in such grotesque conditions that they had not even experienced the slightest of such luxuries as the smallest portion of simple wine. There are so many of these miserable people in each country; how is it possible for such large populations in each country to all live such a wretched existence?

One needs not look any further than the unbelievably massive luxuries which the nobles of each period hoarded at the tragic expense of the well-being of the starving peasants. Of particular egregiousness was the case of Queen Victoria of England, who, despite having a monarchical role which was then a purely symbolic office for the international image of Great Britain, spent an outrageous 400,000 pounds on her lavish lifestyle (Cody-Queen par 2). While the lower classes were forced to trudge through their incredibly doleful lives, a very highly esteemed office with no practical or political purpose was showered with much of the country’s funds, which could have been spent on the poor. Why should so well-off a person such as the Queen experience so much extravagance while millions of pitiful people struggle to get food for their families? The general mentality of the ignoble nobles of France described by Dickens before the Revolution is similarly shocking and appalling, with Monseigneur, for example, believing that the French people and economy must all "tend to his own power and pocket (Dickens p 122)." Monseigneur does not even feel it the least bit necessary to try and hide his greedy desire for unadulterated dominance and luxury at his people's expense. He spends his greatly bloated budget on various unnecessary and wasteful amenities at a time when the starving peasants have no choice but to subsist on their disgusting black bread. The nobles of both these periods share the prideful thought that the needs of the poor are secondary to the primary pursuit of their own pleasures.

    Therefore, these oppressed peasants had to work tirelessly to appease their grossly extravagant and thrift-seeking masters.  Indeed, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom had become the unrivaled industrial master of the earth (Hobsbawm par 1). It would appear that with such presumable thrift, all the inhabitants of England would be very prosperous as a byproduct.  But it was apparent that this very industrial dominance was being achieved through the unnecessary blood, sweat and tears of the vast labor pools that were made up from the lower classes.  Both children as well as adults toiled for an average of sixteen hours a day in the numerous factories (Cody-Child par 2).  The industrial machine which England was fast becoming required enormous amounts of grueling labor.  By working, toiling and slaving for appalling lengths of time, the lower classes held up Britain's industries on their aching backs.  Likewise, Dickens notes how the exhausted peasants of eighteenth century France have a similar "dark deference of fear and slavery" toward their cruel and slave-driving masters (Dickens p 142).  Like the Victorian lower classes, the French peasants had to work tirelessly and timidly for their greedy overlords.  All the painful and soul-sapping efforts of the innumerable poor had to be focused solely towards furthering the earthly comforts of the small aristocracy.  With all this pain and suffering, it is not terribly hard to imagine the negative results from such an outrageously broken and oppressive system.
   

Eventually indeed, that which was once merely imagined finally became tangibly manifest through alarming external effects which not only deeply disturbed, but even physically harmed the arrogant rich of each country.  By the middle of the Victorian era, in fact, violent crime had become so rampant that the city of London, the very capital of Great Britain, contained few if any safe havens from vicious muggers, robbers, and even murderers (Banerjee par 1).  The social and labor conditions of the period were so superbly oppressive that those poor souls affected by it were forced into lives of crime.  Whether stealing for money and food or killing for simple self-justification, crime was one of the few ways through which the common people could survive in that climate.  This crime had become so widespread that the Victorian police forces were hardly ever able to keep it in check (Banerjee par 3).  By the time those in positions of power realized the plight of the lower classes, they were incapable of dealing with the consequences of such rampant misery.  The grinding pain of the lower classes had finally exploded out upon the society of England, and the upper classes were ill-equipped to deal with the widespread results of their apathy and arrogance.  Likewise, Dickens' similarly apathetic French aristocracy is violently overthrown by the frustrated and starving peasants during the French Revolution (Dickens p 270).  The French nobles, in a like kind with the Victorian upper classes, are totally incapable of subduing the torrential rage of the poor which had swelled up in a turbulent wave throughout their nation.  In the case of France, these nobles were actually directly singled out by the poor in the peasants' great desperation for sustenance.  The same cause, oppression of the starving poor, led to the same effect -- rebellion against the greedy rich.

    Dickens wrote a highly rich and eloquent fictionalization of a set of previous injustices he saw in history to be used as a method to discreetly critique the social and political problems of both his own period and, someday, of future eras and cultures.  He greatly wanted more than anything for Victorian readers specifically and modern readers indirectly to eventually look at historical wrongs and compare it to the audience's own time's issues.  By doing thus, these readers could correct the troubling inequities of their various societies and assist the needs of the poor around them who were constantly consumed by suffering.  If the audience could eventually be convinced to help those in drastic need of assistance, there would no longer be any need for the suffering to rebel so violently or so desperately as they did back in those Two Cities.