肖琳 闫佳洋
重庆师范大学
Charles Dickens (1812 -- 1870), a famous British writer, has created a large number of excellent works in his life and is known as "the second largest writer in Britain". Most of his works depicted the British society of the Victorian era in the 19th century. With sharp writing style, he analyzed various class contradictions in the British society at that time and deeply exposed various evils in the capitalist society. A Tale of Two Cities is dickens' representative work and one of his most satisfying novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the novel integrates various characters' grudges, family feuds and class struggles. As a literary classic, a Tale of Two Cities deserves to be explored deeply. The most enduring topic in the novel is the theme of "duality".
In a Tale of Two Cities, Dickens put great effort into the word "double". He used "dual personality" or "doppelganger" to make the characters in his works collide mentally and physically in the twists and turns of the story, creating a special dramatic effect. The word "Doppelganger" is a compound word made up of "doppel" and "ganger", which means "two people walking together". American novelist L.J. Smith's vampire stories, the Vampire Diaries, brought the term into the public eye.
In western literature, there are many works about dual personality. Russian writer Dostoyevsky's novel "The Man with Two Personalities", tells the story of the Russian czar age petty official Goliagin split personality, his other half to take advantage of its defects to control his life, finally was sent to the lunatic asylum. In the novel "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," a doctor, suffering from the occasional evil thoughts in his mind, tries to separate himself from his evil partner by taking a drug, which results in a very embarrassing situation.
(1) Embodiment of duality theme
Throughout a Tale of Two Cities, dual personalities and contrasts abound. Such as:
1. The heroes mirror each other
In court, Dickens described Darnay as having "a mirror over the prisoner's head, to cast light upon him. How many evil and unhappy men have been reflected in the mirror, and have vanished from his face and the face of the earth." "Mirror image" is often seen in works describing dual personalities and split personalities. After Carlton saved darnay who looks very similar to himself in court, he found that both of them loved Lucy, and Lucy really loved Darnay. At night, Carton, with his candle, went to the looking-glass, looked at himself in it, and murmured his love for Lucie, and his envy for Darnay. The similarities between Carton and Darnay go beyond appearance. They are both generous to people and express themselves in different ways. Carlton felt that his talent was nowhere to be used, that he did not fit into the society, that no one really needed him, and that his desire for self-sacrifice was even stronger. Darnay had a family, a wife and daughter to take care of. Darnay also had a willingness to sacrifice for others, and in this they had something in common. They both want the same thing, but they choose different ways to express their desire.
The two heroes Carlton and Darnay together is a dual character, and they are contrasted in many ways: Darnay is from a noble family, carton is an orphan; Darnay was a very idealistic young man, and Carton was always drunk; They both love Lucy, but only Darnay wins her heart, and Darnay's idealism inspires Carlton, who eventually goes to the guillotine for his beloved. The two of them are mirror images, reflecting each other. Carlton sees his own gap in the mirror or darnay, so his life changes greatly in the end, which is the highlight of the novel, in line with the theme of resurrection.
2. The two female protagonists are like two sides of a coin
The two main female characters in the novel, Miss Lucy and Mrs. Defarge, have both commonness and individuality, like two sides of the same coin. As women, they are soft and strong, miss Lucy gentle and kind, Mrs. Defarge petulant and fierce. Their beliefs are the same, and their feelings for their families are strong, but they express those feelings in very different ways. Miss Lucy is a typical female image in the Victorian era. She is selfless, kind, and works hard for the happiness of her family and friends. The purpose of Mrs. Defarge's revolution is to establish a new world, so that the hard-working people can stand up for themselves and have a new life.
Miss Lucie used moral influence, while Mrs. Defarge used violent means to guide her husband and the people of Paris to seize power through radical force. The contrast between them is another bright spot in Dickens' writing, which allows readers to see the feminine qualities of hardness and softness.
3. The interplay of places and people in the twin Cities
In a Tale of Two Cities, Dickens described Tellson's Bank in England as a prison and a tomb, a symbol of the decay and decay of England. Mr. Lorry, of Tellson's, and Dr. Menette, were very much alike. While Mr. Lorry was trapped at Tellson's, And Dr. Menette was in the Bastille, they were both, in a way, prisoners of the inhumane system of a corrupt society. Miss Lucie's careful care for her father, Doctor Menette, made Mr. Lorry feel the warmth of his family, and saw the hope of life. Both the older men were revived because of Lucie. The appearance of the twin cities of England and France, the correspondence between Tellson's bank and the Bastille, and between Mr. Lorry and Doctor Menet.
4. Warm and cold color interweave reflect
In Chinese culture, red symbolizes wealth, auspiciousness and happiness. On the contrary, in English culture, red symbolizes warning, danger, and tension. Red appears frequently in a Tale of Two Cities. The description of the fifth chapter of the first volume is the most profound: a large barrel of wine fell from the carriage, smashed, hungry passers-by have to lie on the ground to drink wine, red wine stained the ground, many hands, many faces... A mischievous tall man who had turned into a tiger, with only a small part of his nightcap on his head like a long sack, wrote "Blood" on the wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine lees.
The carriage of the Marquis of Evremonde had run over the children of the poor, and on their way back, it was described that when the travelling carriage reached the top of the hill, the setting sun shone through the carriage, and the passengers were covered with red glow. Red, or blood, as the warmest color, is the coldest in the novel, heralding the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Gold, in western culture is a symbol of love, redemption, loyalty. Lucy, the heroine, is endowed with long golden hair by Dickens, and he also uses the metaphor of the golden thread for Lucy's love: "She is a golden thread, and her voice, her face, her caress, almost always exerts a beneficial and powerful influence on him." The second volume is named after the Golden Web. The Golden Web connects the novel's central characters: Dr. Menet, who tolerates darnay as her son-in-law after learning that he is the nephew of her enemy, the Marquis; Carlton in the face of rival darnay and no knife love, on the contrary, sacrifice. These acts of tolerance and nobility are all due to Lucy the Golden Thread. Lucy uses the power of love to influence and redeem them, indifferent to hatred, sublimate the soul
In the novel, red and gold interweave each other. In the game conflict between the two, the power of love in the face of suffering is highlighted.
(2) Root of duality theme
Through the works of Dickens, it is not difficult to find that there is a clear thread running through them, that is, his populist consciousness, the works everywhere in the attention and sympathy for the bottom working people. This line is particularly prominent in a Tale of Two Cities. Dickens' civilian consciousness was not formed by chance: born in a family of many children and clerks, he began to work as an apprentice in a workshop at the age of 12, became a scriptorier in a law office at the age of 15, and later became a newspaper reporter. These experiences made him witness the poor and miserable life of the laboring people at the bottom. In his works, he has always been deeply concerned about and sympathetic to the fate and life of the people at the bottom. However, it is difficult to go beyond The Times in which he lived. Like all writers, Dickens also has obvious historical limitations and class limitations. The Victorian Era of Britain was an era of overseas colonization and the booming capitalist economy. On the one hand, the capitalist economy was booming. At that time, Britain reached the top of the world, and its industrial production capacity was larger than the rest of the world combined. On the other hand, the proletariat was in extreme poverty, and the people at the bottom of the class were humiliated and killed. In this social gap, On the one hand, Dickens expressed concern and sympathy for the working masses, on the other hand, he was attracted by the gentry style of The British upper society, and tried to climb into the upper society. Under the dual influence of the common sense and the gentleman complex, Dickens created carton and Darnay, the mirror image of each other. Darnay was born in a noble family, and Carton was an orphan, which is the double variation of the common sense and the gentleman complex. On the issue of revolution, Dickens showed obvious ambivalence and double evaluation. He deeply felt the sufferings of the people, but at the same time he opposed and condemned the revolutionary violence, so the gentle and kind Miss Lucy and the fierce and irascible Mrs. Defarge appeared in the work. Lucy with long blond hair used the power of love to change and save, indifferent to hatred, and sublimate the soul. Dickens advocated class reconciliation, advocated the way of moral influence to ease class contradictions, solve social contradictions and human disputes. At the end of the novel, Mrs. Defarge dies at the point of his own gun, which indicates Dickens' position -- resolutely opposed to violent revolution. On the contrary, the gentlemanly characters of Carton, Darnay, Menette and Mr Lowry are the ideal coordinates in the author's mind.
In a word, through the resurrection process of the main characters in the novel, this paper shows that the resurrection in Dickens's works is not a physiological resurrection to overcome the natural law, but a spiritual redemption through good qualities such as kindness and courage, which is a meaningful resurrection. A "double" word, shows dickens superb artistic writing technique, the exquisite character relationship arrangement. Dual character, doppelganger, two sides of the same coin, mirror image and shadow, the author uses contrast, metaphor, metaphor and other writing techniques to show France in the French Revolution, expressed his concern about the fate of Britain. True historical background, fascinating plot, and duality abound throughout the novel. A Tale of Two Cities is not only a masterpiece of historical fiction, but also a model of romantic historical fiction.