A New Historicist Reading Of A Tale Of Two Cities

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), one of the greatest representatives of English criticalrealism in the19thcentury, is famous for fourteen long novels and many stories, whichprofoundly expose and satirize hypocrisy and cruelty of capitalism and show his strongsympathy for the helpless lower class people who suffer deep miseries and are alwaysoppressed. A Tale of Two Cities written in1859was created in the third period during hiscreation life. It occupied an important place among Charles Dickens’s works. Dickens tookthe French Revolution as a reference of contemporary British society. On the one hand,Dickens opposed the inhuman class oppression and warned British ruling class not to let thediscontent develop into a fire as the French Revolution. On the other hand, he opposed all theviolence; persuading people not to take stupid actions to cause the consequences of crash andburn.“Love” was offered as an effective weapon to eliminate the class confrontation.This thesis attempts to interpret A Tale of Two Cites in a much broader social historicalcontext following the core concepts of New Historicism “Textuality of History andHistoricity of Texts”, which were put forward by Louis Adrian Montrose. It aims to discussthe particular historical background of the French Revolution of18thCentury reflected in thenovel, and then analyze the French cultural and historical conditions around1789, so as toshed light on the influence of history to the text; probe deeply into the relationship betweenhistorical background and the Dickens’s philosophy of history on the creation of the text, andfinally discuss the important historical function of A Tale of Two Cites to the development ofBritish society.The concluding part of the thesis makes it clear that A Tale of Two Cities is theproduction of its distinctive historical context, and it makes a profound influence on thehistorical context. Furthermore, Dickens’s concerns for the social fate and the future ofmankind also bring forth the cultural meanings to the spiritual life of the contemporarypeople, which arise echoes in our hearts. The humanitarianism he advocates has an importantrealistic significance to constructing a harmonious socialist society.