Unwilling Sacrifices in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities

This essay examines the concept of unwilling sacrifices in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. While scholars typically attend to the forms of self-sacrifice in the novel, I explore the forms of sacrifice that are compelled by the aristocratic class of pre-revolutionary France and the fraternity of republican citizens of post-revolutionary France. Dickens demonstrates how both ruling classes resort to unwilling sacrifices to preserve political power, structure society, and justify their means of existence. The proclivity for such sacrifices, according to Dickens, leads to the degeneration of society. As the figures of Monsieur the Marquis, Madame La Guillotine, and Doctor Manette exemplify, the implications of unwilling sacrifices effect each level of society, ranging from the national to the individual. Dickens shows how unwilling sacrifices turn society against itself: they upset social harmony, destroy communities, sever familial bonds, and dehumanize individuals. Dickens censures equally the aristocracy and the republican fraternity for the demands they place on the members of society to give up their livelihoods and their lives. The adverse effects of unwilling sacrifice are ultimately a warning to Dickens's contemporary English audience. Thus, Dickens emphasizes throughout A Tale that the forced spilling of blood is no way by which any society can be maintained or rehabilitated.