A Tale Of Two Cities: A Literary Analysis

Using untamable power to pursue a goal and the destruction that ensues are motifs present in both the outpouring of creativity expressed in the Romantic period and the culminating events of the French Revolution. Those ideas are clearly present in works such as “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Shelley, “A Poison Tree” by William Blake, and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. “Ode to the West Wind,” which predates the Revolution by 70 years, is centered around the invocation of a powerful and unrestricted nature deity with a penchant for destruction. “A Poison Tree” was written a while later during the Revolution and tells the story of a person using the strength of his or her anger to destroy an antagonist. Though a fictional retelling, A Tale of Two Cities details the events leading up to and through part of the Revolution itself, using Madame Defarge as the personification of destruction wrought by Revolution. These works show the common motifs that incited and sustained the Revolution through its 10 year span.
During the speaker’s appeal to the West Wind, s/he says “[t]he impulse of thy strength, only less free / Than thou, O Uncontrollable” (“Ode” 46-47) and later calls the Wind “tameless” (“Ode” 56). By describing the West Wind’s strength, i.e. power, as impulsive and free, the speaker …show more content…
Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” Blake’s “A Poison Tree,” and A Tale of Two Cities all illustrate how power is not good nor evil, but may be induced to aid in one’s personal pursuits. The French Revolution is a product of the people taking power from the aristocracy before inevitably yielding it to Napoleon. Directionless power is a mine waiting to be tapped by someone forceful enough to guide it, but never control it. Ultimately, control of power is an illusion; it only lasts so long before someone else comes along and wrests it from one’s