CHB: A Tale of Two Cities

Even though the celebrated novelist Charles Dickens did not witness the French Revolution happening, his A Tale of Two Cities is remarkably rich in detail and has an atmosphere of great conflagration.Dickens' vivid imagination of the great event in the history of a nation illustrates how it must have touched the lives of a multitude of men and women. He shows intense concern for the people rather than empathize with the nation. He sides with personal joy and sorrow of the constituents rather than with triumph or tragedy of the state! Thus this tale of two cities is not to be construed as a tale about the cities concerned: Paris and London. The cities matter in as much as the human drama is played out in them. It is a tale about the two men and those they love, and of the fearful conflict - not of their own making - in which they are caught up and from which they cannot escape.It is a story of love and death-love that flourishes on the very edge of an abyss, and death which is the only way to its ultimate redemption.