'Tale of Two Cites: Drowning Motif\r'

'English 12u study Rough Draft only whenina Van M ben Splashing, gasping for breath. Sinking, darkness, and then; remainder. expiry by dr delivering is, in the beginning, a conscious, agonizing end. The credit of an imminent wipeout is the first step that strikes business organization into the heart of the victim. Shore is too far absent, the soulfulness is too tired, and if rescue is non near, death is inescapable. stubborn to popular understanding, a drowning somebody is not at large(p) to spot. People skeleton a drowning victim shrieking or c all(a) in alling for help, still in actuality all his/her efforts are used to breathe, making calls for help impossible.Drowning is not the death most people en sight it. It is a silent killer. Creeping up slowly, it takes its victims by surprise, and oftentimes beforehand five minutes have passed, death has them in its cold, cruel clutches. This silent accomplishment is paralleled in Charles devil novel, A Tale of Two Citi es. ogre speaks of a wood patch, personified as fate, and a farmer, who is used to picture death, working silently but purpose intacty towards the french Revolution, getting ready wood for hold ups, guillotines and tumbrels. As comfortably as portraying the silent nature of drowning, deuce a equivalent uses this motif to bring out some other(prenominal) aspect of the revolution.In A Tale of Two Cities, ogre uses the motif of drowning to portray the stages of the revolutionaries’ attitudes towards their condition. â€Å"The first step towards getting helped is realizing that you have a problem. ” (Anonymous) This well known repeat clearly illustrates the first step of drowning. A man preemptnot save himself if he does not authorise that he is in danger. When drowning becomes reality to its victims, their whole resource flips, and apprehension sets in. In A Tale of Two Cities, the barbarian’s vision changed as they realized that if they did not ac t justly a vogue, they would die as victims of a tyrannical system.If this fact in itself did not blend the peasants into action, it was the fact that not only them, but their youngsterren and their children’s children would perish, smothitherd under the iron fist of the aristocracy. Their vision became visions of heroical people, as drowning people. This outlook was in many an(prenominal) ways created and helped along by Monsieur and Madame Defarge. They showed the shrunken, wasted dilute Manette to the Jacques, in order to change the way they looked at things and strike fear of their condition into their hearts. deuce also uses the motif of drowning very strongly in the ain lives of his characters.A quote found on page 255 reads, â€Å" exclusively this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man. ” This quote refers us back to the Manette’s, where Jarvis Lorry reveals the alarming grindst unitary scene to the horrified Doctor. Doctor Manett e’s vision changed at that moment as well, realising that death, though not for himself, was sure for Lucie’s husband if immediate action was not taken. When a drowning person obtains the vision that he or she is dying, terror takes control over two mind and body. From panic stems desperation and a desperate man is some one(a) who will do anything to change his authority.A drowning man no longer thinks nearly aright and wrong, about what morals he practices, or what set he ought to follow. One apprehension consumes his mind, and that is to save himself. The manner used to achieve deliverance does not matter, nor does the woeful person stop to consider if he is harming another in saving himself. In the novel, this is illustrated by the divergence between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge; â€Å". . . Miss Pross . . . held her round the waist, and clung to her with much than the hold of a drowning woman,” (Dickens 357).This situation clearly reminds the p roducereader of the desperate circumstances in which the peasants found themselves. Just as Miss Pross’ hold on Madame Defarge was a matter of life or death, so the actions of revolutionaries were determine their end; a better future for all peasants, or a continuation of oppression from the ancien regime. In the above quote Dickens also speaks about the hold of a drowning person. A rescuer essential always be careful when swimming up to such a person, because in panic, the victim whitethorn grab hold of him/her so tightly that both perish.In the same way, the revolutionaries harmed others while trying to save themselves. In the senseless slaughter of those guilty and vindicated alike, the revolutionaries drowned themselves along with their victims in a pool of immorality and r correctge. For, even so though they bettered their physical condition and brightened the future for their children, their conscience was passed over and ignored. Like a drowning man who before the actual act of death becomes unconscious, so the consciences of the revolutionaries were pushed away until they were quieten, no longer able to warn against the upcoming spiritual death. Death is the final outcome.If a person has drowned, death has come to claim this person and there is no longer any chance of beingness rescued. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens speaks of the gaoler of Charles Darnay, his description being, â€Å". . . this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water,” (Dickens 249). This man seems to excite to all the revolutionaries, not in the physical description, but in a spiritual sense. The consciences of the revolutionaries have been drowned, silenced foralways, and the people themselves have been filled with thoughts only of cantankerous revenge.The picture of a drowned man is not a pleasant one. The death is most often an agonizingly conscious one, causing the exp ression to be one twisted in agony, the horrified expression of one without hope of survival. The lack of oxygen causes the skin to bring out a sickly blue thistle, and the water soaks into the pores and causes the persons face to be swollen and bloated. Ultimately, the person’s appearance is so altered that it is usually difficult, if not impossible to account the person from the way they looked before.Similarly, the revolutionaries were not a jolly picture in the way that they cared nothing for their fella man and executed any who seemed to oppose them callously, without proof or proper trial. Proof of this callousness can be found in the example of the elflike seamstress towards the end of the novel, a representation of thousands of innocent victims sent to the guillotine. We read of how the women knitting below the scaffold counted the severed heads calmly, not in the least mad at the horrific amount of bloodletting occurring right before their eyes.The wood-sawyer is another prime example of the unthoughtful attitude of the peasants when he talks flippantly to Lucie of the guillotine; â€Å". . . Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off its head comes. either the family! ” (Dickens, 341). We are horrified as we read of the Jacques joyfully talking about the way they enjoy see a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes being guillotined, and we are even to a greater extent appalled when they speak with eager anticipation at the thought of seeing Lucie’s pretty child put to death.Throughout all these examples we can see that Dickens has brought the motif of drowning to a close and the final outcome, death of the revolutionary’s morality, has been achieved. At the end of the novel, A Tale of Two Cites, the motif of drowning has come full circle. We read of how the peasant’s desperate situation causes their vision to be that of drowning people as they realize that dea th is imminent. Dickens moves on to portray the panic that causes morality to be ignored in the agitated movement to preserve one’s own life.Dickens shows that drowning people will do anything to save themselves, even drown their rescuer if they feel it will amend their own condition. In the same way the revolutionaries viciously disposed of any that seemingly hindered their desperate attempt to break their chains of oppression. The plot lines of the characters also vividly portray the way in which the consciences of certain characters are silenced, and the way in which no other thought than revenge is allowed into the minds of the revolutionaries. And then finally, death, the end of all morality.The directional principles of mankind were destroyed as the revolutionaries thirst for bloodshed did not abate, but instead grew more intense, as each day they longed for more heads to be added to the ever growing number. The motif of drowning is used very potently by Charles Di ckens, and is employed in a way that effectively portrays the desperate position of the revolutionaries. The way in which Dickens uses this motif clearly parallels the changing attitudes of the revolutionaries, large us a better understanding of them.\r\n'