A Tale of Two Cities Group

Question:


emziepie
Teacher
High School - 9th Grade

Why is Death personified as a Farmer in Chapter 1 of "A Tale of Two Cities", "The Period?"

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Posted by emziepie on Sunday October 12, 2008 at 1:30 PM and tagged with a tale of two cities, chapter 1, death, farmer, personification, the period.

Answers:

  1. mwestwood
    mwestwood Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    In "Tale of Two Cities," hunger and poverty beseige Paris, so Death as a Farmer may be appropriate.  For, the famine of the farming class, the peasants, drives them to rebellion against the well-fed aristocrats that Dickens describes satirically in the chapter entitled "The Monseigneur."  In this chapter, attendants must aid the decadent lord as he attempts to drink his morning chocolate since has become so indolent and distracted that he is no longer capable of simple daily functions.

    The able-bodied farmer is in sharp contrast to this arisocrat, also, and is, therefore representative of the starving peasant class who brings death to the aristocrats in the Revolution of 1789.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/twocities
    http://www.enotes.com/twocities/book-first-chapters-1-2-3...

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    Posted by mwestwood on Sunday October 12, 2008 at 9:59 PM