Tale Of Two Cities And Utopia Essay

, Research Paper

There are many similarities between the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and the writings of Thomas Mores Utopia. In both of the writings they talk about the gap between the rich and the poor in France leading up to the Revolution.

In the book The Tale of Two Cities the gap between the nobles and the peasants grows and this adds to the French Revolution. The gap between them was because of money and hunger. The Monseigneur has men who help him with everyday things such as his morning chocolate, but his morning s chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook (Dickens 515). The peasants on the other hand are lucky if they get enough food for their family and for the day. This noble attitude is what made the gap grow larger. In Utopia More says that all men are equal and share everything that a person needs to survive. Everything belongs to everybody he never lacks for anything he needs. So everyone is equal and there is no gap.

The gap between the rich and the poor in the France was caused by many things one was the taxes. The taxes kept the people in poverty. Expressive signs of what made them poor were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax for the local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there until the wonder was that there was any village left unswallowed . (Dickens 519). The high estate was not taxed as heavily. More says that the poor should not pay for the rich that everyone should be equal. It is basically unjust that people that deserve most from the commonwealth should receive least. But now they have distorted and debased the right even further by giving their extortion the color of law; and thus they have palmed injustice off as legal. (More 454).

In the book Tale of Two Cities it shows how the rich bent the laws to fit there needs. One example is when Gaspard was hung for killing a Monseigneur. The nobles said that he killed his father, which meant that they could hang him. The Monseigneur was not his father but was the father of the land. Another example is when the crowd didn t do anything because of their fear. So cowed was their condition and so long and hard their experience of what suck a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it. (Dickens 518). In Utopia More feels that people would be happier if money was abolished. With it gone it would get ride of crime witch means there would not be the need for laws.

Dickens tells more of a story about how life before and during the French Revolution. More tells what he feels about the way the government was run before the Revolution and tried to show the people what was wrong with France hoping they would change their ways before a uprising occurred. Both men had similarities in what they thought and said.