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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Abbas's Post: Flowing wine and bloody revolutions-Let them eat cake and erm.. wine!!:

Note: Submitted on time 

Book 1, Chapter 5 in a Tale of Two Cities is all about the spilling of a cask of wine and the ensuing rush as the masses scoop up handfuls and satiate their voracious appetites, both literally and figuratively, with the drive and impetus for change falling in the latter category. Why wine? Why not turnips or orange juice? Because Wine is the drink of the Aristocracy. And, because, Wine is symbolic of blood!
On that dramatic note, let’s analyze the very interesting chapter in light of the context of Paris in the decade leading up to the fall of the Bastille in 1789. French society at this point is markedly divided in terms of class compositions and is injudiciously skewed with respect to the distribution of power, as a result of which the poor are bruised, batter, and hungry, with “Hunger” prevalent and pervasive. Charles Dickens was the champion of the poor, and raised their standard with a ferocity in his works. This stand for the poor, along with the idea that a relatively smooth reform could be attained, is highlighted in this scene, where the wine is shared by the crowd, and the “wine game” had “little roughness and much playfulness” with a “special companionship.” The ideal society no? Individuals having equal worth in the eyes of the State and society regardless their economic fortunes or lack thereof. Karl Marx would have a field day really, and indeed, judging by the content of this chapter, he and Dickens would be present at the scene with their own “little mugs of mutilated earthenware”.
Alas, I become the bearer of two bad news. Firstly, as Dickens aptly notes, “the birds took no warning”. The class which was, and had been for eons, subjected to torturous oppression, was not conscious enough about said injustice, and was languishing in a bestial state. Indeed, even the way they drank the wine was very instinctive and bestial in nature; a people reacting in desperation without fully grasping the root of their troubles and not comprehending the way to solve them in an efficacious manner. This last point leads on very nicely to the second piece of bad news, which is the extent of the revolution. Charles Dickens and numerous Enlightenment theorists, philosophers and proponents like Mary Wollstonecraft were not pleased by the drastic course the revolution, under the Jacobins led by Robespierre, took i.e. the Reign of Terror. Perhaps as horrendous as the idea of the rich mercilessly crushing the poor was the poor mercilessly crushing the rich; blind and irrational actions that are not conducive to harmony and long term development and progress. This is also where the fine line between reform and unnecessary revolution needs to be drawn, in order to bring a smooth social order. Indeed, it would gainsay even Marx’s radical assertion of the uprising of the Proletariat if a group of said class replaced the former elites as the oppressors of the masses.
Summing up, this post touches upon the idea of revolution as is presented in this chapter as well as in the larger plot of the book along with posing certain caveats that highlight reservations to gruesome change which are as significant as the prodding towards needed change.

                                                                                 

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