Women's rights are sometimes taken for granted today. Many people, men especially, forget that women just recently gained the right to vote and are still slightly discriminated against because of their gender. In the 1700's women's right was unheard o

A much more controversial topic was brought up during these times. A philosopher by the name of Charles Darwin dared to contradict the belief that God created mankind. He suggested that they evolved from lower life such as apes. This outraged the society because not only did it contradict the ancient belief that god created man but it also suggested that they were related to a lower life. Charles Darwin seemed to have concurred with his contemporary on this belief, as can be seen in the novel A Tale of Two Cities which he wrote. The novel was written in 1856 and is set in the French Revolution. Dickens greatly expresses his social opinions in this book. In the novel Dickens gave many characters animal qualities thus alluding to the fact that man evolved from the animal kingdom. Dickens creates characters with entirely different morals and beliefs in order to foil them, and create a sense of the inherent qualities that separate man from beast. An excellent example of this is the character named Sidney Carton. Carton made a lot of mistakes in his life but he was willing to sacrifice his life in order to benefit others as well as redeem his pride. Before his death Carton states, "It is a far, far better thing than I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."(Pg.367). As one can see, Carton explains why he is willing to risk his life to save others. Through this one can see how man has a sense of selflessness and compassion. This quality show how man is separated from best, whose sole purpose in life is self-preservation. However, one can see many animalistic properties in Sidney Carton's foil, Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge lacked many characteristics, such as love and compassion, which we associate with mankind. The reader can see her extreme hatred when she knit's the names of all the aristocracy whom she resents because of their money and blames them for her own personal tragedies, such as the death of her parents. Madame Defarge tries to explain her hatred when she states, "I was brought up among the fishermen of the seashore and that peasant family so injured by the two Evermonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my family. ...That father was my father, and those dead are my dead, and that's summons to answer for those things descends to me." Dickens further states, "Both hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature of her wrath..."(Pg.334), in order to accentuate the rage Madame Defarge had for anyone with better fortune tha

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1700
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)