Before and during the French Revolution, there remained a large gap between the social classes of the nobility and the peasantry. There was an enduring struggle between those who had power and authority and those who did not. The peasants were hateful towards the nobles since they were mistreated and abused. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’ portrayal of the nobles’ treatment of peasants in France between 1775 and 1780 is accurate.
In the novel, the French ruling aristocracy has oppressed the peasantry for so long that many of them suffer from starvation. Dickens portrays the direness of the peasants’ situation in a key 1775 event detailed in Book 1, Chapter 5. A large cask of wine had been dropped on the street, resulting in its contents spilling all over the street and the peasants going forward to drink the liquid almost immediately; this act could be seen as one of violence (Dickens 36). “Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers” (36). Even still, women’s handkerchiefs were used to absorb the wine and then squeeze it into the mouths of their infant children. Hunger plagued these people’s lives and was constantly a part of their thoughts, “prevalent everywhere” (38). Dickens continues to say that the nobles, “scarecrows” should have paid more close attention to the suffering endured by the peasants and “flare upon the darkness of their condition” (39). The tumult caused during the breaking of the wine cask shows that the nobles have more than enough to satisfy their needs, as they did not suffer much loss when the wine spilled, while the peasants were so poor that they could not have gotten wine by any other means. Confirming that Dickens is accurate in his portrayal of the oppression of the peasants is Francois Furet. He writes, “Violence erupted everywhere; in the countryside, where the small peasant...