The Portrayal of Social Condition and Social Class in Eighteenth Century Paris and London as Reflected in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

Winoto, Felisa (2015) The Portrayal of Social Condition and Social Class in Eighteenth Century Paris and London as Reflected in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Skripsi thesis, Universitas Widya Kartika.

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Abstract

Fielding (2002) writes that learning history can be done through watching film or video, role playing, historical fiction, and so on. In accordance with it, learning history from literary works can make a history be more understandable since most people like to read novel and some parts in it shows daily life. Based on that phenomenon, this research focuses on historical novel especially A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This novel reflects social condition and social class in Paris and London during eighteenth century. The worst situation in both cities and injustice made a group of people from middle class, especially in Paris, did a revolutionary movement. Therefore, the main concern of this thesis are about those social condition and social class which reflect from the novel. Moreover, the objectives of this study are to portray the depiction of social condition, social class and conflict among classes in Paris and London during eighteenth century. In analyzing the problems, new historicism and Marxist approach and theory are applied. Meanwhile, the methodology in this research is qualitative; and the procedures consist of: close reading, classifying, giving background of the concern, answering and analyzing. New-historicism theory is about analyzing objectively how a writer relates to a historical moment and making historical value judgment. This theory is applied in order to portray the concern from the novel with the real situation. By using Marxist theory about class struggle, social class and its conflict are revealed. Furthermore, the conclusion of this research is that this novel provides a bond between literary work and historical facts. Moreover, A Tale of Two Cities can be used as a reference to see the portrayal of Paris and London in eighteenth century. This work which includes social condition, social class and its conflict in eighteenth century Paris and London are portrayed in clear depiction as in historical writings with few distinction in the aspects of economy, justice and the upper class situation after French Revolution.

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