Popular Sentiments and Public Executions

This paper examines Dickens’s descriptions of public executions in his letters and early journalism as a context in which to read the final scene of A Tale of Two Cities (1859). It argues that despite his traumatised responses to public hangings, Dickens is able to use the site of the scaffold to ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:19: interdisciplinary studies in the long nineteenth century 2011-09 (14)
Main Author: Marshall, Gail
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British & Irish literature
Capital punishment
Carlyle
Cultural heritage
Dickens
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
English literature
executions
Novels
sentiment
Trollope, Anthony (1815-1882)
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Summary:This paper examines Dickens’s descriptions of public executions in his letters and early journalism as a context in which to read the final scene of A Tale of Two Cities (1859). It argues that despite his traumatised responses to public hangings, Dickens is able to use the site of the scaffold to articulate some fundamental human fears and dispositions. The paper compares Dickens’s response to the horrors of the French Revolution with Carlyle’s, and shows throughout how Dickens firmly repudiates Trollope's somewhat rueful dismissal of him as ‘Mr Popular Sentiment’.
ISSN:1755-1560
1755-1560
DOI:10.16995/ntn.608