Book 1 Squids: A Tale of Two Cities

Ch 1: "There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever." This quote is Dickens' way of saying that the royalty that ruled over England and France at this time were very much alike. When describing the royalty, Dickens describes only their physical appearances, showing that maybe the way they ruled was nothing worth mentioning. When he writes how everything was clear as crystal and seemed settled, he's saying how to those who were in a position of power or were wealthy everything seemed perfectly fine and there was no suspicion of a future outburst.

Ch. 2-4: "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!" This quote embodies how different each and every person is. Dickens later goes on to talk about death, which is also something that has and always will be a mystery to humans. Dickens is trying to show the reader that no single persons are alike. He also brings up a point that sometime we keep the depths of our heart from even those we love the most.

Ch. 5-6: “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood.” This passage is referring to the scene at which a large cask of wine had been dropped. Dickens follows a string of different people and says how many people were stained from the wine. He later refers to blood, so I think that the wine is a metaphor to the pain and suffering the poor had to endure.

Causes of the French Revolutiom

There are many different causes one can assume started the French Revolution. In reality, there was no single cause, but a combination of many. One of these causes was the absolute monarchy, which controlled the government. In short, the king had the power to make most if not all of the decisions about the people. Unfortunately for those who held a position of power, the growing middle and lower classes had formed the idea of equality and freedom, opening their eyes to how corrupt their government really was. On top of that, knowing of the American Revolution, they had an example of what rights and freedoms they could have if they challenged the current system.

Another cause was the taxation problems. Tax collectors were able to collect much more than the government required, and on top of that, they only required it from the lower and middle classes; the same people who weren’t able to hold positions of power.

Food scarcity was another major issue that led to the French Revolution. Different crop failures were the cause of these shortages, which led to cost of bread rising tremendously. This is said to be one the main causes which led the outrage of the Paris Mob. These conditions caused overcrowding of the cities and filled the streets with hungry upset people. With conditions like this, it was impossible to want to stay under the reign of the King and this was a major reason why people revolted.

"Causes of the French Revolution." Tgv Reservation: Timetable, Maps and Tgv Tickets Reservation on Bonjourlafrance.net. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. .

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist151s03/french_rev_causes_consequences.htm

Aesthete or Suprematist?

The two different works of art are extremely different, but happen to have some similarities as well. The Beguiling of Merlin is much more subtle in color, and much softer when it comes to the different lines and patterns, whereas The Reapers has much sharper lines and much more drastic colors.

I think that suprematism is a reaction to aestheticism because it was uncoventional and different then what was normally considered beautiful. Also, since art sometimes comes from emotions that you may be feeling to you're surroundings, the suprematic style may have been used to convey a much harsher outlook then what was normally portrayed in Victorian society.

The Victorian era was marked by much stress and reliance on beauty. The softer more "pretty" paintings were what fit in with society during that time period, and were clever because the beauty that these types of paintings represented masked much deeper meanings.

hello 6th period English class.