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Essay / Victorian Values in a Tale of Two Cities - 2784
The connotations associated with the Victorian era are prudishness and repression. This era was that of authors Charles Dickens and Robert Browning; like many other authors of the time, they wrote about the values of society. A work by Charles Dickens relating to this era is A Tale of Two Cities, which dealt with the conflicting values of different areas. Red Cotton Night Cape Country by Robert Browning is about the values imposed on a woman. All the moral values of the time were high, although they were easily broken, few people would risk admitting it. In the Victorian era, their values were very questionable compared to those of modern times. It was the kind of time when, early in history, French aristocrats exercised complete freedom to harass those of the working classes. In the prison manuscript of Doctor Manette, it is explained how one of the brothers of Evremonde used his medieval privilege of harnessing a vassal to a cart and driving him to death like an animal. This corresponds to the values of the Victorian era. At that time, everyone aspired to live up to extraordinarily high standards. In today's society, these values would be considered strict and the poem now turns to the story of Léonce Miranda, heiress to a jewelry business, torn between the opposing demands of religious devotion and the sensual side and materialistic by nature. Miranda takes Clara de Millefleurs (a mistress) and puts her up in a luxuriously renovated priory. Miranda's disgraced mother so intensifies his feelings of guilt over his affair that he attempts suicide by drowning himself in the Seine. The attempt failed and with the death of her mother, Miranda feels more guilty than ever and therefore breaks off her relationship with Clara. While he tried to burn his letters, he ended up mutilating himself by burning both of his hands. However, he started the business and began making donations to the La Ravissante church near his home. He died when he threw himself from the priory belvedere. His will divided his property between the Church and