Anxiety and repressed impulses of Dickens’s Characters in A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract

Abstract The present research has analyzed the novel, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens from the angle of psychoanalysis. This study examines the anxiety and repressed impulses in the manners and behaviors of the people who are involved in the class conflict. It studies human sentiment and sensibility, and clarifies the fact that excessive repression of feelings and emotions compels a person to become the slave of human impulses. Most of the characters in the novel repress their impulses due to the fear of cruel and barbaric punishment given by the tyrannical government and oppressors. Dr. Mannette’s mental disorder and Madame Defarge as well as other characters’ animalistic manners and criminal actions prove the fact that their present miserable, despondent and painful conditions are the result of terrible anxiety and repressed impulses. Repression of impulses helps to dominate the human’s good virtues and it also makes them bold and mentally strong by activating their hidden internal forces and unconscious demonic natures of human being which are clearly depicted in the characters’ attitudes in the novel.