To Lose Hope is To Lose Humanity: An Analysis of Hope Through the Eyes of Charles Dickens
“May we all have our hopes,
our will to try, if we don’t,
we might as well lay down
and die.”-
Happy New Year by ABBA
If a person loses his hopes, then he has lost all of his humanity. It is hope that makes us run the last mile of the marathon; it is hope that gives us reason to wake up the next morning; it is hope that defines us as a human being; it is hope that can make us good people of virtue, or people of evil, because hope can serve both as an olive branch, and a sword.
Beginning with hope through the eyes of Charles Dickens, we see a desire to inform the public of the need for social reform. Dickens, like most authors, did not just write completely from imagination without any inspiration from his world. Around him, he saw two cities: a city of decadent excess, and a city of poverty and destitution. Because of the stark contrast between these two worlds, Dickens truly hoped that he would be able to bring about social change through a not-so-hidden message. And so, his timeless classic, A Tale of Two Cities was born.
There are some characters in A Tale of Two Cities who utilize hope as an olive branch of happiness. An example of this would be Lucie Manette. In Lucie’s eyes, the world should be a place in which people spread good-will amongst their fellow man and keep strong moral virtues. Because of this, she is a virtuous carrier of the olive branch. Lucie was not the only character who had virtuous hopes. Sydney Carton, the man who hoped to undo the mistakes he made by spending his life drinking heavily, makes the ultimate sacrifice towards the end of the book. Instead of seeing Lucie, the woman he loved, live in misery without her husband, he decided to die in place in Darnay, because it was a “far, far better thing” (367) than anything he ever did. It should also be noted while reading the novel, that Miss Pross, who was for Lucie what the Nanny was in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had very noble hopes of keeping her “little bird” safe from harm.
While hope is able to be used as an olive branch, it can also be used as a sword. An example of this would be the Marquis St. Evrémonde. He was a man of great many hopes, among which was to perpetuate a system of corruption, greed, and inequality as exemplified in his statement: “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived.” Not only was he a man of greed, but he was a man of terror who would also have those who stood in his way “crushed under the wheels.” (117). Was he a man of virtue and great hopes? Certainly not! If Lucie and Sydney were able to use hope as an olive branch for spreading good will to man, then Mme. Defarge and Monseigneur (though they were opposite in ambitions) used hope as a sword with which they would wreak havoc on people.
If hope is what drove Dickens to pick up his pen in the first place, and it is also able to define us as good or evil, then surely to lose hope is to lose our humanity. But, one must be careful with their hopes and dreams. If they aspire to promote peace and use hope as an olive branch, then it is a blessing. If they aspire to promote fear and use hope as a sword, then it is a curse. It should also be noted that another one of the true messages Dickens was trying to convey was to be careful with your hopes.
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