The sun beat down relentlessly on the great bloodthirsty crowd as they marched towards the Bastille, towards a long-awaited change. It was July 14, 1789, and the stark reality of hunger and the fierce need for justice had finally become too much for the French people. The crowd reached the armory and in doing so sent a clear message of defiance to the king and the aristocracy of France. The common people had ended up with the perpetual disparity between monarchy and peasants. They demanded justice and were determined to get it one way or another. This passionate murderous attack fanned the flame of a rebellion that is now known as the French Revolution. The English novelist Charles Dickens understood the feelings of the common French people, because he too was oppressed. Forced to finish school and work in a factory when he was just a young man, Dickens got a first-hand taste of the injustices often committed by governments. However, Dickens's sympathies were temporary; he condemned the French for their lack of genuine respect for life. In search of a new and improved France, people had lost sight of the value of life. Dickens became concerned when he recognized a desire for change that was spreading across England. This change could only be achieved through something as austere as the French Revolution. Through his well-received book, A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens was able to publicly express these concerns to the English people. Set in the early days of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities centers on France's growing political and social unrest that interweaves the lives of an English family and a group of resolute French revolutionaries. Jarvis Lorry, “a businessman” (Dickens 25), and Lucie Mane… center of paper… react in a way that can only lead to a period of destructive revolution. Tired of seeing society “squeeze Death with the most inappropriate difficulty” (Dickens 267), Dickens speaks out against fanning the flame of revolution through unjust acts, because they will undoubtedly lead to similar bloodshed. Although much of the novel depicts the atrocities of the French Revolution and the death it caused, A Tale of Two Cities ultimately expresses the principle that death will pave the way for a new and better society. Sydney Carton, Dickens's best example of the theme of death and resurrection in the novel, spends much of his life in an apathetic state, yet his final Christ-like act of supreme death speaks to the human capacity for change. Because while death is an inevitable part of life that is often the necessary catalyst for change, life is and always will be of great value.