Relocating the Political Fiction and Historical Realities of French Revolution: Presentation of French Bourgeois Society in Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo’s Literary Fiction

Abstract

This paper explores the political and historical English literary fictions associated with French revolution. These fictions are based on real and imaginative literary narratives presented by two different writers. It expresses the social circumstance of the past with a blend of real historical events in the selected text. This research is delimited to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. Theories presented by Karl Marx, Crossman and Tonner support this research as a major theoretical framework. These texts present both the fictional and real events of the past which reflects the real condition of the society of that time in which the elements are found of social injustice, poverty and class differences were very common. Furthermore, isolation, anarchy and devastation are the fundamental properties of a revolution. A revolution can be the source of bringing a positive change in the society if it is based on positive intentions.