Although he clearly understands why the French people rose up to overthrow their government and seize power for themselves, he seems troubled by the manner in which this occurred. The violence and brutality of the revolution clearly bother him, and the lack of any real change, since the oppressed become the new oppressors, is an unnecessarily tragic outcome of the otherwise justified pursuit of a better life by the lower classes.
Dickens's central concern, both in the novel and in his life, is how to achieve meaningful social change without violence and chaos. He sees people'smentality as being significantly shaped by the institutions that govern their lives. Thus, even if the institution goes away, the mentality produced by it still remains. He describes how this happens in his depiction of the French Revolution: the oppressed do not find a new way to govern, rather they simply repeat the practices of the previous rulers, the very practices that led the oppressed to revolt in the first place.
For Dickens, the way out of this dead end is for individuals to change their ways of thinking in order to bring about meaningful institutional change and thus social progress.
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