| Exercise 1 In A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist Charles Dickens dramatized some of the issues that concerned the early social theorists about the disordering effects of the French Revolution. Go to www.mastertexts.com/Dickens_Charles/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities/Index.htm. Read Chapters 1 and 23 and then answer the following questions:
a. What does the chateau symbolize?
b. Why do you think the common people resent the Monseigneur?
c. How do you think an early sociological theorist with a conservative orientation might react to the burning of the chateau? What about a radical sociological thinker like Marx?
Exercise 2Charles Dickens also wrote a book about England during the Industrial Revolution called Hard Times. Dickens's portrait of Coketown is a classic depiction of life in a factory town. Go to www.mastertexts.com/Dickens_Charles/Hard_Times/Index.htm. Read the descriptions in Chapter 2 on schooling and in Chapter 5 on Coketown, and then answer the following questions:
a. What was instruction like in Gradgrind's classroom?
b. What effect do you think Gradgrind's emphasis on fact has on the children?
c. How do you think Dickens feels about Gradgrind? About modern education in general?
d. What do you think it would be like to grow up in Coketown?
e. What, if anything, would you see as positive aspects of living in Coketown?
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