I recently read and taught A Tale of Two Cities for the first time. My only knowledge of the book before I started reading it was the infamous opening sentence: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (Of course that is the 3.14 version of that opening sentence that goes on to make at least 6 more paradoxical comparisons). With my limited knowledge of the book, I was not expecting it to be as bloody and barbaric as it is. (Which is stupid because it’s about the French Revolution, aptly referred to as the “bloody revolution”). There were actually some sections of the book where I found myself feeling queasy at Dickens’ descriptions of the punishments and executions that were carried out. And having to explain to a room full of 14-15-year-old girls (whose school mascot is the teddy bear) what it means to disembowel and quarter someone is not exactly enjoyable. What struck me the most about the violence in the book was the barbaric perpetrators of these punishme