>>This discussion proves how effectively the oligarchy diverts attention from itself by getting one protesting group to pit itself against another... Dickens portrayed this masterfully in A Tale of Two Cities, where servants who had been fighting with each other for years suddenly stopped and said.. "Wait ...HE's the enemy!" and took control by joining forces with the people they had been fighting.
Do you mean Defarge?
Certainly Dickens was sending a warning to his intended aristocratic audience that England is not so dissimilar from France and needs to beware following the same path. Dickens was eagerly digested by the 1% of the time but similar authors of today- such as Stephen King and J. K. Rowling- seem not to carry the same gravity.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
