This is a fictional narrative piece of work based on the events of the French Revolution.

 

The French Revolution, like many revolutions throughout history, embodied the duality of change and continuity. It began with a fervent desire to uproot the old monarchy and establish a new, enlightened society. However, the Revolution also illustrated the tenacious grip of the past, as the people grappled with power struggles, internal conflicts, and external wars. Like the author of the journal (I just realized that I never mentioned the name), people’s ideas of the traits of the leaders of Utopia shift as the (mainly political, but could be another kind of) power shifts between groups of people (or, using the metaphor from the journal, cats and mice); they realize that though revolutions seem to reshape everything around them, the change is merely superficial and the basic principles that often cause corruption remain unaltered.