الرئيسية
A Tale of Two Cities
Author Charles Dickens
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Weekly: 30 April 1859 - 26 November 1859 [1]
Genre(s) Novel
Historical
Social criticism
Publication date 1859
Preceded by Little Dorrit
Followed by Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it is the most printed original English book and among the most famous works of fiction.[2]
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.
The novel was published in weekly installments instead of monthly, as with most of his other novels. The first ran in the first issue of Dickens' literary periodical All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran thirty-one weeks later, on 25 November.[1]
Plot summary
Book the First: Recalled to Life
“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... ”
—Opening line of A Tale of Two Cities[3]
The first book of the novel takes place in 1775. Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, is travelling from England to France to bring Dr. Alexandre Manette to London on his return trip. Before crossing into France, he meets 17-year-old Lucie Manette at Dover, and reveals to her that her father, Dr. Manette, is not dead, as she had been told; instead, he was a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years.
Lorry and Lucie travel to Saint Antoine, a suburb of Paris and meet Monsieur Ernest and Madame Therese Defarge. The Defarges operate a wine shop they use to lead a clandestine band of revolutionaries; they refer to each other by the codename "Jacques", which Dickens drew from the Jacobins), an actual French revolutionary group.
Monsieur Defarge was Dr. Manette's servant before Manette's imprisonment and now has care of him, and he takes them to see the doctor. Because of his long imprisonment, Dr. Manette entered a form of psychosis and has become obsessed with making shoes, a trade he had learned whilst imprisoned. At first, he does not recognize his daughter; but he eventually compares her long golden hair with her mother's, which he found on his sleeve when he was imprisoned and kept, and notices their identical blue eye color. Lorry and Lucie then take him back to England.
[edit] Book the Second: The Golden Thread
"The Golden Thread" redirects here. For the legal judgement, see Golden thread (law).
Five years later, two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly, are trying to frame French émigré Charles Darnay for their own gain; and Darnay is on trial for treason at the Old Bailey. They claim, falsely, that Darnay gave information about British troops in North America to the French. Darnay is acquitted when a witness who claims he would be able to recognize Darnay anywhere cannot tell Darnay apart from a barrister present in court, Sydney Carton, who looks almost identical to him.
In Paris, the despised Marquis St. Evrémonde (Monseigneur), Darnay's uncle, runs over and kills the son of the peasant Gaspard and throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss. Monsieur Defarge comforts Gaspard. As the Marquis's coach drives off, Defarge throws the coin back into the coach, enraging the Marquis.
Arriving at his château, the Marquis meets with his nephew and heir Charles Evrémonde, now known as Charles Darnay. Out of disgust with his family, Darnay shed his real surname and adopted an anglicisized version of his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais.[4]) They argue: Darnay has sympathy for the peasantry, while the Marquis is cruel and heartless:
"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."[5]
That night, Gaspard, who followed the Marquis to his château, hanging under his coach, murders the Marquis in his sleep. He leaves a note saying, "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from JACQUES."[6]
In London, Darnay gets Dr. Manette's permission to wed Lucie; but Carton confesses his love to Lucie as well. Knowing she will not love him in return, Carton promises to "embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you".[7]
On the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and who his family is, a detail which Dr. Manette had asked him to withhold until then. This unhinges Dr. Manette, who reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. His sanity is restored before Lucie returns from her honeymoon. To prevent a further relapse, banker Lorry destroys the shoemaking bench, which Dr. Manette had brought with him from Paris.
It is 14 July 1789. The Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower".[8] The reader does not know what Monsieur Defarge is searching for until Book 3, Chapter 9. It is a statement in which Dr. Manette explains why he was imprisoned.
In the summer of 1792, a letter reaches Tellson's bank. Mr. Lorry, who is planning to go to Paris to save the French branch of Tellson's, announces that the letter is addressed to someone named Evrémonde. Nobody in England knows who this is, because Darnay has kept his real name a secret there. Darnay acquires the letter by pretending Evrémonde is an acquaintance of his. The letter turns out to be from Gabelle, a servant of the former Marquis. Gabelle has been imprisoned and begs the new Marquis to come to his aid. Darnay, who feels guilty, leaves for Paris to help Gabelle.
[edit] Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
"The Sea Rises", an illustration for Book 2, Chapter 21 by "Phiz"
In France, Darnay is denounced for emigrating from France and imprisoned in La Force Prison in Paris.[9] Dr. Manette and Lucie—along with Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher, and "Little Lucie", the daughter of Charles and Lucie Darnay—come to Paris and meet Mr. Lorry to try to free Darnay. A year and three months pass, and Darnay is finally tried.
Dr. Manette, who is seen as a hero for his imprisonment in the hated Bastille, is able to have him released; but, that same evening, Darnay is again arrested. He is put on trial again the following day, under new charges brought by the Defarges and one "unnamed other". We soon discover that this "other" is Dr. Manette, through his own account of his imprisonment. Manette did not know that his statement had been found and is horrified when his words are used to condemn Darnay.
On an errand, Miss Pross is amazed to see her long-lost brother, Solomon Pross; but Solomon does not want to be recognised. Sydney Carton suddenly steps forward from the shadows much as he had done after Darnay's first trial in London and identifies Solomon Pross as John Barsad, one of the men who tried to frame Darnay for treason at his first trial in London. Carton threatens to reveal Solomon's identity as a Briton and an opportunist who spies for the French or the British as it suits him. If this were revealed, Solomon would surely be executed, so Carton's hand is strong.
Darnay is confronted at the tribunal by Monsieur Defarge, who identifies Darnay as the Marquis St. Evrémonde and reads the letter Dr. Manette had hidden in his cell in the Bastille. Defarge can identify Darnay as Evrémonde because Barsad told him Darnay's identity when Barsad was fishing for information at the Defarges' wine shop in Book 2, Chapter 16. The letter describes how Dr. Manette was locked away in the Bastille by Darnay's father and his uncle for trying to report their crimes against a peasant family. Darnay's uncle had become infatuated with a girl, whom he had kidnapped and raped and then killed her husband. Before he died defending the family honor, the brother of the raped peasant had hidden the last member of the family, his younger sister. The paper concludes by condemning the Evrémondes, "them and their descendants, to the last of their race".[10] Dr. Manette is horrified, but his protests are ignored—he is not allowed to take back his condemnation. Darnay is sent to the Conciergerie and sentenced to be guillotined the next day.
Carton wanders into the Defarges' wine shop, where he overhears Madame Defarge talking about her plans to have the rest of Darnay's family (Lucie and "Little Lucie") condemned. Carton discovers that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family savaged by the Evrémondes. The only plot detail that might give one any sympathy for Madame Defarge is the loss of her family and that she has no (family) name. Defarge is her married name, and Dr. Manette cannot learn her family name, though he asks her dying sister for it.[11] The next morning, when Dr. Manette returns shattered after spending the night in many failed attempts to save Charles' life, he reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. Carton urges Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie, her father, and Little Lucie.
That same morning, Carton visits Darnay in prison. Carton drugs Darnay, and Barsad (whom Carton is blackmailing) has Darnay carried out of the prison. Carton has decided to pretend to be Darnay and to be executed in his place. He does this out of love for Lucie, recalling his earlier promise to her. Following Carton's earlier instructions, Darnay's family and Lorry flee Paris and France. In their coach is an unconscious man who carries Carton's identification papers, but is actually Darnay.
Meanwhile, Madame Defarge, armed with a pistol, goes to the residence of Lucie's family, hoping to catch them mourning for Darnay, since it was illegal to mourn an enemy of the Republic; however, Lucie and Little Lucie, Dr. Manette, and Mr. Lorry are already gone. To give them time to escape, Miss Pross confronts Madame Defarge and they struggle. Pross speaks only English and Defarge speaks only French, so neither can understand each other. In the fight, Madame Defarge's pistol goes off, killing her; the noise of the shot and the shock of Madame Defarge's death cause Miss Pross to go permanently deaf.
The novel concludes with the guillotining of Sydney Carton. Carton's unspoken last thoughts are prophetic:[12] Carton foresees that many of the revolutionaries, including Defarge, Barsad and The Vengeance (a lieutenant of Madame Defarge) will be sent to the guillotine themselves, and that Darnay and Lucie will have a son whom they will name after Carton: a son who will fulfill all the promise that Carton wasted. Lucie and Darnay have a first son earlier in the book who is born and dies within a single paragraph. It seems likely that this first son appears in the novel so that their later son, named after Carton, can represent another way in which Carton restores Lucie and Darnay through his sacrifice.[13]
“ It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. ”
—Final sentence of A Tale of Two Cities[12]
[edit] Analysis
A Tale of Two Cities is one of only two works of historical fiction by Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge is the other one). It has fewer characters and sub-plots than a typical Charles Dickens novel. The author's primary historical source was The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle: Charles Dickens wrote in his Preface to Tale that "no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr. Carlyle's wonderful book"[14] Carlyle's view that history cycles through destruction and resurrection was an important influence on the novel, as illustrated by the life and death of Sydney Carton.
[edit] Language
Dickens uses literal translations of French idioms for characters who can't speak English, such as "What the devil do you do in that galley there?!!" and "Where is my husband? ---Here you see me." The Penguin Classics edition of the novel notes that "Not all readers have regarded the experiment as a success."[15]
[edit] Humor
Dickens is renowned for his humor, but A Tale of Two Cities is one of his least comical books. Nonetheless, Jerry Cruncher, Miss Pross, and Mr. Stryver provide much comedy. Dickens also uses sarcasm as humour in the book to show different points of view. The book is full of tragic situations, leaving little room for intended humor provided by Dickens.[citation needed]
[edit] Themes
[edit] "Recalled to Life"
In Dickens' England, resurrection always sat firmly in a Christian context. Most broadly, Sydney Carton is resurrected in spirit at the novel's close (even as he, paradoxically, gives up his physical life to save Darnay's—just as, in Christian belief, Christ died for the sins of His people.) More concretely, "Book the First" deals with the rebirth of Dr. Manette from the living death of his incarceration.
Resurrection appears for the first time when Mr. Lorry replies to the message carried by Jerry Cruncher with the words "Recalled to Life". Resurrection also appears during Mr. Lorry's coach ride to Dover, as he constantly ponders a hypothetical conversation with Dr. Manette: ("Buried how long?" "Almost eighteen years." ... "You know that you are recalled to life?" "They tell me so.") He believes he is helping with Dr. Manette's revival and imagines himself "digging" up Dr. Manette from his grave.
Resurrection is the main theme in the novel. In Jarvis Lorry's thoughts of Dr. Manette, resurrection is first spotted as a theme. It is also the last theme: Carton's sacrifice. Dickens originally wanted to call the entire novel Recalled to Life. (This instead became the title of the first of the novel's three "books".)
Jerry is also part of the recurring theme: he himself is involved in death and resurrection in ways the reader does not yet know. The first piece of foreshadowing comes in his remark to himself: "You'd be in a blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!" The black humour of this statement becomes obvious only much later on. Five years later, one cloudy and very dark night (in June 1780[16]), Mr. Lorry reawakens the reader's interest in the mystery by telling Jerry it is "Almost a night ... to bring the dead out of their graves". Jerry responds firmly that he has never seen the night do that.[17]
It turns out that Jerry Cruncher's involvement with the theme of resurrection is that he is what the Victorians called a "Resurrection Man", one who (illegally) digs up dead bodies to sell to medical men (there was no legal way to procure cadavers for study at that time).
The opposite of resurrection is of course death. Death and resurrection appear often in the novel. Dickens is angered that in France and England, courts hand out death sentences for insignificant crimes. In France, peasants are even put to death without any trial, at the whim of a noble. The Marquis tells Darnay with pleasure that "[I]n the next room (my bedroom), one fellow ... was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter—his daughter!"[18]
Interestingly, the demolition of Dr. Manette's shoe-making workbench by Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry is described as "the burning of the body".[19] It seems clear that this is a rare case where death or destruction (the opposite of resurrection) has a positive connotation, since the "burning" helps liberate the doctor from the memory of his long imprisonment. But Dickens' description of this kind and healing act is strikingly odd:
"The Accomplices", an illustration for Book 2, Chapter 19 by "Phiz"
So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime.[20]
Sydney Carton's martyrdom atones for all his past wrongdoings. He even finds God during the last few days of his life, repeating Christ's soothing words, "I am the resurrection and the life".[21] Resurrection is the dominant theme of the last part of the novel. Darnay is rescued at the last moment and recalled to life; Carton chooses death and resurrection to a life better than that which he has ever known: "it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there ... he looked sublime and prophetic".
In the broadest sense, at the end of the novel Dickens foresees a resurrected social order in France, rising from the ashes of the old one.
[edit] Water
Many in the Jungian archetypal tradition might agree with Hans Biedermann, who writes that water "is the fundamental symbol of all the energy of the unconscious—an energy that can be dangerous when it overflows its proper limits (a frequent dream sequence)."[22] This symbolism suits Dickens' novel; in A Tale of Two Cities, the frequent images of water stand for the building anger of the peasant mob, an anger that Dickens sympathises with to a point, but ultimately finds irrational and even animalistic.
Early in the book, Dickens suggests this when he writes, “[T]he sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction.”[23] The sea here represents the coming mob of revolutionaries. After Gaspard murders the Marquis, he is “hanged there forty feet high—and is left hanging, poisoning the water.”[24] The poisoning of the well represents the bitter impact of Gaspard's execution on the collective feeling of the peasants.
After Gaspard’s death, the storming of the Bastille is led (from the St. Antoine neighbourhood, at least) by the Defarges; “As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled around Defarge’s wine shop, and every human drop in the cauldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex...”[25] The crowd is envisioned as a sea. “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into a detested word [the word Bastille], the living sea rose, wave upon wave, depth upon depth, and overflowed the city...”[25]
Darnay’s jailer is described as “unwholesomely bloated in both face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water.” Later, during the Reign of Terror, the revolution had grown “so much more wicked and distracted ... that the rivers of the South were encumbered with bodies of the violently drowned by night...” Later a crowd is “swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets ... the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away.”
During the fight with Miss Pross, Madame Defarge clings to her with “more than the hold of a drowning woman”. Commentators on the novel have noted the irony that Madame Defarge is killed by her own gun, and perhaps Dickens means by the above quote to suggest that such vicious vengefulness as Madame Defarge's will eventually destroy even its perpetrators.
So many read the novel in a Freudian light, as exalting the (British) superego over the (French) id. Yet in Carton's last walk, he watches an eddy that "turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it onto the sea"—his fulfilment, while masochistic and superego-driven, is nonetheless an ecstatic union with the subconscious.
[edit] Darkness and light
As is common in English literature, good and evil are symbolised with light and darkness. Lucie Manette is often associated with light and Madame Defarge with darkness.
Lucie meets her father for the first time in a room kept by the Defarges:." Lucie's hair symbolises joy as she winds "the golden thread that bound them all together". She is adorned with "diamonds, very bright and sparkling", and symbolic of the happiness of the day of her marriage.
Darkness represents uncertainty, fear and peril. It is dark when Mr. Lorry rides to Dover; it is dark in the prisons; dark shadows follow Madame Defarge; dark, gloomy doldrums disturb Dr. Manette; his capture and captivity are shrouded in darkness; the Marquis’s estate is burned in the dark of night; Jerry Cruncher raids graves in the darkness; Charles's second arrest also occurs at night. Both Lucie and Mr. Lorry feel the dark threat that is Madame Defarge. "That dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me," remarks Lucie. Although Mr. Lorry tries to comfort her, "the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself". Madame Defarge is "like a shadow over the white road", the snow symbolising purity and Madame Defarge's darkness corruption. Dickens also compares the dark colour of blood to the pure white snow: the blood takes on the shade of the crimes of its shedders.
[edit] Social injustice
Charles Dickens was a champion of the maltreated poor because of his terrible experience when he was forced to work in a factory as a child. His sympathies, however, lie only up to a point with the revolutionaries; he condemns the mob madness which soon sets in. When madmen and -women massacre eleven hundred detainees in one night and hustle back to sharpen their weapons on the grindstone, they display "eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun".
The reader is shown the poor are brutalised in France and England alike. As crime proliferates, the executioner in England is "stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now hanging housebreaker ... now burning people in the hand" or hanging a broke man for stealing sixpence. In France, a boy is sentenced to have his hands removed and be burned alive, only because he did not kneel down in the rain before a parade of monks passing some fifty yards away. At the lavish residence of Monseigneur, we find "brazen ecclesiastics of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives ... Military officers destitute of military knowledge ... [and] Doctors who made great fortunes ... for imaginary disorders".[26]
The Marquis recalls with pleasure the days when his family had the right of life and death over their slaves, "when many such dogs were taken out to be hanged". He won't even allow a widow to put up a board bearing her dead husband’s name, to discern his resting place from all the others. He orders Madame Defarge's sick brother-in-law to heave a cart all day and allay frogs at night to exacerbate the young man's illness and hasten his death.
In England, even banks endorse unbalanced sentences: a man may be condemned to death for nicking a horse or opening a letter. Conditions in the prisons are dreadful. "Most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and ... dire diseases were bred", sometimes killing the judge before the accused.
So riled is Dickens at the brutality of English law that he depicts some of its punishments with sarcasm: "the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action". He faults the law for not seeking reform: "Whatever is right" is the dictum of the Old Bailey.[27] The gruesome portrayal of quartering highlights its atrocity.
Without entirely forgiving him, Dickens understands that Jerry Cruncher robs graves only to feed his son, and reminds the reader that Mr. Lorry is more likely to rebuke Jerry for his humble social status than anything else. Jerry reminds Mr. Lorry that doctors, men of the cloth, undertakers and watchmen are also conspirators in the selling of bodies.
Dickens wants his readers to be careful that the same revolution that so damaged France will not happen in Britain, which (at least at the beginning of the book)[28] is shown to be nearly as unjust as France. But his warning is addressed not to the British lower classes, but to the aristocracy. He repeatedly uses the metaphor of sowing and reaping; if the aristocracy continues to plant the seeds of a revolution through behaving unjustly, they can be certain of harvesting that revolution in time. The lower classes do not have any agency in this metaphor: they simply react to the behaviour of the aristocracy. In this sense it can be said that while Dickens sympathises with the poor, he identifies with the rich: they are the book's audience, its "us" and not its "them". "Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind".[29]
[edit] Relation to Dickens' personal life
Some have argued that in A Tale of Two Cities Dickens reflects on his recently begun affair with eighteen-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, which was possibly asexual but certainly romantic. Lucie Manette resembles Ternan physically, and some have seen "a sort of implied emotional incest" in the relationship between Dr. Manette and his daughter.[30]
After starring in a play by Wilkie Collins entitled The Frozen Deep, Dickens was first inspired to write Tale. In the play, Dickens played the part of a man who sacrifices his own life so that his rival may have the woman they both love; the love triangle in the play became the basis for the relationships between Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette, and Sydney Carton in Tale.[31]
Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay may also bear importantly on Dickens' personal life. The plot hinges on the near-perfect resemblance between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay; the two look so alike that Carton twice saves Darnay through the inability of others to tell them apart. It is implied that Carton and Darnay not only look alike, but they have the same "genetic" endowments (to use a term that Dickens would not have known): Carton is Darnay made bad. Carton suggests as much:
'Do you particularly like the man [Darnay]?' he muttered, at his own image [which he is regarding in a mirror]; 'why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for talking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes [belonging to Lucie Manette] as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.'[32]
Many have felt that Carton and Darnay are doppelgängers, which Eric Rabkin defines as a pair "of characters that together, represent one psychological persona in the narrative".[33] If so, they would prefigure such works as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Darnay is worthy and respectable but dull (at least to most modern readers), Carton disreputable but magnetic.
One can only suspect whose psychological persona it is that Carton and Darnay together embody (if they do), but it is often thought to be the psyche of Dickens himself. Dickens was quite aware that between them, Carton and Darnay shared his own initials.[34]
[edit] Characters
Many of Dickens' characters are "flat", not "round", in the novelist E. M. Forster's famous terms, meaning roughly that they have only one mood.[35] In Tale, for example, the Marquis is unremittingly wicked and relishes being so; Lucie is perfectly loving and supportive. (As a corollary, Dickens often gives these characters verbal tics or visual quirks that he mentions over and over, such as the dints in the nose of the Marquis.) Forster believed that Dickens never truly created rounded characters, but a character such as Carton surely at least comes closer to roundness.
• Sydney Carton – A quick-minded but depressed English barrister alcoholic, and cynic; his Christ-like self-sacrifice redeems his own life and that of Charles Darnay.
• Lucie Manette – An ideal pre-Victorian lady, perfect in every way. She was loved by both Carton and Charles Darnay (whom she marries), and is the daughter of Dr. Manette. She is the "golden thread" after whom Book Two is named, so called because she holds her father's and her family's lives together (and because of her blond hair like her mother's). She also ties nearly every character in the book together.[36]
• Charles Darnay – A young French noble of the Evrémonde family. In disgust at the cruelty of his family to the French peasantry, he has taken on the name "Darnay" (after his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais) and left France for England.[37]
• Dr. Alexandre Manette – Lucie's father, kept a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years.
• Monsieur Ernest Defarge – The owner of a French wine shop and leader of the Jacquerie; husband of Madame Defarge; servant to Dr. Manette as a youth. One of the key revolutionary leaders, he leads the revolution with a noble cause, unlike many of other revolutionaries.
• Madame Therese Defarge – A vengeful female revolutionary, arguably the novel's antagonist
• The Vengeance – A companion of Madame Defarge referred to as her "shadow" and lieutenant, a member of the sisterhood of women revolutionaries in Saint Antoine, and revolutionary zealot. (Many Frenchmen and women did change their names to show their enthusiasm for the Revolution[38])
• Jarvis Lorry – An elderly manager at Tellson's Bank and a dear friend of Dr. Manette.
• Miss Pross – Lucie Manette's governess since Lucie was ten years old. Fiercely loyal to Lucie and to England.
• The Marquis St. Evrémonde[39] – The cruel uncle of Charles Darnay.
• John Barsad (real name Solomon Pross) – A spy for Britain who later becomes a spy for France (at which point he must hide that he is British). He is the long-lost brother of Miss Pross.
• Roger Cly – Another spy, Barsad's collaborator.
• Jerry Cruncher – Porter and messenger for Tellson's Bank and secret "Resurrection Man" (body-snatcher). His first name is short for Jeremiah.
• Young Jerry Cruncher - Son of Jerry and Mrs. Cruncher. Young Jerry often follows his father around to his father's odd jobs, and at one point in the story, follows his father at night and discovers that his father is a resurrection man. Young Jerry looks up to his father as a role model, and aspires to become a resurrection man himself when he grows up.
• Mrs. Cruncher - Wife of Jerry Cruncher. She is a very religious woman, but her husband, being a bit paranoid, claims she is praying against him, and that is why he doesn't succeed at work often. She is often abused verbally, and almost as often, abused physically, by Jerry, but at the end of the story, he appears to feel a bit guilty about this.
• Mr. Stryver – An arrogant and ambitious barrister, senior to Sydney Carton.[40] There is a frequent mis-perception that Stryver's full name is "C. J. Stryver", but this is very unlikely. The mistake comes from a line in Book 2, Chapter 12: "After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be."[41] The initials C. J. almost certainly refer to a legal title (probably "chief justice"); Stryver is imagining that he is playing every role in a trial in which he browbeats Lucie Manette into marrying him.
• The Seamstress – A young woman caught up in The Terror. She precedes Sydney Carton, who comforts her, to the guillotine.
• Gabelle – Gabelle is "the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary, united"[42] for the tenants of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. Gabelle is imprisoned by the revolutionaries, and his beseeching letter brings Darnay to France. Gabelle is "named after the hated salt tax".[43]
• Gaspard – Gaspard is the man whose son is run over by the Marquis. He then kills the Marquis and goes into hiding for a year. He eventually is found, arrested, and executed.
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v • d • e
Works by Charles Dickens
Novels
The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837) • Oliver Twist (1837–1839) • Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839) • The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841) • Barnaby Rudge (1840–1841) • Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844) • Dombey and Son (1846–1848) • David Copperfield (1849–1850) • Bleak House (1852–1853) • Hard Times (1854) • Little Dorrit (1855–1857) • A Tale of Two Cities (1859) • Great Expectations (1860–1861) • Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865) • The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished) (1870)
Christmas books A Christmas Carol (1843) • The Chimes (1844) • The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) • The Battle of Life (1846) • The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
Short stories
Sunday Under Three Heads (1836) • The Lamplighter (1838) • A Child's Dream of a Star (1850) • Captain Murderer • The Long Voyage (1853) • The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) • Hunted Down (1859) • The Signal-Man (1866) • George Silverman's Explanation (1868) • Holiday Romance (1868)
Christmas short stories A Christmas Tree (1850) • What Christmas is, as We Grow Older (1851) • The Poor Relation's Story (1852) • The Child's Story (1852) • The Schoolboy's Story (1853) • Nobody's Story (1853) • Going into Society (1858) • Somebody's Luggage (1862) • Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings (1863) • Mrs Lirriper's Legacy (1864) • Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865)
Short story collections Sketches by Boz (1837–1839) • The Mudfog Papers (1837–1838) • Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) • Boots at the Holly-tree Inn: And Other Stories (1858) • Reprinted Pieces (1861)
Non-fiction American Notes (1842) • Pictures from Italy (1846) • The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in 1934) • A Child's History of England (1851–1853) • The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869)
Poetry & plays The Village Coquettes (play, 1836) • The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841) • The Frozen Deep (play, 1866) (with Wilkie Collins) • No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts (play, 1867) (with Wilkie Collins)
Journalism The Examiner (1808–1886) • Monthly Magazine (1833–1835) • Morning Chronicle (1834–1836) • Evening Chronicle (1835) • Bentley's Miscellany (1836–1838) • Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) • The Pic-Nic Papers (1841) • Daily News (1846) • Household Words (1850–1859) • All the Year Round (1858–1870)
Collaborative works Household Words: The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, George Sala and Eliza Linton) • The Holly-tree Inn (1855) • (with Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Harriet Parr, and Adelaide Procter) • The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, Harriet Parr, Percy Fitzgerald and Rev. James White) • The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) • A House to Let (1858) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Procter)
All the Year Round: The Haunted House (1859) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Procter, George Sala, and Hesba Stretton) • A Message from the Sea (1860) (with Wilkie Collins, Robert Buchanan, Charles Allston Collins, Amelia Edwards, and Harriet Parr) • Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861) (with Wilkie Collins, John Harwood, Charles Allston Collins, and Amelia Edwards) • The Trial for Murder (1865) (with Charles Allston Collins) • Mugby Junction (1866) (with Andrew Halliday, Charles Allston Collins, Hesba Stretton and Amelia Edwards) • No Thoroughfare (1867) (with Wilkie Collins)
Articles & essays A Visit to Newgate (1836) • Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton (1842) • In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray (1850) • A Coal Miner's Evidence (1850) • Frauds on the Fairies (1853) • The Lost Arctic Voyagers (1854)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities"
Categories: British novels | 1859 novels | Novels by Charles Dickens | Paris in fiction | Masterpiece Theatre | Novels first published in serial form | Novels set in the French Revolution
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Author Charles Dickens
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Weekly: 30 April 1859 - 26 November 1859 [1]
Genre(s) Novel
Historical
Social criticism
Publication date 1859
Preceded by Little Dorrit
Followed by Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it is the most printed original English book and among the most famous works of fiction.[2]
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.
The novel was published in weekly installments instead of monthly, as with most of his other novels. The first ran in the first issue of Dickens' literary periodical All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran thirty-one weeks later, on 25 November.[1]
Plot summary
Book the First: Recalled to Life
“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... ”
—Opening line of A Tale of Two Cities[3]
The first book of the novel takes place in 1775. Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, is travelling from England to France to bring Dr. Alexandre Manette to London on his return trip. Before crossing into France, he meets 17-year-old Lucie Manette at Dover, and reveals to her that her father, Dr. Manette, is not dead, as she had been told; instead, he was a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years.
Lorry and Lucie travel to Saint Antoine, a suburb of Paris and meet Monsieur Ernest and Madame Therese Defarge. The Defarges operate a wine shop they use to lead a clandestine band of revolutionaries; they refer to each other by the codename "Jacques", which Dickens drew from the Jacobins), an actual French revolutionary group.
Monsieur Defarge was Dr. Manette's servant before Manette's imprisonment and now has care of him, and he takes them to see the doctor. Because of his long imprisonment, Dr. Manette entered a form of psychosis and has become obsessed with making shoes, a trade he had learned whilst imprisoned. At first, he does not recognize his daughter; but he eventually compares her long golden hair with her mother's, which he found on his sleeve when he was imprisoned and kept, and notices their identical blue eye color. Lorry and Lucie then take him back to England.
[edit] Book the Second: The Golden Thread
"The Golden Thread" redirects here. For the legal judgement, see Golden thread (law).
Five years later, two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly, are trying to frame French émigré Charles Darnay for their own gain; and Darnay is on trial for treason at the Old Bailey. They claim, falsely, that Darnay gave information about British troops in North America to the French. Darnay is acquitted when a witness who claims he would be able to recognize Darnay anywhere cannot tell Darnay apart from a barrister present in court, Sydney Carton, who looks almost identical to him.
In Paris, the despised Marquis St. Evrémonde (Monseigneur), Darnay's uncle, runs over and kills the son of the peasant Gaspard and throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss. Monsieur Defarge comforts Gaspard. As the Marquis's coach drives off, Defarge throws the coin back into the coach, enraging the Marquis.
Arriving at his château, the Marquis meets with his nephew and heir Charles Evrémonde, now known as Charles Darnay. Out of disgust with his family, Darnay shed his real surname and adopted an anglicisized version of his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais.[4]) They argue: Darnay has sympathy for the peasantry, while the Marquis is cruel and heartless:
"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."[5]
That night, Gaspard, who followed the Marquis to his château, hanging under his coach, murders the Marquis in his sleep. He leaves a note saying, "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from JACQUES."[6]
In London, Darnay gets Dr. Manette's permission to wed Lucie; but Carton confesses his love to Lucie as well. Knowing she will not love him in return, Carton promises to "embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you".[7]
On the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and who his family is, a detail which Dr. Manette had asked him to withhold until then. This unhinges Dr. Manette, who reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. His sanity is restored before Lucie returns from her honeymoon. To prevent a further relapse, banker Lorry destroys the shoemaking bench, which Dr. Manette had brought with him from Paris.
It is 14 July 1789. The Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower".[8] The reader does not know what Monsieur Defarge is searching for until Book 3, Chapter 9. It is a statement in which Dr. Manette explains why he was imprisoned.
In the summer of 1792, a letter reaches Tellson's bank. Mr. Lorry, who is planning to go to Paris to save the French branch of Tellson's, announces that the letter is addressed to someone named Evrémonde. Nobody in England knows who this is, because Darnay has kept his real name a secret there. Darnay acquires the letter by pretending Evrémonde is an acquaintance of his. The letter turns out to be from Gabelle, a servant of the former Marquis. Gabelle has been imprisoned and begs the new Marquis to come to his aid. Darnay, who feels guilty, leaves for Paris to help Gabelle.
[edit] Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
"The Sea Rises", an illustration for Book 2, Chapter 21 by "Phiz"
In France, Darnay is denounced for emigrating from France and imprisoned in La Force Prison in Paris.[9] Dr. Manette and Lucie—along with Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher, and "Little Lucie", the daughter of Charles and Lucie Darnay—come to Paris and meet Mr. Lorry to try to free Darnay. A year and three months pass, and Darnay is finally tried.
Dr. Manette, who is seen as a hero for his imprisonment in the hated Bastille, is able to have him released; but, that same evening, Darnay is again arrested. He is put on trial again the following day, under new charges brought by the Defarges and one "unnamed other". We soon discover that this "other" is Dr. Manette, through his own account of his imprisonment. Manette did not know that his statement had been found and is horrified when his words are used to condemn Darnay.
On an errand, Miss Pross is amazed to see her long-lost brother, Solomon Pross; but Solomon does not want to be recognised. Sydney Carton suddenly steps forward from the shadows much as he had done after Darnay's first trial in London and identifies Solomon Pross as John Barsad, one of the men who tried to frame Darnay for treason at his first trial in London. Carton threatens to reveal Solomon's identity as a Briton and an opportunist who spies for the French or the British as it suits him. If this were revealed, Solomon would surely be executed, so Carton's hand is strong.
Darnay is confronted at the tribunal by Monsieur Defarge, who identifies Darnay as the Marquis St. Evrémonde and reads the letter Dr. Manette had hidden in his cell in the Bastille. Defarge can identify Darnay as Evrémonde because Barsad told him Darnay's identity when Barsad was fishing for information at the Defarges' wine shop in Book 2, Chapter 16. The letter describes how Dr. Manette was locked away in the Bastille by Darnay's father and his uncle for trying to report their crimes against a peasant family. Darnay's uncle had become infatuated with a girl, whom he had kidnapped and raped and then killed her husband. Before he died defending the family honor, the brother of the raped peasant had hidden the last member of the family, his younger sister. The paper concludes by condemning the Evrémondes, "them and their descendants, to the last of their race".[10] Dr. Manette is horrified, but his protests are ignored—he is not allowed to take back his condemnation. Darnay is sent to the Conciergerie and sentenced to be guillotined the next day.
Carton wanders into the Defarges' wine shop, where he overhears Madame Defarge talking about her plans to have the rest of Darnay's family (Lucie and "Little Lucie") condemned. Carton discovers that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family savaged by the Evrémondes. The only plot detail that might give one any sympathy for Madame Defarge is the loss of her family and that she has no (family) name. Defarge is her married name, and Dr. Manette cannot learn her family name, though he asks her dying sister for it.[11] The next morning, when Dr. Manette returns shattered after spending the night in many failed attempts to save Charles' life, he reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. Carton urges Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie, her father, and Little Lucie.
That same morning, Carton visits Darnay in prison. Carton drugs Darnay, and Barsad (whom Carton is blackmailing) has Darnay carried out of the prison. Carton has decided to pretend to be Darnay and to be executed in his place. He does this out of love for Lucie, recalling his earlier promise to her. Following Carton's earlier instructions, Darnay's family and Lorry flee Paris and France. In their coach is an unconscious man who carries Carton's identification papers, but is actually Darnay.
Meanwhile, Madame Defarge, armed with a pistol, goes to the residence of Lucie's family, hoping to catch them mourning for Darnay, since it was illegal to mourn an enemy of the Republic; however, Lucie and Little Lucie, Dr. Manette, and Mr. Lorry are already gone. To give them time to escape, Miss Pross confronts Madame Defarge and they struggle. Pross speaks only English and Defarge speaks only French, so neither can understand each other. In the fight, Madame Defarge's pistol goes off, killing her; the noise of the shot and the shock of Madame Defarge's death cause Miss Pross to go permanently deaf.
The novel concludes with the guillotining of Sydney Carton. Carton's unspoken last thoughts are prophetic:[12] Carton foresees that many of the revolutionaries, including Defarge, Barsad and The Vengeance (a lieutenant of Madame Defarge) will be sent to the guillotine themselves, and that Darnay and Lucie will have a son whom they will name after Carton: a son who will fulfill all the promise that Carton wasted. Lucie and Darnay have a first son earlier in the book who is born and dies within a single paragraph. It seems likely that this first son appears in the novel so that their later son, named after Carton, can represent another way in which Carton restores Lucie and Darnay through his sacrifice.[13]
“ It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. ”
—Final sentence of A Tale of Two Cities[12]
[edit] Analysis
A Tale of Two Cities is one of only two works of historical fiction by Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge is the other one). It has fewer characters and sub-plots than a typical Charles Dickens novel. The author's primary historical source was The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle: Charles Dickens wrote in his Preface to Tale that "no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr. Carlyle's wonderful book"[14] Carlyle's view that history cycles through destruction and resurrection was an important influence on the novel, as illustrated by the life and death of Sydney Carton.
[edit] Language
Dickens uses literal translations of French idioms for characters who can't speak English, such as "What the devil do you do in that galley there?!!" and "Where is my husband? ---Here you see me." The Penguin Classics edition of the novel notes that "Not all readers have regarded the experiment as a success."[15]
[edit] Humor
Dickens is renowned for his humor, but A Tale of Two Cities is one of his least comical books. Nonetheless, Jerry Cruncher, Miss Pross, and Mr. Stryver provide much comedy. Dickens also uses sarcasm as humour in the book to show different points of view. The book is full of tragic situations, leaving little room for intended humor provided by Dickens.[citation needed]
[edit] Themes
[edit] "Recalled to Life"
In Dickens' England, resurrection always sat firmly in a Christian context. Most broadly, Sydney Carton is resurrected in spirit at the novel's close (even as he, paradoxically, gives up his physical life to save Darnay's—just as, in Christian belief, Christ died for the sins of His people.) More concretely, "Book the First" deals with the rebirth of Dr. Manette from the living death of his incarceration.
Resurrection appears for the first time when Mr. Lorry replies to the message carried by Jerry Cruncher with the words "Recalled to Life". Resurrection also appears during Mr. Lorry's coach ride to Dover, as he constantly ponders a hypothetical conversation with Dr. Manette: ("Buried how long?" "Almost eighteen years." ... "You know that you are recalled to life?" "They tell me so.") He believes he is helping with Dr. Manette's revival and imagines himself "digging" up Dr. Manette from his grave.
Resurrection is the main theme in the novel. In Jarvis Lorry's thoughts of Dr. Manette, resurrection is first spotted as a theme. It is also the last theme: Carton's sacrifice. Dickens originally wanted to call the entire novel Recalled to Life. (This instead became the title of the first of the novel's three "books".)
Jerry is also part of the recurring theme: he himself is involved in death and resurrection in ways the reader does not yet know. The first piece of foreshadowing comes in his remark to himself: "You'd be in a blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!" The black humour of this statement becomes obvious only much later on. Five years later, one cloudy and very dark night (in June 1780[16]), Mr. Lorry reawakens the reader's interest in the mystery by telling Jerry it is "Almost a night ... to bring the dead out of their graves". Jerry responds firmly that he has never seen the night do that.[17]
It turns out that Jerry Cruncher's involvement with the theme of resurrection is that he is what the Victorians called a "Resurrection Man", one who (illegally) digs up dead bodies to sell to medical men (there was no legal way to procure cadavers for study at that time).
The opposite of resurrection is of course death. Death and resurrection appear often in the novel. Dickens is angered that in France and England, courts hand out death sentences for insignificant crimes. In France, peasants are even put to death without any trial, at the whim of a noble. The Marquis tells Darnay with pleasure that "[I]n the next room (my bedroom), one fellow ... was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter—his daughter!"[18]
Interestingly, the demolition of Dr. Manette's shoe-making workbench by Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry is described as "the burning of the body".[19] It seems clear that this is a rare case where death or destruction (the opposite of resurrection) has a positive connotation, since the "burning" helps liberate the doctor from the memory of his long imprisonment. But Dickens' description of this kind and healing act is strikingly odd:
"The Accomplices", an illustration for Book 2, Chapter 19 by "Phiz"
So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime.[20]
Sydney Carton's martyrdom atones for all his past wrongdoings. He even finds God during the last few days of his life, repeating Christ's soothing words, "I am the resurrection and the life".[21] Resurrection is the dominant theme of the last part of the novel. Darnay is rescued at the last moment and recalled to life; Carton chooses death and resurrection to a life better than that which he has ever known: "it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there ... he looked sublime and prophetic".
In the broadest sense, at the end of the novel Dickens foresees a resurrected social order in France, rising from the ashes of the old one.
[edit] Water
Many in the Jungian archetypal tradition might agree with Hans Biedermann, who writes that water "is the fundamental symbol of all the energy of the unconscious—an energy that can be dangerous when it overflows its proper limits (a frequent dream sequence)."[22] This symbolism suits Dickens' novel; in A Tale of Two Cities, the frequent images of water stand for the building anger of the peasant mob, an anger that Dickens sympathises with to a point, but ultimately finds irrational and even animalistic.
Early in the book, Dickens suggests this when he writes, “[T]he sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction.”[23] The sea here represents the coming mob of revolutionaries. After Gaspard murders the Marquis, he is “hanged there forty feet high—and is left hanging, poisoning the water.”[24] The poisoning of the well represents the bitter impact of Gaspard's execution on the collective feeling of the peasants.
After Gaspard’s death, the storming of the Bastille is led (from the St. Antoine neighbourhood, at least) by the Defarges; “As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled around Defarge’s wine shop, and every human drop in the cauldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex...”[25] The crowd is envisioned as a sea. “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into a detested word [the word Bastille], the living sea rose, wave upon wave, depth upon depth, and overflowed the city...”[25]
Darnay’s jailer is described as “unwholesomely bloated in both face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water.” Later, during the Reign of Terror, the revolution had grown “so much more wicked and distracted ... that the rivers of the South were encumbered with bodies of the violently drowned by night...” Later a crowd is “swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets ... the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away.”
During the fight with Miss Pross, Madame Defarge clings to her with “more than the hold of a drowning woman”. Commentators on the novel have noted the irony that Madame Defarge is killed by her own gun, and perhaps Dickens means by the above quote to suggest that such vicious vengefulness as Madame Defarge's will eventually destroy even its perpetrators.
So many read the novel in a Freudian light, as exalting the (British) superego over the (French) id. Yet in Carton's last walk, he watches an eddy that "turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it onto the sea"—his fulfilment, while masochistic and superego-driven, is nonetheless an ecstatic union with the subconscious.
[edit] Darkness and light
As is common in English literature, good and evil are symbolised with light and darkness. Lucie Manette is often associated with light and Madame Defarge with darkness.
Lucie meets her father for the first time in a room kept by the Defarges:." Lucie's hair symbolises joy as she winds "the golden thread that bound them all together". She is adorned with "diamonds, very bright and sparkling", and symbolic of the happiness of the day of her marriage.
Darkness represents uncertainty, fear and peril. It is dark when Mr. Lorry rides to Dover; it is dark in the prisons; dark shadows follow Madame Defarge; dark, gloomy doldrums disturb Dr. Manette; his capture and captivity are shrouded in darkness; the Marquis’s estate is burned in the dark of night; Jerry Cruncher raids graves in the darkness; Charles's second arrest also occurs at night. Both Lucie and Mr. Lorry feel the dark threat that is Madame Defarge. "That dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me," remarks Lucie. Although Mr. Lorry tries to comfort her, "the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself". Madame Defarge is "like a shadow over the white road", the snow symbolising purity and Madame Defarge's darkness corruption. Dickens also compares the dark colour of blood to the pure white snow: the blood takes on the shade of the crimes of its shedders.
[edit] Social injustice
Charles Dickens was a champion of the maltreated poor because of his terrible experience when he was forced to work in a factory as a child. His sympathies, however, lie only up to a point with the revolutionaries; he condemns the mob madness which soon sets in. When madmen and -women massacre eleven hundred detainees in one night and hustle back to sharpen their weapons on the grindstone, they display "eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun".
The reader is shown the poor are brutalised in France and England alike. As crime proliferates, the executioner in England is "stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now hanging housebreaker ... now burning people in the hand" or hanging a broke man for stealing sixpence. In France, a boy is sentenced to have his hands removed and be burned alive, only because he did not kneel down in the rain before a parade of monks passing some fifty yards away. At the lavish residence of Monseigneur, we find "brazen ecclesiastics of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives ... Military officers destitute of military knowledge ... [and] Doctors who made great fortunes ... for imaginary disorders".[26]
The Marquis recalls with pleasure the days when his family had the right of life and death over their slaves, "when many such dogs were taken out to be hanged". He won't even allow a widow to put up a board bearing her dead husband’s name, to discern his resting place from all the others. He orders Madame Defarge's sick brother-in-law to heave a cart all day and allay frogs at night to exacerbate the young man's illness and hasten his death.
In England, even banks endorse unbalanced sentences: a man may be condemned to death for nicking a horse or opening a letter. Conditions in the prisons are dreadful. "Most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and ... dire diseases were bred", sometimes killing the judge before the accused.
So riled is Dickens at the brutality of English law that he depicts some of its punishments with sarcasm: "the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action". He faults the law for not seeking reform: "Whatever is right" is the dictum of the Old Bailey.[27] The gruesome portrayal of quartering highlights its atrocity.
Without entirely forgiving him, Dickens understands that Jerry Cruncher robs graves only to feed his son, and reminds the reader that Mr. Lorry is more likely to rebuke Jerry for his humble social status than anything else. Jerry reminds Mr. Lorry that doctors, men of the cloth, undertakers and watchmen are also conspirators in the selling of bodies.
Dickens wants his readers to be careful that the same revolution that so damaged France will not happen in Britain, which (at least at the beginning of the book)[28] is shown to be nearly as unjust as France. But his warning is addressed not to the British lower classes, but to the aristocracy. He repeatedly uses the metaphor of sowing and reaping; if the aristocracy continues to plant the seeds of a revolution through behaving unjustly, they can be certain of harvesting that revolution in time. The lower classes do not have any agency in this metaphor: they simply react to the behaviour of the aristocracy. In this sense it can be said that while Dickens sympathises with the poor, he identifies with the rich: they are the book's audience, its "us" and not its "them". "Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind".[29]
[edit] Relation to Dickens' personal life
Some have argued that in A Tale of Two Cities Dickens reflects on his recently begun affair with eighteen-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, which was possibly asexual but certainly romantic. Lucie Manette resembles Ternan physically, and some have seen "a sort of implied emotional incest" in the relationship between Dr. Manette and his daughter.[30]
After starring in a play by Wilkie Collins entitled The Frozen Deep, Dickens was first inspired to write Tale. In the play, Dickens played the part of a man who sacrifices his own life so that his rival may have the woman they both love; the love triangle in the play became the basis for the relationships between Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette, and Sydney Carton in Tale.[31]
Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay may also bear importantly on Dickens' personal life. The plot hinges on the near-perfect resemblance between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay; the two look so alike that Carton twice saves Darnay through the inability of others to tell them apart. It is implied that Carton and Darnay not only look alike, but they have the same "genetic" endowments (to use a term that Dickens would not have known): Carton is Darnay made bad. Carton suggests as much:
'Do you particularly like the man [Darnay]?' he muttered, at his own image [which he is regarding in a mirror]; 'why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for talking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes [belonging to Lucie Manette] as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.'[32]
Many have felt that Carton and Darnay are doppelgängers, which Eric Rabkin defines as a pair "of characters that together, represent one psychological persona in the narrative".[33] If so, they would prefigure such works as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Darnay is worthy and respectable but dull (at least to most modern readers), Carton disreputable but magnetic.
One can only suspect whose psychological persona it is that Carton and Darnay together embody (if they do), but it is often thought to be the psyche of Dickens himself. Dickens was quite aware that between them, Carton and Darnay shared his own initials.[34]
[edit] Characters
Many of Dickens' characters are "flat", not "round", in the novelist E. M. Forster's famous terms, meaning roughly that they have only one mood.[35] In Tale, for example, the Marquis is unremittingly wicked and relishes being so; Lucie is perfectly loving and supportive. (As a corollary, Dickens often gives these characters verbal tics or visual quirks that he mentions over and over, such as the dints in the nose of the Marquis.) Forster believed that Dickens never truly created rounded characters, but a character such as Carton surely at least comes closer to roundness.
• Sydney Carton – A quick-minded but depressed English barrister alcoholic, and cynic; his Christ-like self-sacrifice redeems his own life and that of Charles Darnay.
• Lucie Manette – An ideal pre-Victorian lady, perfect in every way. She was loved by both Carton and Charles Darnay (whom she marries), and is the daughter of Dr. Manette. She is the "golden thread" after whom Book Two is named, so called because she holds her father's and her family's lives together (and because of her blond hair like her mother's). She also ties nearly every character in the book together.[36]
• Charles Darnay – A young French noble of the Evrémonde family. In disgust at the cruelty of his family to the French peasantry, he has taken on the name "Darnay" (after his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais) and left France for England.[37]
• Dr. Alexandre Manette – Lucie's father, kept a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years.
• Monsieur Ernest Defarge – The owner of a French wine shop and leader of the Jacquerie; husband of Madame Defarge; servant to Dr. Manette as a youth. One of the key revolutionary leaders, he leads the revolution with a noble cause, unlike many of other revolutionaries.
• Madame Therese Defarge – A vengeful female revolutionary, arguably the novel's antagonist
• The Vengeance – A companion of Madame Defarge referred to as her "shadow" and lieutenant, a member of the sisterhood of women revolutionaries in Saint Antoine, and revolutionary zealot. (Many Frenchmen and women did change their names to show their enthusiasm for the Revolution[38])
• Jarvis Lorry – An elderly manager at Tellson's Bank and a dear friend of Dr. Manette.
• Miss Pross – Lucie Manette's governess since Lucie was ten years old. Fiercely loyal to Lucie and to England.
• The Marquis St. Evrémonde[39] – The cruel uncle of Charles Darnay.
• John Barsad (real name Solomon Pross) – A spy for Britain who later becomes a spy for France (at which point he must hide that he is British). He is the long-lost brother of Miss Pross.
• Roger Cly – Another spy, Barsad's collaborator.
• Jerry Cruncher – Porter and messenger for Tellson's Bank and secret "Resurrection Man" (body-snatcher). His first name is short for Jeremiah.
• Young Jerry Cruncher - Son of Jerry and Mrs. Cruncher. Young Jerry often follows his father around to his father's odd jobs, and at one point in the story, follows his father at night and discovers that his father is a resurrection man. Young Jerry looks up to his father as a role model, and aspires to become a resurrection man himself when he grows up.
• Mrs. Cruncher - Wife of Jerry Cruncher. She is a very religious woman, but her husband, being a bit paranoid, claims she is praying against him, and that is why he doesn't succeed at work often. She is often abused verbally, and almost as often, abused physically, by Jerry, but at the end of the story, he appears to feel a bit guilty about this.
• Mr. Stryver – An arrogant and ambitious barrister, senior to Sydney Carton.[40] There is a frequent mis-perception that Stryver's full name is "C. J. Stryver", but this is very unlikely. The mistake comes from a line in Book 2, Chapter 12: "After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be."[41] The initials C. J. almost certainly refer to a legal title (probably "chief justice"); Stryver is imagining that he is playing every role in a trial in which he browbeats Lucie Manette into marrying him.
• The Seamstress – A young woman caught up in The Terror. She precedes Sydney Carton, who comforts her, to the guillotine.
• Gabelle – Gabelle is "the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary, united"[42] for the tenants of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. Gabelle is imprisoned by the revolutionaries, and his beseeching letter brings Darnay to France. Gabelle is "named after the hated salt tax".[43]
• Gaspard – Gaspard is the man whose son is run over by the Marquis. He then kills the Marquis and goes into hiding for a year. He eventually is found, arrested, and executed.
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v • d • e
Works by Charles Dickens
Novels
The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837) • Oliver Twist (1837–1839) • Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839) • The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841) • Barnaby Rudge (1840–1841) • Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844) • Dombey and Son (1846–1848) • David Copperfield (1849–1850) • Bleak House (1852–1853) • Hard Times (1854) • Little Dorrit (1855–1857) • A Tale of Two Cities (1859) • Great Expectations (1860–1861) • Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865) • The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished) (1870)
Christmas books A Christmas Carol (1843) • The Chimes (1844) • The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) • The Battle of Life (1846) • The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
Short stories
Sunday Under Three Heads (1836) • The Lamplighter (1838) • A Child's Dream of a Star (1850) • Captain Murderer • The Long Voyage (1853) • The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) • Hunted Down (1859) • The Signal-Man (1866) • George Silverman's Explanation (1868) • Holiday Romance (1868)
Christmas short stories A Christmas Tree (1850) • What Christmas is, as We Grow Older (1851) • The Poor Relation's Story (1852) • The Child's Story (1852) • The Schoolboy's Story (1853) • Nobody's Story (1853) • Going into Society (1858) • Somebody's Luggage (1862) • Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings (1863) • Mrs Lirriper's Legacy (1864) • Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865)
Short story collections Sketches by Boz (1837–1839) • The Mudfog Papers (1837–1838) • Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) • Boots at the Holly-tree Inn: And Other Stories (1858) • Reprinted Pieces (1861)
Non-fiction American Notes (1842) • Pictures from Italy (1846) • The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in 1934) • A Child's History of England (1851–1853) • The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869)
Poetry & plays The Village Coquettes (play, 1836) • The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841) • The Frozen Deep (play, 1866) (with Wilkie Collins) • No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts (play, 1867) (with Wilkie Collins)
Journalism The Examiner (1808–1886) • Monthly Magazine (1833–1835) • Morning Chronicle (1834–1836) • Evening Chronicle (1835) • Bentley's Miscellany (1836–1838) • Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) • The Pic-Nic Papers (1841) • Daily News (1846) • Household Words (1850–1859) • All the Year Round (1858–1870)
Collaborative works Household Words: The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, George Sala and Eliza Linton) • The Holly-tree Inn (1855) • (with Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Harriet Parr, and Adelaide Procter) • The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, Harriet Parr, Percy Fitzgerald and Rev. James White) • The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) • A House to Let (1858) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Procter)
All the Year Round: The Haunted House (1859) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Procter, George Sala, and Hesba Stretton) • A Message from the Sea (1860) (with Wilkie Collins, Robert Buchanan, Charles Allston Collins, Amelia Edwards, and Harriet Parr) • Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861) (with Wilkie Collins, John Harwood, Charles Allston Collins, and Amelia Edwards) • The Trial for Murder (1865) (with Charles Allston Collins) • Mugby Junction (1866) (with Andrew Halliday, Charles Allston Collins, Hesba Stretton and Amelia Edwards) • No Thoroughfare (1867) (with Wilkie Collins)
Articles & essays A Visit to Newgate (1836) • Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton (1842) • In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray (1850) • A Coal Miner's Evidence (1850) • Frauds on the Fairies (1853) • The Lost Arctic Voyagers (1854)
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Categories: British novels | 1859 novels | Novels by Charles Dickens | Paris in fiction | Masterpiece Theatre | Novels first published in serial form | Novels set in the French Revolution
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