A Tale of Two Cities
A
Tale of Two Cities is an
1859 historical novel
by Charles Dickens,
set in London and Paris
before and during the French
Revolution. The novel tells the story of the
French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his
daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions
that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign
of Terror.
Dickens’
best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is regularly
cited as the best-selling novel of all time.[2][3] In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC’s The
Big Read poll.[4] The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and
the stage, and has continued to have an influence on popular culture.
Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan’s
screenplay for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) was inspired by the novel, with Nolan calling the depiction
of Paris “one of the most harrowing portraits of a relatable, recognisable
civilisation that completely folded to pieces”.[5]
Synopsis
Book the First: Recalled to Life
Dickens'
famous opening sentence introduces the universal approach of the book, the
French Revolution, and the drama depicted within:
It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was
the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going
direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good
or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.[6]
In
1775, a man flags down the nightly mail-coach on its route from London to
Dover. The man is Jerry Cruncher,
an employee of Tellson's Bank in London; he carries a message for Jarvis
Lorry, a passenger and one of the bank's
managers. Lorry sends Jerry back to deliver a cryptic response to the bank:
"Recalled to Life." The message refers to Alexandre
Manette, a French physician who has been
released from the Bastille
after an 18-year imprisonment. Once Lorry arrives in Dover, he meets Dr.
Manette's daughter Lucie
and her governess, Miss Pross.
Lucie has believed her father to be dead, and faints at the news that he is
alive; Lorry takes her to France to reunite with her father.
In
the Paris neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Dr. Manette has been given lodgings by his former servant
Ernest Defarge and his wife Therese, owners of a wine shop. Lorry and Lucie
find him in a small garret, where he spends much of his time making shoes – a
skill he learned in prison – which he uses to distract himself from his
thoughts and which has become an obsession
for him. He does not recognise Lucie at first but does eventually see the
resemblance to her mother through her blue eyes and long golden hair, a strand
of which he found on his sleeve when he was imprisoned. Lorry and Lucie take
him back to England.
Book the Second: The Golden Thread
In
1780, French émigré
Charles Darnay
is on trial for treason against the British Crown. The key witnesses against
him are two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly, who claim that Darnay
gave information about British troops in North America to the French. Under cross-examination by Mr. Stryver, the
barrister defending Darnay, Barsad claims that he would recognise Darnay
anywhere. Stryver points out his colleague, Sydney
Carton, who bears a strong resemblance to
Darnay, and Barsad admits that the two men look nearly identical. With Barsad's
eyewitness testimony now discredited, Darnay is acquitted.
In
Paris, the hated and abusive Marquis St. Evrémonde orders his carriage driven recklessly fast through the
crowded streets, hitting and killing the child of Gaspard in Saint Antoine. The
Marquis throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss. Defarge,
having observed the incident, comes forth to comfort the distraught father,
saying the child would be worse off alive. This piece of wisdom pleases the
Marquis, who throws a coin to Defarge also. As the Marquis departs, a coin is
flung back into his carriage.
Arriving
at his country château,
the Marquis meets his nephew and heir, Darnay. Out of disgust with his
aristocratic family, the nephew has shed his real surname (St. Evrémonde) and
anglicised his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais, to Darnay.[7] The following passage records the Marquis' principles of
aristocratic superiority:
"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."[8]
That
night, Gaspard, who followed the Marquis to his château by riding on the
underside of the carriage, stabs and kills him in his sleep. Gaspard leaves a
note on the knife saying, "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from
JACQUES."[9]
After nearly a year on the run, he is caught and hanged above the village well.
In
London, Darnay asks for 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".[10] Stryver considers proposing marriage to Lucie, but Lorry
talks him out of the idea.
On
the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and family lineage to
Dr. Manette, a detail he had been asked to withhold until that day. In
consequence, Dr. Manette reverts to his obsessive shoemaking after the couple
leave for their honeymoon. He returns to sanity before their return, and the
whole incident is kept secret from Lucie. Lorry and Miss Pross destroy the
shoemaking bench and tools, which Dr. Manette had brought with him from Paris.
As
time passes in England, Lucie and Charles begin to raise a family, a son (who
dies in childhood) and a daughter, little Lucie. Lorry finds a second home and
a sort of family with the Darnays. Stryver marries a rich widow with three
children and becomes even more insufferable as his ambitions begin to be
realised. Carton, even though he seldom visits, is accepted as a close friend
of the family and becomes a special favourite of little Lucie.
In
July 1789, the Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille, a symbol of royal tyranny. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's
former cell, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower,"[11] and searches it thoroughly. Throughout the countryside,
local officials and other representatives of the aristocracy are dragged from
their homes to be killed, and the St. Evrémonde château is burned to the
ground.
In
1792, Lorry decides to travel to Paris to collect important documents from the
Tellson's branch in that city and place them in safekeeping against the chaos
of the French Revolution.
Darnay intercepts a letter written by Gabelle, one of his uncle's servants who
has been imprisoned by the revolutionaries, pleading for the Marquis to help
secure his release. Without telling his family or revealing his position as the
new Marquis, Darnay sets out for Paris.
Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Shortly
after Darnay arrives in Paris, he is denounced for being an emigrated
aristocrat from France and jailed in La
Force Prison.[12] Dr. Manette, Lucie, little Lucie, Jerry, and Miss Pross
travel to Paris and meet Lorry to try to free Darnay. A year and three months
pass, and Darnay is finally tried.
Dr
Manette, viewed as a hero for his imprisonment in the Bastille, testifies on
Darnay's behalf at his trial. Darnay is released, only to be arrested again
later that day. A new trial begins the following day, under new charges brought
by the Defarges and a third individual who is soon revealed as Dr Manette. He
had written an account of his imprisonment at the hands of Darnay's father and
hidden it in his cell; Defarge found it while searching the cell during the
storming of the Bastille.
While
running errands with Jerry, Miss Pross is amazed to see her long-lost brother
Solomon, but he does not want to be recognised in public. Carton suddenly steps
forward from the shadows and identifies Solomon as Barsad, one of the spies who
tried to frame Darnay for treason at his trial in 1780. Jerry remembers that he
has seen Solomon with Cly, the other key witness at the trial, and that Cly had
faked his death to escape England. By threatening to denounce Solomon to the
revolutionary tribunal as a Briton, Carton blackmails him into helping with a
plan.
At
the tribunal, Defarge identifies Darnay as the nephew of the dead Marquis St.
Evrémonde and reads Dr Manette's letter. Defarge had learned Darnay's lineage
from Solomon during the latter's visit to the wine shop several years earlier.
The letter describes Dr Manette's imprisonment at the hands of Darnay's father
and 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;
despite Dr. Manette's attempt to save her, she died. The uncle killed her
husband by working him to death, and her father died from a heart attack upon
being informed of what had happened. Before he died defending the family
honour, the brother of the raped peasant had hidden the last member of the
family, his younger sister. The Evrémonde brothers imprisoned Dr. Manette after
he refused their offer of a bribe to keep quiet. He concludes his letter by
condemning the Evrémondes, "them and their descendants, to the last of
their race."[13] Dr. Manette is horrified, but he is not allowed to retract
his statement. 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 both Lucie and little Lucie condemned. Carton discovers
that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family savaged by
the Evrémondes.[14] At night, when Dr. Manette returns, shattered after
spending the day in many failed attempts to save Darnay's life, he falls into
an obsessive search for his shoemaking implements. Carton urges Lorry to flee
Paris with Lucie, her father, and Little Lucie, asking them to leave as soon as
he joins.
Shortly
before the executions are to begin, Solomon sneaks Carton into the prison for a
visit with Darnay. The two men trade clothes, and Carton drugs Darnay and has
Solomon carry him out. Carton has decided to be executed in his place, taking
advantage of their similar appearances, and has given his own identification
papers to Lorry to present on Darnay's behalf. Following Carton's earlier
instructions, the family and Lorry flee to England with Darnay, who gradually
regains consciousness during the journey.
Meanwhile,
Madame Defarge, armed with a dagger and pistol, goes to the Manette residence,
hoping to apprehend Lucie and little Lucie and bring them in for execution.
However, the family is already gone and Miss Pross stays behind to confront and
delay Madame Defarge. As the two women struggle, Madame Defarge's pistol
discharges, killing her and causing Miss Pross to go permanently deaf from
noise and shock.
The
novel concludes with the guillotining of Carton. As he is waiting to board the tumbril, he is approached by a seamstress, also condemned to death,
who mistakes him for Darnay (with whom she had been imprisoned earlier) but
realises the truth once she sees him at close range. Awed by his unselfish
courage and sacrifice, she asks to stay close to him and he agrees. Upon their
arrival at the guillotine, Carton comforts her, telling her that their ends
will be quick but that there is no Time or Trouble "in the better land
where ... [they] will be mercifully sheltered", and she is able to meet
her death in peace. After Carton tearfully hears the execution of the
seamstress, his final thoughts flash in his mind as he is pushed towards the
slot where the blade would fall. Carton's unspoken last thoughts are prophetic:[15]
I
see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance [a lieutenant of Madame Defarge],
the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the
destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it
shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant
people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in
their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this
time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually
making expiation for itself and wearing out.
I
see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and
happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon
her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise
restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see
the good old man [Lorry], so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching
them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
I
see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their
descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the
anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying
side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more
honoured and held sacred in the other's soul than I was in the souls of both.
I
see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his
way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well,
that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I
threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured
men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to
this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's
disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a
faltering voice.
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.
Characters
In
order of appearance:
Book the First (November 1775)
Chapter
2
- Jerry Cruncher: Porter and messenger for Tellson's Bank and secret "Resurrection Man" (body-snatcher); though rough and abusive towards his wife, he provides courageous service to the Manettes in Book the Third. His first name is short for Jeremiah; the latter name shares a meaning with the name of Jarvis Lorry.
- Jarvis Lorry: A manager at Tellson's Bank: "...a gentleman of 60 ... Very orderly and methodical he looked ... He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it..." He is a dear friend of Dr. Manette and serves as a sort of trustee and guardian of the Manette family. The bank places him in charge of the Paris branch during the Revolution, putting him in position to provide life-saving service to the Manettes in Book the Third. The end of the book reveals that he lives to be 88.
Chapter
4
- Lucie Manette: Daughter of Dr. Manette; an ideal pre-Victorian lady, perfect in every way. About 17 when the novel begins, she is described as short and slight with a "pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes..." Although Sydney Carton is in love with her, he declares himself an unsuitable candidate for her hand in marriage and instead she marries Charles Darnay, with whom she is very much in love, and bears him a daughter. However, Lucie genuinely cares about Carton's welfare and defends him when he is criticised by others. She is the "golden thread" after whom Book the Second is named, so called because she holds her father's and her family's lives together (and because of her blonde hair like her mother's). She also ties nearly every character in the book together.[16]
Chapter
5
- Monsieur Defarge: Given name Ernest, he is the owner of a Paris wine shop and leader of the Jacquerie. "A bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty ... He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them." He is devoted to Dr. Manette having been his servant as a youth. One of the key Revolutionary leaders, in which he is known as Jacques Four, he embraces the Revolution as a noble cause, unlike many other revolutionaries. Though he truly believes in the principles of the Revolution, Defarge is far more moderate than some of the other participants (notably his wife).
- Madame Defarge: Given name Thérèse; a vengeful female Revolutionary, she is arguably the novel's antagonist and is presented as a more extreme and bloodthirsty personality than her husband Ernest. "There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman ... Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities." The source of her implacable hatred of the Evrémonde family is revealed late in the novel to be the rape of her sister and killing of her brother when she was a child.
- Jacques One, Two, and Three: Revolutionary compatriots of Ernest Defarge. Jacques Three is especially bloodthirsty and serves as a juryman on the Revolutionary Tribunals.
Chapter
6
- Dr. Alexandre Manette: Lucie's father; when the book opens, he has just been released after a ghastly 18 years as a prisoner in the Bastille. Weak, afraid of sudden noises, barely able to carry on a conversation, he is taken in by his faithful former servant Defarge who then turns him over to Jarvis Lorry and the daughter he has never met. He achieves recovery and contentment with her, her eventual husband Charles Darnay, and their little daughter. All his happiness is put at risk in Book the Third when Madame Defarge resolves to send Evrémonde/Darnay to the guillotine, regardless of his having renounced the Evrémondes' wealth and cruelty. At the same time, the reader learns the cause of Dr. Manette's imprisonment: he had rendered medical care to Madame Defarge's brother and sister following the injuries inflicted on them by the Evrémonde twins back in 1757; the Evrémondes decided he couldn't be allowed to expose them.
Book the Second (Five years later)
Chapter
1
- Mrs Cruncher: Wife of Jerry Cruncher. She is a very religious woman, but her husband, somewhat paranoid, claims she is praying (what he calls "flopping") against him, and that is why he does not often succeed at work. Jerry often verbally and, almost as often, physically abuses her, but at the end of the story, he appears to feel somewhat guilty about this.
- 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.
Chapter
2
- Charles Darnay: A Frenchman of the noble Evrémonde family; "...a young man of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye." When introduced, he is on trial for his life at the Old Bailey on charges of spying on behalf of the French crown. In disgust at the cruelty of his family to the French peasantry, he took on the name "Darnay" (after his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais) and left France for England.[17] He and Lucie Manette fall deeply in love, they marry, and she gives birth to a daughter. He exhibits an admirable honesty in his decision to reveal to Dr Manette his true identity as a member of the infamous Evrémonde family. He puts his family's happiness at risk with his courageous decision to return to Paris to save the imprisoned Gabelle, who, unbeknownst to him, has been coerced into luring him there. Once in Paris, he is stunned to discover that, regardless of his rejection of his family's exploitative and abusive record, he is imprisoned incommunicado simply for being an aristocrat. Released after the testimony of Dr Manette, he is re-arrested and sentenced to be guillotined owing to Madame Defarge's undying hatred of all Evrémondes. This death sentence provides the pretext for the novel's climax.
Chapter
3
- John Barsad (real name Solomon Pross): An informer in London and later employed by the Marquis St. Evrémonde. When introduced at Charles Darnay's trial, he is giving damning evidence against the defendant but it becomes clear to the reader that he is an oily, untrustworthy character. Moving to Paris he takes service as a police spy in the Saint Antoine district, under the French monarchy. Following the Revolution, he becomes an agent for Revolutionary France (at which point he must hide his British identity). Although a man of low character, his position as a spy allows him to arrange for Sydney Carton's final heroic act (after Carton blackmails him with revealing his duplicity).
- Roger Cly: Barsad's collaborator in spying and giving questionable testimony. Following his chaotic funeral procession in Book the Second, Chapter 14, his coffin is dug up by Jerry Cruncher and his fellow Resurrection Men. In Book the Third, Jerry Cruncher reveals that in fact the casket contained only rocks and that Cly was clearly still alive and no doubt carrying on his spying activities.
- Mr Stryver: An ambitious barrister, senior partner to Sydney Carton.[18] "... a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy..."; he wants to marry Lucie Manette because he believes that she is attractive enough. However, he is not truly in love with her and in fact treats her condescendingly. Jarvis Lorry suggests that marrying Lucie would be unwise and Stryver, after thinking it over, talks himself out of it, later marrying a rich widow instead.
- Sydney Carton: A quick-minded and highly intelligent but depressed English barrister, referred to by Dickens as "The Jackal" because of his deference to Stryver. When introduced, he is a hard-drinking cynic, having watched Stryver advance while never taking advantage of his own considerable gifts: Dickens writes that the sun rose "upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible to the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away." In love with Lucie Manette, she cares about him but more as a concerned mother figure than a potential mate. He ultimately becomes a selfless hero, redeeming everything by sacrificing his life for a worthy cause.
Chapter
6
- Miss Pross: Lucie Manette's governess since Lucie was 10 years old: "... one of those unselfish creatures—found only among women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had..." She is fiercely loyal to Lucie and to England. She believes her long-lost brother Solomon, now the spy and perjurer John Barsad, is "the one man worthy of Ladybird," ignoring the fact that he "was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore..." She is not afraid to physically fight those she believes are endangering the people she loves. She permanently loses her hearing when the fatal pistol shot goes off during her climactic fight with Madame Defarge.
Chapter
7
It
took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them
unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of
the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate
to Monseigneur's lips.
It
was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the
chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have
been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on
by only three men; he must have died of two.
And
who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and
eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a
frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged,
would see the very stars out!
- "Monseigneur": An unnamed generic aristocrat whose extraordinary decadence and self-absorption, described in detail, are used by Dickens to characterise the ancien régime in general. "The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur." His fellow nobles also luxuriate in vast wealth, but this does not inoculate them from feeling envy and resentment: as the Marquis St. Evrémonde leaves Monseigneur's house "with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand", he turns to the latter's bedroom and quietly says, "I devote you ... to the Devil!" When the Revolution begins, Monseigneur puts on his cook's clothing and ignominiously flees, escaping with only his life.
- Marquis St. Evrémonde:[19] Uncle of Charles Darnay: "...a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask." Determined to preserve the traditional prerogatives of the nobility until the end of his life, he is the twin brother of Charles Darnay's late father; both men were exceptionally arrogant and cruel to peasants. Lamenting reforms which have imposed some restraints on the abusive powers of his class, the Marquis is out of favour at the royal court at the time of his assassination. Murdered in his bed by the peasant Gaspard.
- Gaspard: A peasant whose child is run over and killed by the Marquis St. Evrémonde's carriage. He plunges a knife into Evrémonde's heart, pinning a note that reads, "Drive him fast to his tomb," a reference to the careless speed that caused his little child's death. After being in hiding for a year, he is found, arrested, and executed.
- The Mender of Roads: A peasant who later works as a woodsawyer; the Defarges bring him into a conspiracy against the aristocracy, where he is referred to as Jacques Five.
Chapter
8
- Théophile Gabelle: Gabelle is "the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary, united"[20] 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".[21]
Book the Third (Autumn 1792)
Chapter
3
- 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.[22]) Carton predicts that the Vengeance, Defarge, Cly, and Barsad will be consumed by the Revolution and end up on the guillotine.
Chapter
13
- The Seamstress: "...a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes..." Having been caught up in The Terror, she strikes up a conversation with the man she assumes is Evrémonde in the large room where the next day's guillotine victims are gathered. When she realises that another man has taken Charles Darnay's place, she admires his sacrifice and asks if she can hold his hand during their tumbrel ride to the place of execution.
Sources
While
performing in The Frozen Deep, Dickens was given a play to read called The
Dead Heart by Watts Phillips
which had the historical setting, the basic storyline, and the climax that
Dickens used in A Tale of Two Cities.[23] The play was produced while A Tale of Two Cities was
being serialised in All the Year Round and led to talk of plagiarism.[24]
Other
sources are The French
Revolution: A History by Thomas
Carlyle (especially important for the
novel's rhetoric and symbolism);[25] Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton; The Castle Spector by Matthew Lewis;
Travels in France by Arthur Young;
and Tableau de Paris by Louis-Sébastien Mercier. Dickens also used
material from an account of imprisonment during the Terror by Beaumarchais, and
records of the trial of a French spy published in The Annual Register.[26]
Publication history
The
45-chapter novel was published in 31 weekly instalments in Dickens' new
literary periodical titled All the Year Round. From April 1859 to
November 1859, Dickens also republished the chapters as eight monthly sections
in green covers. All but three of Dickens' previous novels had appeared as
monthly instalments prior to publication as books. The first weekly instalment
of A Tale of Two Cities ran in the first issue of All the Year Round
on 30 April 1859. The last ran 30 weeks later, on 26 November.[1]
A
Tale of Two Cities has been cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time by various sources including The
Guardian and The Telegraph.[2][3] It has been stated to have sold 200 million copies since
its first publication, though this figure has been dismissed as "pure
fiction" by Oxford
University's Peter Thonemann, who claims it is
the result of poor reference checking on Wikipedia.[27] World Cat
listed 1,529 editions of the work, including 1,305 print editions.[28]
Analysis
A
Tale of Two Cities is one of only two works of
historical fiction by Charles Dickens (the other being Barnaby
Rudge).[29]
Dickens
uses literal translations of French idioms for characters who cannot speak
English, such as "What the devil do you do in that galley there?!!"
and "Where is my wife? ---Here you see me."[30] The Penguin Classics edition of the novel notes that
"Not all readers have regarded the experiment as a success."[30]
J.
L. Borges quipped: "Dickens lived in
London. In his book A Tale of Two Cities, based on the French
Revolution, we see that he really could not write a tale of two cities. He was
a resident of just one city: London."[31]
Themes
Resurrection
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.) 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 a major 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[32]), 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.[33]
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).[citation needed]
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 had formerly been
put to death without any trial, at the whim of a noble.[34] 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!"[35]
The
demolition of Dr. Manette's shoe-making workbench by Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry
is described as "the burning of the body".[36] 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.[citation needed] But
Dickens' description of this kind and healing act is strikingly odd:
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.[37]
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".[38] Resurrection is the dominant theme of the last part of the
novel.[citation needed] 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.[15]
Water
Hans
Biedermann 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)."[39] 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 sympathizes with to a point, but ultimately
finds irrational and even animalistic.[citation needed]
Early
in the book, Dickens suggests this when he writes, "[T]he sea did what it
liked, and what it liked was destruction."[40] 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."[41] 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..."[42] 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..."[42]
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.[citation needed] 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.
Darkness and light
As
is frequent in European literature, good and evil are symbolized by light and
darkness. Lucie Manette is the light, as represented literally by her name; and
Madame Defarge is darkness. 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' estate is burned
in the dark of night; Jerry Cruncher raids graves in the darkness; Charles'
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.
Social justice
Charles
Dickens was a champion of the poor in his life and in his writings. His
childhood included some of the pains of poverty in England, as he had to work
in a factory as a child to help his family. His father, John Dickens,
continually lived beyond his means and eventually went to debtors' prison.
Charles was forced to leave school and began working ten-hour days at Warren's
Blacking Warehouse, earning six shillings a week.[citation needed]
Dickens
considered the workings of a mob, in this novel and in Barnaby Rudge,
creating believable characters who act differently when the mob mentality takes
over.[citation needed] The
reasons for revolution by the lower classes are clear, and given in the novel.
Some of his characters, notably Madame Defarge, have no limit to their
vengeance for crimes against them. The Reign
of Terror was a horrific time in France, and
she gives some notion for how things went too far from the perspective of the
citizens, as opposed to the actions of the de facto government in that year.
Dickens does not spare his descriptions of mob actions, including the night Dr
Manette and his family arrive at Tellson's bank in Paris to meet Mr Lorry,
saying that the people in the vicious crowd display "eyes which any
unbrutalized beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a
well-directed gun".[43]
The
reader is shown that 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".[44]
This
incident is fictional, but is based on a true story related by Voltaire in a
famous pamphlet, An Account of the Death of the Chevalier de la Barre.[45]
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, is right" is the dictum
of the Old Bailey.[46] The gruesome portrayal of quartering highlights its atrocity.
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) is
shown to be nearly as unjust as France; Ruth Glancy has argued that Dickens
portrays France and England as nearly equivalent at the beginning of the novel,
but that as the novel progresses, England comes to look better and better,
climaxing in Miss Pross' pro-Britain speech at the end of the novel.[47] 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 sympathizes 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".[48]
With
the people starving and begging the Marquis for food, his uncharitable response
is to let the people eat grass; the people are left with nothing but onions to
eat and are forced to starve while the nobles are living lavishly upon the
people's backs. Every time the nobles refer to the life of the peasants it is
only to destroy or humiliate the poor.
Autobiographical material
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 platonic but
certainly romantic. Lucie Manette has been noted as resembling Ternan
physically.[49]
After
starring in a play by Wilkie
Collins titled 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.[50]
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. 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.'[51]
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".[52] 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.[citation needed]
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 might have been quite aware that between them, Carton
and Darnay shared his own initials, a frequent property of his characters.[53] However, he denied it when asked.
Dickens
dedicated the book to the Whig and Liberal prime minister Lord John Russell: "In remembrance of many public services and private
kindnesses."[54]
Setting
The
novel takes place primarily in London and Paris in the latter half of the
eighteenth century. It spans a time period of roughly 36 years, with the
(chronologically) first events taking place in December 1757 and the last in
either late 1793 or early 1794.
Research
published in The Dickensian in 1963 suggests that the house at 1 Greek
Street, now The House of St Barnabas, forms the basis for Dr Manette and Lucie's London house.[55]
In
a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane tree rustled
its green leaves, church organs claimed to be made, and likewise gold to be
beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the
wall... as if he had beaten himself precious.[56]
The
"golden arm" (an arm-and-hammer symbol, an ancient sign of the gold-beater's craft) now resides at
the Charles Dickens Museum, but a modern replica could be seen sticking out of the
wall near the Pillars of Hercules pub at the western end of Manette
Street (formerly Rose Street)[57], until this building was demolished in 2017.
Contemporary critics
The
reports published in the press are very divergent. Thomas
Carlyle is enthusiastic, which makes the
author "heartily delighted".[58] On the other hand, Mrs
Oliphant finds "little of Dickens"
in the novel.[59] Critic James Fitzjames Stephen sparked off a scandal by calling it a "dish of puppy
pie and stewed cat which is not disguised by the cooking" and "a
disjointed framework for the display of the tawdry wares, which are Mr
Dickens's stock-in-trade.[60]
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