A Tale of Two Cities
Introduction
About the author
Charles Dickens was born in England, in 1812, the second of eight children of a debt-ridden government clerk. Because his family had handled their money poorly, young Charles was sent to work in a London factory at the age of ten. This experience upset him so greatly and left such an impression on him that he later created poor, suffering people as the hero of many of his novels and cruel, selfish ones as the villains.
A small and unexpected legacy permitted Charles to take break free of the slave factory and return to school. He became a newspaper reporter—a job which helped him to observe people and to create sense that live in his reader’s memories.
With the appearance of the Pickwick papers in 1836 and 1837, Charles Dickens, at age of 24, became the most popular novelist in England. This popularity increased with the publication of David Copperfield,Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations, and A tale of two cities.
Dickens had a keen interest in polities and in improving social conditions. He used this interest to weave the exciting characters and events in France and in England that led up to the French Revolution in his historical novel, A tale of two cities.
Much of Charles Dickens’ life was spent writing, editing, touring to read his novels, and promoting many charities to help the poor. He was active in all this work until his death in 1870.
Social background
A tale of two cities is one of the Dickens’s most important representative works. The novel profoundly exposes the society contradiction before the French revolution, intensely attacks the aristocratic social class is dissolute and cruel, and sincerely sympathizes with the depressed classes.
With the French and English social of the last years of 18th century as the background. A tale of two cities shows effectively the novelist’s aim to point out the injustice of oppression and the justification of the revolution. However, Dickens shows his strong criticism on the excess of bloodshed during the French Revolution, especially in his consideration of the innocent being punished along with guilty. He feels that the old ways of oppression must be changed, and that much oppression and much misery inevitably lead to revolution, but when the revolution actually comes, he thinks that it is too violent and that the less bloodshed the better.
Summary
It was the year 1775, and both France and England were on the brink of revolution. It described a story that 18 years before 1757, because of a terrible secret, Dr Manette was picked up and to the Bantille. One of the most terrible prisons in the world, by the noble Marquis st.Everemonde.
18years later, Jarvis Lorry traveled to Dover to meet Lucie Manette, Dr Manatee, to informs her that her father, whom she previously believed to be dead, had actually been incarcerated as a prisoner in Paris for the past eighteen years, and had recently been released by the French government. The news upset Lucie greatly. Then Mr. Lorry and Lucie Manatee arrived and Defanged took them to his apartment to see Dr. Manette. The doctor was, to all appearances, completely mad. He sit in a dark room all day making shoes, as he did while in prison. Lucie took him to England.
Lucie fell in love with Charles Danny, the nephew of the Marquis st.Evermonde . Dr. Manette wanted to let the past be the past and was preparing to have a happy new life with his daughter and her husband. But the revolution of France broke and because of his family, Charles Danny was denounced by a letter which was wrote by Dr. Manatee himself 18 years ago. Though he was innocent, poor Charles would have been sent to the guillotine.
His military escort took him to Paris, where he was imprisoned. Dr. Manette and Lucie along with Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher, and the daughter of Charles and Lucie Darnay, left London for Paris and meet with Mr. Lorry. Dr. Manette tried to use his influence as a well-known former prisoner of the Bastille to have his son-in-law freed. However, that evening, Darnay was put on trial again, under new charges brought by the Defarges and one unnamed other.
Then Sydney carton, the laywer of England, the good friends of Manette families, who took after Charles very much because of his love for Lucie and friendship with Darnay, offered to trade places with him. As Darnay is unwilling, Carton druged him and had him carried out to a waiting carriage. The spy, Barsad, told Carton to remain true to their agreement. Darnay, Dr. Manette, Mr. Lorry, Lucie, and her child flee France. Darnay used Carton's papers to cross the border and presumably escaped to England.
Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher, who had not left with the others, prepare to depart. Meanwhile, Madame Defarge went to the residence of Lucie and her family, believing that if she could catch them in the act of mourning for Darnay, that they could be held accountable for sympathizing with an enemy of the Republic. Miss Pross sent Mr. Cruncher out to fetch a carriage. While he was away, she was confronted by Madame Defarge. Knowing that if Madame Defarge realized that her would-be victims had already departed, she might be able to have them stopped and brought back to Paris.
Miss Pross pretended they are in another room by closing the door and placing herself in front of it. Madame Defarge figured out the fact that nobody was in the room and realized they had already left. She faked ignorance and ordered Miss Pross to move away, but she refused. Madame Defarge made a break for the front door. They struggled and Madame Defarge was shot and killed by her own pistol; the noise of the shot permanently deafens Miss Pross. Miss Pross and Cruncher then quickly left.
Comments
A Tale of Two Cities occupies a central place in the canon of Charles Dickens's works. This novel of the French Revolution is originally serialized in the author's own periodical all the year round.
The tale is about the revolution in France, and the author wrote quite a lot about the love triangle between Lucie, Charles and Sydney . At the same time, Dickens want to tell us the society problem and the background at that time.
In this novel, Dickens writes some lively images like Sydney and those crazy revolutionaries. I can’t describe my feeling at the first sight o f Sydney. To tell the truth, he is not eye-catching at that time. When the readers are immersed in the meeting between Lucie and Charles, he only play a little role as a lawyer who has the same face with Charles and extricates him from accusation through this point.
But later I am moved by him. That interview between Lucie and Sydney Carton has a pathos that wrings our hearts. He knows that even if his love could have been returned, It will have added only to his bitterness and sorrow, for he feel it would have been powerless to lift him from the Slough of Selfishness and Sensuality that have engulfed him. But he can not resist this last sad confession of his love, and when she weeps at the sorrow of which she has been the innocent cause, he implores: "Do not weep, deer Miss Manette, the life I lead renders me unworthy of your pure love. My last supplication is this, think now and then that there is a man
who will give his life to keep a life you love beside you."
He is the hero, not only for the poignant love, but also for the peace of the world. In his eyes, love is everything. And also, if he wants to do something, nobody can prevent him . But he usually has some weak points on characters and the most important thing is that he always loves a woman he shouldn’t love and die for her at last in an extremely heroic or tragic way. The revolutionaries in the tale are not as full of justice and poor as usual. They get mad when they can get revenge for their unfair treatment. The fire of hatred burnt everything. When they are at the bottom of the society, they are calling for justice, for fair treatment, for freedom. But when they are in charge of the society, their world is up-side-down, so it is their judgment of the society .They hate everything that connect to the people who are against, even including Charles’ wife, Dr Manette’s daughter So these men are no difference than those former governors at heart.
Dickens uses Doctor Manette in this novel, to illustrate one of the dominant motifs of the novel: the essential mystery that surrounds every human being. As Jarvis Lorry makes his way toward France to recover Manette, the narrator reflects that "every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." For much of the novel, the cause of Manette’s incarceration remains a mystery both to the other characters and to the reader. Even when the story concerning the evil Marquis St. Evrémonde comes to light, the conditions of Manette's imprisonment remain hidden. Though I never learns exactly how Manette suffered, his relapses into trembling sessions of shoemaking evidence the depth of his misery. Like Carton, Manette undergoes a drastic change over the course of the novel. He is transformed from an insensate prisoner who mindlessly cobbles shoes into a man of distinction. His daughter "recalls him to life" after he is rescued from his cell in the Bastille. At the end of the first book of Tale of Two Cities he is asked: "'I hope you care to be recalled to life?' And the old answer: 'I can't say.'"
Though Dickens tell us how the authority is recycling over and over again in some way, the novel is about something good love from Sydney to Lucie is one of the only few bri ght points in the novel and it’s really great . A man can sacrifice his life to save his lover’s husband. He does not have any personal purpose and just for his beloved happiness. So Dickens may imply us, only love can solve the problems between people, between the poor and the rich, love is everything.。
