A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Review

Place pg 18

  • Tale of 2 Cities: London and Paris
  • Saint Antoine:suburb of Paris, home of the Defarges
  • Prisons: La Force (where Darnay was locked up) and Bastille
  • Soho Square: Middle Class Manette house
  • Old Bailey: Courthouse in London
  • Tellsons: Bank in London and Paris where Mr. Lorry worked
  • Temple Bar: In Paris, next to Tellsons, where criminal heads were displayed

Time pg 18

  • 1775-1793
  • 1775: American Revolution
  • 1789: Raid of French Bastille Prison
  • 1793: Climax of Reign of Terror

Atmosphere

  • Uses many natural images
  • Dim and gloomy conditions
  • Raging seas
  • Awful, unhealthy living conditions

Narrative Point of View

  • Tries to create flow between all characters
  • Very visual with description: specific details…many many details
  • Seeing into the minds of characters without saying words internal persepctive

Motifs (Reoccuring Themes) and Metaphors

  • Uses many opposites, contrasting themes
  • Carton (poor manners, scrappy) vs Darnay (well groomed, better off)
  • Lucie (good) vs Madame Defarge (evil)
  • Metaphor: footsteps  Coming together for Revolution
  • Wine is red as blood
  • Tide = mob coming together
  • Lucie’s hair is gold = symbolizes nobility

Symbolism and Allegory

  • Wine barrel breaks in Saint Antoine overflowing river, blood thirstiness of the peasants, hunger
  • Madame Defarge’s knitting  symbolizes hit list and new Revolution coming together
  • Lucie’s hair: golden thread, connects life together

Foreshadowing

  • Mr. Lorry dreams about digging up a man (early chapters) foreshadows rescuing Dr. Manette from the Bastille.
  • Carton gets executed  foreshadows of Reign of Terror
  • Echoing footsteps get louder as book continues foreshadows growing Revolution

Allusions (Calls a memory to mind without explicitly saying it/indirect)

  • Literary and historical allusions
  • Historical: begins and ends book with Joanna Southcott (apocalyptic prophetess) and Madame Roland (member of Girondin party who opposed Jacobins
  • American revolution reference focuses on Tale
  • Literary allusion: Sydney Carton is Hamlet-like, Madame Defarge (knitter of the doom) is like Lady Macbeth (dark power and bloodthirsty)
  • Chapter called “Drawn to Loadstone Rock” was based from book Arabian Nights
  • Biblical allusions: Dr Mannette linked to Lazarus

Themes

  • The Ever-Present Possibility of Resurrection: With A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens asserts his belief in the possibility of resurrection and transformation, both on a personal level and on a societal level.
  • Necessity of Sacrifice
  • The Tendency Toward Violence and Oppression in Revolutionaries: While he supports the revolutionary cause, he often points to the evil of the revolutionaries themselves. Dickens deeply sympathizes with the plight of the French peasantry and emphasizes their need for liberation.

Style

  • Verisimilitude: used to describe how he wrote the whole book. Wrote in the past and tried to make it real. Got source from Thomas Caryle, the historian on the French Revolution.
  • In cantatori: magical style of writing. Mr.Lorry’s dream
  • Romantic style: Lucie and Charles Darnay
  • Melodramatic and Sentimental: long drawn out lovely speeches with Dr. Manette and Lucie
  • Passsionate: In his writing style
  • Satirical
  • Cliffhangers at the end of the chapter due to splitting of book in a journal (keeps readers coming back)