A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens NAME: ______
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A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens NAME: ______Guided Reading Questions Due Date: Tuesday, February 17 th
Book the Second – Chapter 15 “Knitting” 1. What two mysteries are resolved for the reader in this chapter? 2. Why are the Defarges cheered by the opulence of the Versailles court? 3. Who are Jacques Four and Five? 4. How does the road-mender characterize the grandees of the court?
Book the Second – Chapter 16 “Still Knitting” 1. The success of the Revolution seems assured because there are Jacques in the strategic government offices—give an example. 2. Why does Defarge not answer to the name “Jacque” when greeted by the stranger in the wine- shop? 3. What information given by Barsad strongly affects the Defarges? How does it affect each of them differently?
Book the Second – Chapter 17-18 “One Night” ; “Nine Days” 1. How will the new domestic arrangement for the Manettes resolve the problem of Charles’ love for Lucie separating her from her father? 2. While the young couple is away on their honeymoon, who looks after Dr. Manette? 3. Why does Dr. Manette emerge from his conference with the bridegroom deathly pale? 4. How does Dickens employ Dr. Manette’s relapse to generate suspense?
Book the Second – Chapter 19-21 “An opinion” ; “A Plea” ; “Echoing Footsteps” 1. What request of Dr. Manette, now recovered, does Mr. Lorry make? 2. Once again, Dickens uses Lorry to relate a difficult truth: what was the first occasion? How does he handle it each time? 3. In spite of his own unhappy marriage, or perhaps because of it, how does dickens characterize the Charles/Lucie relationship? 4. Why, surprisingly, does Sydney Carton apologize to Charles and offer his friendship? 5. What is the date in this chapter? 6. What is Carton’s relationship with the Darnay family? 7. How does Mr. Lorry’s news indicate the revolution is beginning? 8. How does the reader finally have the opportunity to see Dr. Manette’s place of confinement in the Bastille? 9. How does Dickens intensify our repulsion for Madame Defarge? A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens NAME: ______Guided Reading Questions Due Date: Friday, February 20 th
Book the Second – Chapter 22 “The Sea Still Rises” 1. What is the date now? 2. Why does Defarge hate Foulon? 3. How is Foulon’s punishment an example of poetic justice? 4. When Defarge says to his wife, “At last it has come,” why does she not completely agree?
Book the Second – Chapter 23 “Fire Rises” 1. What is the significance of the blaze the stranger made in his pipe? 2. Who do the four fierce figures come to represent? 3. Why can the rider solicit no aid from any quarter? Note that Gabelle (Mr. Salt Tax) miraculously escapes.
Book the Second – Chapter 24 “Drawn to the Loadstone Rock” 1. What is the chronological setting? 2. Why is Lorry going to Paris 3. Why does Charles offer to go in his place? 4. How does Dickens use the letter to the Marquis de Evremonde to generate suspense? 5. Why does Gabelle request Charles to return to France? 6. What was the Loadstone Rock (hint - mythology)? For Charles, what is the Loadstone Rock? 7. Why was Tellson’s Bank, London, the natural gathering place of the émigrés? 8. Should Darnay have kept his real name and identity a secret from his wife and not told her about his trip? 9. Explain the irony that Gabelle is being held in the Abbaye. 10. Why does Darnay unwisely feel that it is safe for him to return to assist Gabelle? 11. Why does Darnay feel he must help Gabelle? A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens NAME: ______Guided Reading Questions Due Date: Monday, March 2 nd
Book the Third – Chapter 1 “In Secret” 1. How does Charles come to realize the extreme danger in which he’s placed himself by returning to France? 2. What is the full significance of the chapter’s title? 3. Of what is Charles reminded as he paces to and fro in his cell in La Force? 4. Under what charges has Charles been imprisoned? 5. How does the reader’s attitude towards Ernest Defarge change in this chapter?
Book the Third – Chapter 2 “The Grindstone” 1. How is Lorry’s exclamation, “Thank God that no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town tonight” ironic? 2. How does the scene with the grindstone considerable heighten suspense? 3. Why do the savagely anti-aristocratic patriots agree to help Dr. Manette?
Book the Third – Chapter 3 “The Shadow” 1. Why does Lorry find the situation doubly distressing? 2. Why does Madame Defarge coldly scrutinize Charles’ family?
Book the Third – Chapter 4 “Calm in the Storm” 1. How many months are covered in this chapter? 2. Why do all the atrocities he witnesses not Dr. Manette into another relapse? 3. Dr. Manette changes and develops. Justify or attack Dicken’s treatment of Dr. Manette’s character in this chapter. 4. Explain the allusion to the children of the dragon’s teeth. 5. Explain “La Guillotine…was the sign of regeneration of the human. It superseded the cross”.
Book the Third – Chapter 5 “The Wood-sawyer” 1. What is coincidental about the wood-sawyer who lives in the vicinity of La Force? 2. What is the Carmagnole? 3. Who is set in secret conference with Mr. Lorry? 4. What is ominous in the wood-sawyer’s personifying himself as “the Samson of the firewood guillotine”.
Book the Third – Chapter 6-7 “Triumph” ; “A Knock at the Door” 1. Why does the attitude of the crowd of the courtroom to Charles dramatically change? 2. Who are Charles’ principal witnesses? 3. What does their testimony substantiate? 4. Upon what grounds is Charles again arrested on the afternoon of his release? 5. What foreshadowing of Charles’ arrest does Dickens initially provide? 6. Why does Miss Pross find bargains when shopping even though she speaks practically no French? What is her attitude towards the French language?