A TALE OF TWO CITIES Charles Dickens June 1st 1859 OVERVIEW: Written against the backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale Of Two Cities has become one the most promoted literary works in human history. In the fictional tale, author Charles Dickens focuses primarily on the themes of resurrection and social justice. - - - - - - - - - BOOK ONE: At the outset, Dickens portends to the book’s overarching plot: “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.” 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Lorry arrives in Dover, he meets with 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. Mr. Lorry takes her to France to reunite with him. In the Paris neighborhood of Saint Antoine, Dr. Manette has been given lodgings by his former servant Ernest Defarge and his wife Therese, owners of a wine shop. Mr. 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 recogniZe Lucie initially but does soon see the resemblance to her mother through her blue eyes and golden hair, a strand of which he found on his sleeve when he was imprisoned. Mr. Lorry and Lucie take him back to England. - - - - - - - - - BOOK TWO: In 1780, French émigré Charles Darnay is on trial for treason against Britain. The 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. Barsad states that he would recogniZe Darnay anywhere, at which point Darnay's defense counsel, Stryver, directs attention to Sydney Carton, a barrister present who looks almost identical to him. With Barsad's testimony discredited, Darnay is acquitted. NOTABLE QUOTES At the same time, in Paris, the hated and abusive Marquis St. Evrémonde orders his carriage driven recklessly fast through the “Death may beget life, but crowded streets, hitting and killing the child of a man named 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 oppression can beget nothing child would be worse off alive. This piece of wisdom pleases the Marquis, who throws a coin to Defarge also. As the Marquis other than itself.” departs, a coin is flung back into his carriage. Arriving at his country château, the Marquis meets with his nephew and heir, - - - - - - - - - - - - - Darnay. Out of disgust with his aristocratic family, Darnay has shed his real surname and adopted an angliciZed version of his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais. That night, Gaspard, who followed the Marquis to his château by grabbing hold of the “Of little worth as life is when we underside of the carriage, stabs and kills him in his sleep. After a year on the run as an outlaw, he is caught and hanged. misuse it, it is worth that effort. It Back in London, Darnay gets Dr. Manette's permission to wed Lucie, but Carton confesses his love to Lucie as well. Knowing she would cost nothing to lay down if will not love him in return, Carton promises to “embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you.” Stryver, whom Carton has a working relationship, considers proposing marriage to Lucie, but Mr. Lorry talks him out of the idea. On the morning of it were not.” the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and family lineage to Dr. Manette, a detail he had been asked to withhold until that day. As a consequence, Dr. Manette reverts to his obsessive shoemaking after the couple departs for their honeymoon. However, he returns to sanity before their return, and the whole incident is kept a secret from Lucie. Mr. 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 with a son (who dies in childhood) and a daughter that they name little Lucie. Mr. 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 are realiZed. Although he seldom visits, Carton is well-received as a close friend of the family. In July of 1789, the Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille, a symbol of royal tyranny. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell and searches it thoroughly. Throughout the countryside, local officials of the aristocracy are dragged from their homes to be killed, and the St. Evrémonde château is burned to the ground. In 1792, Mr. Lorry decides to travel to Paris to collect important documents from the Tellson's branch in that city and bring them to London for 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 him to help secure his release. Without telling Lucie or his family, Darnay sets out for Paris. - - - - - - - - - BOOK THREE: Soon after Darnay arrives in Paris, he is denounced for being an emigrated aristocrat from France and jailed in La Force Prison. Dr. Manette, Lucie, little Lucie, Jerry, and Miss Pross travel to Paris and meet Mr. 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 previous imprisonment in the Bastille, testifies on Darnay's behalf at his trial. Vouching for his shedding of his aristocratic roots, Dr. Manette helps Darnay gain his release, only to be arrested again later that day. A new trial begins on the following day, under new charges brought by the Defarges and a third individual who is soon revealed as Dr. Manette. During his imprisonment, he had written an account of how he arrived in the Bastille at the hands of Darnay's father and uncle, and hidden the scrawled note in his cell; Defarge found it while searching the cell during the storming of the Bastille. Simultaneously, while running errands with Jerry, Miss Pross is amaZed to spot her long-lost brother Solomon, but he does not want to be recognized 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 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 scrawled 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 on being informed of what had happened. 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 Evrémonde brothers imprisoned Dr Manette after he refused their bribe to keep quiet. He concludes his letter by condemning the Evrémondes, "Them and their descendants, to the last of their race.” Horrified, Dr. Manette is not allowed to retract his statement, and Darnay is sentenced to be guillotined the next day. Carton wanders into the Defarge's 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. 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.