A Tale of Two Cities

The opening two paragraphs describe the condition in England and France in 1775, the year the novel begins, establishing this as a historical novel (it was published in 1859). Dickens points out...

In Chapter 13 of "A Tale of Two Cities," the reader sees Carton taking on a mythical aspect as he professes his willingness to sacrifice himself to save his friends. In addition, he is a...

Charles Darnay, one of the main characters of A Tale of Two Cities, is arrested three times in the course of the novel, each time on a different charge. He is first arrested in 1780, as a French...

The two main moral themes in A Tale of Two Cities are the possibility of redemption and the importance of compassion. The redemption theme is most obvious in the arc of Sydney Carton, whose love...

Love acts as a driving force in the narrative of A Tale of Two Cities. It is love that reunites Lucie Manette with a father she has never known. After Dr. Manette has been imprisoned in the...

The title A Tale of Two Cities is literally true as the plot involves action in both London and Paris. However, it is also significant with respect to the motif of dualities in people and in...

Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities as a sort of warning to Victorian England. After studying the French Revolution himself, Dickens saw much of the same rising contempt for the aristocracy...

Most likely, Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, the two near-lookalikes, are the main characters of the book—although Doctor Manette; his daughter, Lucie; Madame Defarge; and Jarvis Lorry are also...

There is very little actual humor in this novel because the topic is so serious and the consequences so deadly. Despite that, there are several characters and exchanges which provide some comic...

In Charles Dickens's monumental classic, A Tale of Two Cities, the employment of the personification of fate as the Woodman and death as the Farmer portends the future actions of the French...

Sydney Carton's famous last words are technically never spoken aloud to any other character. It might even be more appropriate to call them his last thoughts. The narrator observes that a woman...

The climax of A Tale of Two Cities occurs during Darnay's trial, which takes place in a Paris courtroom. During the court proceedings, a letter written by Manette, while imprisoned for a long...

London is presented as a stable place where tradition and honor hold sway. There is a strict class structure, but all the classes seem to get along by and large. Paris is the central place of the...

Taking advantage of his physical similarity to Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton switches places with him in prison so that Darnay will be able to live and Carton will be executed in his place. Though...

In Chapter 9 of Book the Third, Sydney Carton walks to the chemists and as he does so, he recalls his conversation with the wood-sawyer and the man's proud answer that many were killed this day....

As in all great works of litearture, A Tale of Two Cities contains many figures of speech, not the least of which is metaphor. Here are some examples: In the opening chapter, Book the First,...

It is customary for authors to employ figurative language in their narratives as the prose is enlivened by such language. For, there is a vividness to the use of metaphor and the like as the...

When Lucie marries, Carton confesses that her secretly loves her and would do anything for her. He basically tells her that he would give his life for someone she loves if that was necessary....

To this day the Old Bailey (located on Bailey Street in London) is the site of two famous courts. Court One has been the scene of the trials of many infamous criminals; Court Two is a...

John Barsad, real name Solomon Pross, is described as: Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face thin,...

The Cock Lane Ghost was a notorious hoax that captured the public's imagination in late-eighteenth century England. The supposed haunting was declared a fraud by a committee of notables, which...

On the morning of his marriage to Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay reveals to his father his true identity. Charles Darnay is a decendant of the Evremondes, an aristocratic family in France notorious...

The chapters describe two different “fellows” and their feelings for Lucie Manette and manner of addressing her. The titles are ironic because the “fellow” discussed in the chapter is actually the...

The echoing footsteps that Lucie hears ominously foreshadow the coming of the French Revolution, when hordes of starving, desperate people will take to the streets to demand radical political...

In addition to the thematic reasons mentioned by other educators, Dickens also wrote A Tale of Two Cities to launch his weekly journal: All the Year Round. The novel was initially published in...

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was published in 1859 but set before and during the French Revolution (the events before and after 1789). Dickens's attitude toward the French...

Dr. Alexandre Manette was arrested on false charges after being lured from his home. The purpose of the arrest was to remove him from society in order to prevent his speaking out against the...

Tellson’s Bank is described as “very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious.” It is an old-fashioned place, and the bank managers are proud of that fact. All this is testimony of its...

The opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens may be some of the famous lines in English-language literature. The rhythm and parallel content and structure of the lines evokes many...

With the significance of the wine shop owned by the Defarges well established in Chapter V of Book the First of A Tale of Two Cities, the gathering of the men known anonymously as "Jacques"...

Sydney Carton is a "man of good abilities and good emotions," but sadly, he is also "incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness." He lacks self-discipline...

The two cities in the title are Paris and London, and the story involves both because the events that occur link both cities and Dickens is using the French Revolution as a cautionary tale....

The character Vengeance is the personification of the retribution that the peasant revolutionaries exact from the French aristocracy under whose yoke they have suffered and starved. In Chapter XXII...

Charles Darnay’s secret is that his real name is Charles St. Evremonde and he is the heir to the title of Marquis St. Evremonde, the man who put Dr. Manette in prison. Charles Darnay did not want...

Dickens's The Tale of Two Cities opens with the following lines: 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...

The golden thread in A Tale of Two Cities is Lucie Manette, the beautiful, golden-haired heroine who, despite a limited role in the action of the novel, does so much to inspire and unite the other...

Mr. Lorry's initial introduction of himself as the representative of Tellson's Bank, a man who is merely a business "machine" impersonally obeying orders is ironic because he becomes intimately...

A Tale of Two Cities is a historical fiction classic written by Charles Dickens. The story is organized or split up into three "books," which span the time period 1775 in Book One to 1792 in Book...

In Chapter X of Book the Second of A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Manette and Charles Darnay each make a promise to the others. Dr. Manette's promise A year after beginning his residence in England,...

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Dickens outlines the duality and contrasts between England and France at the time. More specifically, he outlines the duality between Paris and London....

Madame Defarge has lived her life witnessing and experiencing the horrors that the French aristocracy inflicts on the peasant class. She sees them as a part of society that should be completely and...

The phrase “recalled to life” indicates that Mr. Lorry is bringing someone back from the dead. Mr. Lorry is taking the Dover Mail on a special mission. He works for Tellson’s Bank, but this is not...

Monsieur Defarge, who is now a wine-shop owner, was once the manservant of Dr. Manette. Defarge hides this former prisoner of the Bastille in a garret above the wine shop, but he permits three men...

The Woodman symbolizes the tumbrils (the carts that take the victims of the Revolution to the guillotine), as he chops down the wood to make the carts. The trees are cut down for the sake of people...

In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens used water as a recurring motif to represent the French people’s rising anger about the political climate. Just like a powerful body of water, revolutionary...

Charles Dickens capitalizes upon the image created by the usual expression, "the storming of the Bastille" by employing sea imagery in Chapter 22 of Book the Second in A Tale of Two Cities as he...