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A Tale of Two Cities
In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, the theme of two or twins is a common thread that appears throughout the book. In fact, the very title itself hints at the theme, with Dickens telling...
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A Tale of Two Cities
After Charles Darnay’s trial at the Old Bailey, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Jarvis Lorry, and Stryver all stand round him and congratulate him on his release. Stryver, as usual, only wants to...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In Chapter VI, "The Shoemaker," of Book One of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens gradually reveals the effects of imprisonment on Dr. Manette through his interaction with Monsieur Defarge,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In this more than any other of his novels, Dickens uses doubles, both structurally and in the sense of characters and plot. This is something that is signalled from the very beginning of the book,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
One of the major and most important themes in A Tale of Two Cities is the dichotomy of London and Paris; where London is calm and peaceful, Paris is chaotic and deadly. The French Revolution was a...
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A Tale of Two Cities
One of the harsh effects of the French Revolution is the toll it takes on French families. Not only are families divided in their loyalties to the Crown and the revolutionaries, but the prolonged...
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A Tale of Two Cities
It is interesting that Darnay uses the number fifty-two for those prisoners of the Conciergerie who must go to their deaths in Chapter XIII of Book the Third. For, in his meeting with John Barsad,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In "A Tale of Two Cities," the Cock-Lane ghost is an allusion by Charles Dickens to the haunting in the 1760s of an apartment on Cock Lane, an alleyway adjacent to Smithfield's market near St....
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A Tale of Two Cities
The "Golden Thread" refers to the character of Lucie Manette, who becomes Lucie Darnay after her marriage to Charles Darnay. "The Golden Thread" is a good title for Book the Second because Lucie is...
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A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is an 1859 work by English writer Charles Dickens. It is a historical novel and is set in Paris and London before and during the French Revolution from 1757 to 1794. At that...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities as an exploration of love and sacrifice, and as a warning that the poor should not be ignored. To understand why Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities, we...
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A Tale of Two Cities
This is a variant of the old saying that revolutions always end up devouring their own children. What Dickens is driving at here is that many of the most enthusiastic proponents of French...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In the classic historical novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Jerry Cruncher works as a porter at the Tellson's Bank in London. Jarvis Lorry also works at Tellson's Bank. In book 2,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Doctor Alexandre Manette is by all accounts a brilliant physician who was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years for reporting to a...
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A Tale of Two Cities
A constant refrain of Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities is the relative peace and stability of England compared with the bloody chaos of revolutionary France. Even in his depiction of mobs and...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In book 1, chapter 5, of Charles Dickens's historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens describes the streets of St. Antoine, a suburb of Paris, and its ever-present resident, "Hunger." It was...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The barrister Stryver tells his junior, Sydney Carton, that he wants to marry Lucie Manette. He isn't in love with Lucie; he just thinks that, as his wife, she will make a nice home for him....
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A Tale of Two Cities
Madame Defarge is a radical supporter of the French Revolution and is depicted as a villain for the majority of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Her vendetta against the Evremondes seems...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Darnay makes the decision to return after receiving a letter from his former servant begging for help. Darnay used to be a marquis and owned a considerable tract of land that was looked after by...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The French Revolution took place in France from 1789 (beginning with the Storming of the Bastille) to 1799 (ending with the Reign of Terror). A Tale of Two Cities, though published in England in...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In chapter 6, Dr. Manette, Mr. Lorry, and Dr. Manette's daughter, Lucie, step into a carriage set for London. They decide to leave France because France is too dangerous a place for them to stay....
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A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Darnay has been put before an English court on a trumped-up charge of sedition. With war against Revolutionary France in the air, this is a very serious charge indeed, and if convicted...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The man in question is none other than Dr. Manette. Since being released from the Bastille, he's been working as a shoemaker in a garret owned by Monsieur Defarge. He also worked as a shoemaker...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The last person who is guillotined before Sydney Carton is referred to as a seamstress. Initially, she believes that Sydney is Charles Darnay, who had been scheduled to die, but she later realizes...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In The Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay is a native of France who is now happily living in London. When he was last in France he denounced his claim to his aristocratic title and home. The...
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A Tale of Two Cities
I assume from your question that you're referring to Mr. Lorry's dream in chapter 3, "The Night Shadows." As he rides in the mail-coach, Mr. Lorry "nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes." As...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Darnay is one of the principal characters of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Born to the French nobility with the name St. Evremonde, he has come of age during the French...
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A Tale of Two Cities
On a moral level, Darnay made the right decision. His intention was to rescue his uncle's faithful servant Gabelle from being killed by the revolutionaries. Gabelle personally begged him to save...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Near the end of A Tale of Two Cities (book 3, chapter 13), Sydney Carton enters the Conciergerie, the prison where Charles Darnay and the others awaiting the guillotine are being kept. He has...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Tellson’s Bank epitomizes English complacency because it is old, crusty, dusty, inefficient and stuck in time, yet the people there seem to like it that way. Tellson’s is an old monster,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The title of the first book, "Recalled to Life", refers to the character of Dr. Alexandre Manette, who has been imprisoned in France's Bastille for eighteen years. The old Doctor is...
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A Tale of Two Cities
From the very beginning of the novel, Charles Dickens points out that we do not live in a world of moral absolutes: the best exists concomitantly with the worst, especially in wartime. He reminds...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The three main female characters (Lucie Manette, Miss Pross, and Madame Defarge) have widely different functions. Lucie is the innocent “Madonna,” a static character who does not really change....
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A Tale of Two Cities
You have asked a very interesting question, but in my opinion it is slightly misguided. Mr. Lorry isn´t trying to say he is no friend of Dr. Manette - rather he is reflecting the official...
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A Tale of Two Cities
You only get one question, I'm afraid; so I'll answer the first, which I presume is the most important. In A Tale of Two Cities, chapter 3, Jarvis Lorry is all bundled up in a coach with several...
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A Tale of Two Cities
It appears that "The Golden Thread" refers to Lucie - there is a direct quote that compares her blond hair to "the golden thread that bound them all together", but likewise it appears to point...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Jarvis Lorry is annoyed that Jerry Cruncher might not be living up to Tellson’s good name. He accuses Lorry of having an “unlawful occupation of an infamous description” (Book 3, Ch 9,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The mood of chapter 2 is dark and uncertain. It is late at night and the roads are muddy. There is a mist rising and the coachman is filled with fear of robbers. This mood of darkness and fear...
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A Tale of Two Cities
One of the major themes in this novel is sacrifice/selflessness. This is exemplified in the heroic figure of Sydney Carton who at the end of the story allows himself to be executed in the place of...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Having already created much mystery with the cloaked passengers, who eye each other suspiciously on the Dover Mail carriage, Dickens furthers the atmosphere of mistrust and fear of highwaymen with...
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A Tale of Two Cities
When we are first presented with Madame Defarge, she is knitting quietly in the wine shop. However, this knitting hides the bloodthirst that we see later on in the novel as we discover that behind...
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A Tale of Two Cities
In literature, the temptress is often described as an intelligent but unscrupulous woman with seductive charms who exploits men and directs them into dangerous situations. While there does not...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens is very specific about his view of the guillotine in the French Revolution. He considered the guillotine a terrible travesty of justice. Since he was about to send one of his main...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The French Revolution was an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment, when human reason took precedence over the teachings of the church and the power of the monarchy and nobility. Prior to this...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens's portrayal of the French aristocracy is far from flattering. He laments the great poverty, injustice and exploitation that existed in France during the ancien régime. Despite this,...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol on December 19 1843 and all 6000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve. On the whole, the book was warmly received, with many commentators drawn to its...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Sydney Carton is a well-rounded, dynamic character. He is one of the most developed characters in the novel, and he changes throughout the story from being self-loathing to having a sense of...
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A Tale of Two Cities
Hah. I'd say Charles Dickens is a realist. A Tale of Two Cities is a revolutionary story that realistically portrayed the violence of French Revolution, the dangers of a corrupt government, and...
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A Tale of Two Cities
One of the few works of literature Les Miserbles discusses the June Rebellion of 1832, includes it, aside from the fact that he is very concerned about such events--he digresses nearly a hundred...
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A Tale of Two Cities
The Doctor says that the only thing that could bring another relapse to the patient is "a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that was the first cause of...
