A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, was sent to find Dr.

Manette, an unjustly imprisoned physician, in Paris and bring him back

to England. Lucie, Manette's daughter who thought that he was dead,

accompanied Mr. Lorry. Upon arriving at Defarge's wine shop in Paris,

they found Mr. Manette in a dreadful state and took him back to London

with them. Mr. Manette could not rember why he had been imprisoned, or

when he was imprisoned. He was in a state of Post Tramatic Stress

Dis-order. All the years of imporisonment led to his insanity, his

life was in danger almost every second of his imprisoned life. In

1780, five years later, Lucie, Mr. Lorry and Dr. Manette were called

to

testify against Charles Darnay, a tutor who made constant trips

between France and England and was thus accused of treason. During

these times both governments were very paranoid about anybody who had

the aperence of commiting treason. Darney, since he travled back and

forth between countries was a perfect suspect for treason. The French

Government had just been overthrown by the beggars, and middle class

and now run by them, the British on the other hand was still a

monarchy and had awful factories and many slums, like France did.

Darnay was acquitted when a lawyer, Carton,

looked much like him and an eye witness faltered to positively

distinguish between them.

Carton loved Lucie but he was a drunk. Knowing that their relationship

was hopeless, he stated that he would sacrifice himself for her or

anyone she loved in an emotional conversation. Darnay ended up

marrying Lucie. Darnay's uncle, the Marquiuis St. Evremonde, was

as...

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...stand until I became involved with the characters. At that

point I had no problem following the plot, which actually became quite

swift. The French Revolution was brilliantlydisplayed in all of its

violence and anarchy. The underlying ideas of oppression and anarchy

made it enjoyable to see how the characters interacted. I found Carton

especially intriguing. He knew that Lucie would never court him,

before and after her marriage to Darnay, yet he devoted his life to

her and gave it up in the end for her. Despite all of the depressing

aspects of the novel, Dickens' theme of resurrection became much more

visible towards the end and

actually was quite inspiring. As Carton gave his life for Darnay and

Lucie, his final vision of a better society left me with a hopeful

attitude and seemed to be an extraordinary way to close.