Chapter 1: The Period

The year is 1775 and the settings are London and Paris, two lands ruled by monarchs. England is on the brink of the American Revolution. The French Revolution seems inevitable, with trees waiting to be converted to guillotines and the spirit of rebellion silently infecting the countryside. Similar disturbances are common across England, with highway robberies on the increase and thievery reaching all the way into high society. Executions are common for both minor and major offenses.

Chapter 2: The Mail

Mr. Jarvis Lorry, a confidential clerk at Tellson's Bank of London, is on his way to Dover in a mail-coach. It is a cold night and he is wrapped up to the ears, so his physical appearance is concealed from his fellow-passengers, all of whom are strangers. The coachman fears his passengers just as they fear one another, since highway robberies are exceedingly common and any of them could be in league with robbers. So when he hears a horse galloping towards the coach on the road, he becomes fearful.

Jerry Cruncher, the rider of the horse, asks for Mr. Lorry, giving him a paper message to wait at Dover for a young lady. Mr. Lorry's cryptic reply is, "recalled to life." After this exchange, Mr. Lorry gets back in the coach, which continues to Dover. Jerry pauses and reflects on the long, hard gallop he had from London and muses to himself that he has been given a very strange message.

Chapter 3: The Night Shadows

The chapter opens with a reflection on the fact that all humans are mysteries to one another, despite the availability of their outer appearances. The three passengers remain a mystery to one another as they advance upon Dover. Jerry Cruncher returns to Temple Bar remaining uneasy about the cryptic message.

Mr. Lorry dozes off and begins to dream in the coach, imagining the comforting environment of Tellson's Bank. He is then confronted by what he calls a spectre: a man who has been buried for eighteen years and has dug his way out. A conversation that Mr. Lorry's brain repeats three times with this spectre confirms that he has been buried for eighteen years. As the sun rises, Mr. Lorry wakes up from his dream and surveys the vivid countryside, pitying a man who would be locked away from nature for eighteen years.

Chapter 4: The Preparation

Mr. Lorry arrives in Dover in the mail coach, settles in, and takes his breakfast alone in the coffee-room. A conversation with a waiter establishes that Tellson's Bank operates both in London and Paris, but Mr. Lorry has not traveled to Paris for fifteen years. Mr. Lorry finishes his breakfast, strolls by the ocean, and then returns for a bottle of claret. His peace is disrupted by a lady referred to as Mam'selle (Miss Manette), who requests to see him immediately.

He sees her in her room and expresses emotion at the sight of her, recalling that he carried her as a babe in arms across the Channel. Miss Manette is an orphan whose financial affairs are managed by Tellson's Bank, and she was informed that Mr. Lorry would accompany her on a journey to France--and that he would have some surprising news for her. After a few false starts, Mr. Lorry manages to compose himself and tell Miss Manette that her French father (who had married an Englishwoman, who was Miss Manette's mother) was still alive in France. He was recovered after years of imprisonment and is now living in the house of an old servant in Paris.

Miss Manette understands what a wreck her father must be, and she is distressed to imagine that she is being carried to see her father's ghost, rather than her real father. Mr. Lorry describes their mission as one to spirit him away from France to England--and that they should avoid naming the matter, explaining the rescue as the enigmatic experience of being "recalled to life." Miss Manette is overcome, and she swoons. Her servant comes to her rescue, pushing Mr. Lorry out of the way to administer smelling-salts.

Analysis

In what is one of the most famous opening lines in modern literature ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."), Dickens captures the extremes of idealism and terror of the revolutionary period of the late 18th century. With the exception of figures of historical significance, in particular the monarchs, no characters directly related to the plot are introduced in this opening, reflecting Dickens's choice to focus on the setting rather than the characterization of individuals in this historical novel.

Dickens refers obliquely, rather than directly, to the historical figures and events of the period, giving his introduction a fable-like quality. Rather than naming the monarchs and openly discussing the American Revolution, he refers to the "king with a large jaw and queen with a plain face" in England, the "king with a large jaw and queen with a fair face" in France, and a "congress of British subjects in America." Death is personified as a Farmer and Fate as a Woodman, powers who silently work their way through the French countryside. The distance provided by the tone of a fable was desirable for Dickens since his novel followed the historical events so closely in time. A Tale of Two Cities was published just 67 years after the events it describes. While the horrors of the French Revolution have been eclipsed for modern readers by the world wars and genocides of the twentieth century, the terrors of the French Revolution were the horror story of Dickens's time. His indirect tone helps his readers gain distance from an event that they would have contemplated and debated many times before.

Dickens postulates the historical inevitability of the French Revolution, illustrating that despite the monarchs' complacency in their divine right, discontentment was growing in the countryside. He does not describe the same inevitability of rebellion in England, however, just the widespread feeling of lawlessness exemplified in the second chapter. Knowling that there was no comparable rebellion or even labor unrest in England at the end of the eighteenth century, Dickens portrays English society as dangerous but not lethal. Even so, there is a lack of proportion in England as demonstrated by executions for offenders ranging from murderers to "wretched pilferers." The injustice of equal treatment for unequal crimes reflects Dickens' ever-present concern with social justice, but it hardly compares with the unrest and injustices in France.

With this contrast in the direness of social and criminal situations in the two countries, Dickens sets up a dichotomy that is to dominate the rest of the novel. With likeable but somewhat undeveloped individuals, the focus of the text is ever on the setting and the communities, the historical period as much as the plot itself. The title of A Tale of Two Cities is crucial for interpretation of the novel, suggesting that the opposing cities of Paris and London constitute the true protagonists of the novel, transcending the importance of the main characters.

The first chapter only acknowledges in the last sentence that the narrative is to be a "chronicle" rather than pure history, when the narrator recognizes that the year 1775 included profound changes not only for the monarchs of France and England, but also for the "myriad of small creatures-the creatures of this chronicle among the rest-along the roads that lay before them." The historical novelist's role will humanize the great historical events of the day by narrating them through the lives of individuals. He links the inevitability of the Revolution to the inevitability of smaller events in individual lives, and the heavy hand of Fate will remain highly visible throughout the rest of the novel.

The real story begins in Chapter 2, introducing the setting of misty fear that permeates the rest of the novel. This gloom links Dickens's work with the earlier Gothic movement in literature. The sense of fear and uncertainty that the characters feel on the road is picked up later in the plot line of Charles Darnay's accusation. A highway was one of the most fearful places that a gentleman could travel, because they were plagued by highway robbers who would hold up and raid the coaches. Dickens evokes this sense of fear by projecting it onto the natural characteristics of the road, using figures of speech: the mist is "like an evil spirit" and "as the waves of an unwholesome sea." Such dangerous or supernatural imagery helps build up the horror of the arrival of Jerry Cruncher on horseback, making his entrance quite dramatic.

Chapter 2 is not all ominous darkness, however. Dickens undercuts the dramatic scene with his characteristic wit. He ironically describes the condition of the passengers' fear for one another and the guard, and the guard's fear of everyone but his horses, as the Dover coaches' "usual genial position." This idea suggests that the state of fear is so commonplace that it has become expected, even verging on pleasant. Dickens also comically describes the animalistic behavior of the other passengers of the coach when they feel that their physical safety is threatened. They "more swiftly than politely" help Mr. Lorry out of the coach, and they only reluctantly allow him back in--after they have stored away their valuables in their boots.

Chapter 2 also is filled with auditory details; not much visual information is available on a dark road. The horses snorting and the audible beating hearts of the passengers highlight the drama of a dark road more even than a description of darkness could do. Dialogue dominates, and Dickens uses the Shakespearean device of distinguishing the various social classes in a text by their accents and elevation of their speech. The coachman's oaths ("My blood!") and noises ("Tst! Yah!") as well as the guard's ungrammatical language ("If so be as you're quick, sir") are faithfully and phonetically transcribed. Mr. Lorry's membership in a different class altogether is made obvious in his first sentence ("There is nothing to apprehend"), and he continues to speak in grammatical sentences without the use of slang.

A Tale of Two Cities was produced in serial form, so it was in Dickens's interest to end each chapter with a cliffhanger so that his readers would purchase the next installment. The cliffhanger in "The Mail" is the suggestion that Jerry Cruncher is a killer because he is haunted by the great amount of trouble he would be in, should the dead come back to life. His mannerisms reveal this guilt, as he unmuffles himself only to pour liquor into his mouth, and then quickly covers his face again. His eyes betray his inner guilt, "being...much too near together-as if they were afraid of being found out in something singly if they kept too far apart."

In Chapter 3, an unidentified first-person narrator elaborates the theme of disjunction between people's appearance and their nature, giving it a political gloss. The fear caused by the unknown seems to be justified, because the multiplicity of people's secret hearts is associated with an "awfulness" akin to "Death itself." Urban settings, which Dickens criticized greatly, exacerbate this horror by putting many dark secrets in close proximity. The narrator bemoans the fact that he will never get to know a person thoroughly--a part will always remain secret. Still, these secrets are equally available to all men, in that the messenger has "the same possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London."

Despite people's secrets, the façades of Dickensian characters usually reflects their inner lives quite fairly. For example, in Oliver Twist, the great scene of betrayal occurs when Nancy uses her attractive and honest appearance to attract Oliver into a group of bandits. That her outer beauty echoes an inner beauty is vindicated by the fact that she later repents and deceives Sikes to assist Oliver.

Mr. Lorry's first dream identifies the motif of money and business that characterizes him for the rest of the novel. Mr. Lorry uses business as a watchword of comfort when he gets into situations that make him nervous. He is rattled by the business that he must undertake when he arrives in Dover, so he comforts himself by imagining the sound of the harness as the "chink of money" and the carriage as a strong-room where he could check that his customers' valuables are safe. That business is a safety net for Mr. Lorry, a neutral place that no one should fear, is illustrated later in the text when he is confronted with emotionally charged situations. At such times, Mr. Lorry mutters the word "business" repeatedly to brace himself for a challenge or to try to reassure others.

The dominant theme of Chapter 4 is that of disorder overcoming order. Mr. Lorry's actions upon his arrival in Dover reinforce the reader's previous impression of him as a man who can be trusted to act according to convention and pattern. He turns down the head drawer's suggestion that he rest, saying that he won't go to bed until night. But the orderliness of his person is opposed by outside forces, as manifest in the small detail of the regular ticking of his watch, "as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the fire."

In the beginning of Chapter 4, everything is ordered according to Mr. Lorry's expectations. When he drops off to sleep, this "completes his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait." The waiter watches Mr. Lorry comfortably, "according to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages." This orderliness is disturbed when the ritual of his meal is interrupted by Miss Mannette's request to see him immediately. The extent to which he relies on familiar patterns is hyperbolized in the description of his reaction to this too early summons as "stolid desperation." Though he is at first pleased with her, recognizing the meaning of her social conventions ("she curtseyed to him...with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she"), he becomes rapidly distressed when recognizable social conventions break down. When she becomes distraught and kneels as she hears the truth, he gets quite upset with the breach of convention, asking, "In heaven's name why should you kneel to me?"

This triumph of disorder is associated with the novel's geographic movement toward France. The dichotomy described in the first chapter between England the dangerous and France the truly lethal is again evident; the details associated with disorder are particularly French. The closeness of location to France is evident in that the weather occasionally clears up enough to allow a view of the French coast. The wild sea, a symbol of disorder, rages at the cliffs "madly," seemingly sent from France. Corruption, evidenced by the fact that men who did no trade would suddenly become wealthy, is connected to the sea trade--and thus also with France. Mr. Lorry highlights corruption as particularly French, insinuating that the horror of Dr. Manette's predicament was only possible "across the water."

As a writer of serialized popular novels, Dickens uses not only cliffhangers, but also extensive foreshadowing, which creates further suspense. Reading in the nineteenth century was a more social activity than it is in modern times, and it was not uncommon for installments to be read out loud for the benefit of members of the family who were illiterate. Heavy foreshadowing complemented this social reception of the novels, allowing the group to argue over the implications of what was written and what might happen next. Dickens foreshadows the fact that the "recalled to life" message is related to Miss Manette in the description of her room. Her connection with the once "buried" man is evident in the dark "funereal" furnishings of her room, and the candles on the burnished dark table are "gloomily reflected on every leaf as if they were buried."

Chapter 5: The Wine-Shop

Outside Monsieur Defarge's wine-shop in Paris, a cask of wine is dropped and broken. The wine spills over the cobblestones, and people stop what they were doing to drink the wine off the street. When the wine runs out and people return to the activities of their daily lives, the mark of hunger is visible on all of them. Even the street signs reflect this hunger, with the butcher's sign painted with only a scrap of meat, the baker's with a tiny loaf. The only thing with the appearance of strength and robustness are weapons: axes, knives, guns.

Monsieur Defarge watches the incident with the wine cask, talking to Gaspard, who dips his finger in the wine and mud and writes "blood" on a wall. Defarge wipes this word away. When Defarge returns to his shop, his wife coughs slightly and gestures with her eyebrow that he should take a look around the store. He sees Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette seated in his store, as well as three men apparently named Jacques, which is also Monsieur Defarge's own name. He sends the three to view a room that they wish to see, and Mr. Lorry requests a word with him. He reveals his and Miss Manette's identities and asks to see Dr. Manette, and Defarge accordingly conducts them to the fifth-floor apartment.

Mr. Lorry is displeased both by the fact that Dr. Manette is locked in, and that they can see the three Jacqueses spying on him through chinks in the wall. Miss Manette enters although she is afraid. She finds her white-haired father in a garret, making shoes.

Chapter 6: The Shoemaker

Dr. Manette is absorbed in making shoes, and at first he hardly responds to the arrival of his visitors. When asked his name, Dr. Manette replies: "One Hundred and Five, North Tower." He claims to have learned shoemaking "here," illustrating that he believes he is still imprisoned.

Although he only partially recognizes Mr. Lorry, Dr. Manette is stricken by the sight of his daughter. He identifies her golden curls as the same hair that he wears in a rag around his neck as a forlorn souvenir of his infant daughter. She convinces him that she is indeed her daughter by emotionally commanding him to weep for the past wrongs that they have both undergone.

Preparations are made at his daughter's request to remove Dr. Manette immediately from Paris. As he is carried from the garret to the coach, he expresses confusion that he is not leaving the prison that he thought he was in, not finding a drawbridge where he has expected.

The first book ends with Mr. Lorry wondering what powers could be restored to a resurrected man, versus what was lost to him in his burial.

Analysis

Chapter 5 is the first chapter in the novel to be set in France, and it introduces themes that will be associated with this country through the rest of the novel. The setting involves unutterable misery and filth, giving a motive for the class struggle that is later to take place at this location. Dickens dwells especially on the appalling condition of Defarge's apartment, a "foul nest" with refuse lying around, and a place where the atmosphere is generally dark and poisonous.

The spilled red wine is an obvious cipher for spilled blood, and Dickens uses the crowd's enthusiasm for its spillage as an indication of how they will greet the coming revolution. They are wine-thirsty and bloodthirsy. Their reaction to the spill is notable not only for its eagerness but also for the social ties that it creates among the lower class--who rarely, if ever, drink wine. Under its influence, they sing, dance, and drink further to one another's health.

Monsieur Defarge's character is evident in his face. For Dickens, the distance between the eyes is a crucial indicator of whether a man is a criminal or not. Monsieur Defarge's eyes are set a good distance apart, and it is later revealed that Madame Defarge encourages his criminal activities. Madame Defarge is a much more interesting and mysterious character than her husband. Her every gesture is watched by her husband and the other patrons of the bar, she is the one who gives him cues, and it is her initiative that guides the course of events.

Mr. Lorry's agitation at the breaches of convention in Dover increase multifold, since there is no social pattern for the extraordinary introduction that takes place in Paris. Monsieur Defarge takes care to follow social patterns, but he does so in a way that reveals his more sinister intentions. When he recognizes Miss Manette as his former master's daughter, Defarge bends on one knee, putting her hand to his lips. It is "a gentle action not at all gently done." In an ordered world, the gentility of an action reflects the gentility of its intention; here, Dickens shows that this balance is undermined. Mr. Lorry tries to reassure Miss Manette, repeating the words "courage" and "business"--which to him are related and reassuring concepts. His constant repetition of the word "business" is farcical, given the very un-businesslike role in which he once again finds himself.

Chapter 6 is concerned primarily with Dr. Manette's affliction. His is the first and clearest representation of resurrection, which continues to be a major theme in the novel. Miss Manette's fear that she was being brought to meet her father's ghost rather than her father is somewhat justified by his spectral appearance and voice, which had "lost the life and resonance of a human voice." The immediate reaction of those closest to him is one of surprise and horror rather than surprise and delight (compare the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels). The liveliest-looking part of Dr. Manette's face is that which the author has previously deemed the most important: his "exceedingly bright eyes." Here lie the seeds of recovery for the resurrected man.

Lightness overcoming darkness is a consistent pattern in this chapter, and it represents his daughter's role in his life from this point forward. In the previous chapter, the garret was described as extremely dark, but the entrance of the visitors now causes a "broad ray of light" to fall into the garret. Details of her father's person include his lead-colored (prison-colored) nails, which contrast with Miss Manette's "fair" and free visage. That she will remain impervious to his darkness, and that she will affect him with her own light rather than the reverse, is depicted in the passage: "His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him." The very fact that Manette is alive is a great miracle, but his resurrection is not complete until he is exposed to the lightness of his daughter.

The touching scene between Doctor Manette and his daughter is typical of the sentimental novel. The genre of the sentimental novel was popular in Britain in the eighteenth century. It usually depicted virtue in affliction, which seldom fails to elicit emotional responses from readers. Some of the most famous sentimental novels prior to the explosion of literary Romanticism include Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey and Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. A family reunited after years of suffering would be a typical theme of these novels, as would a beautiful but afflicted heroine.

Chapter 1: Five Years Later

The second book opens with a description of the venerable Tellson's Bank. Its darkness and discomfort are much beloved by those who work there. Indeed, their conviction that it should remain inconvenient and deteriorating is so strong that they would have disinherited a son who disagreed with them.

Jerry Cruncher, who delivered the message on horseback to Mr. Lorry, serves as an odd job man for Tellson's. He lives in Whitefriars in a tiny apartment kept immaculate by his wife. He abuses this wife roundly for kneeling to pray, insinuating that her prayers interfere with the success of his business. He enlists the aid of his admiring son to prevent Mrs. Cruncher from praying against him. When she tries to pray, her son reveals her transgression to his father.

The young Cruncher follows his father to work, and he wonders where the rust on the straw his father is chewing comes from. His job at Tellson's does not involve rust, yet Jerry Cruncher is always rusty.

Chapter 2: A Sight

An old clerk at Tellson's gives Jerry Cruncher a message to deliver to Mr. Lorry at Old Bailey, where Charles Darnay is being tried. Jerry makes his way into the trial and is reassured by an onlooker that this is indeed the treason case. The man gruesomely describes the quartering that is certain to follow as punishment. When the young gentleman prisoner, Charles Darnay, is brought in, the whole courtroom stares at him. He had pleaded not guilty the previous day. Darnay's gaze rests immediately on Dr. Manette and his daughter, who are to be witnesses for the prosecution.

Chapter 3: A Disappointment

Charles Darnay is charged with shuttling back and forth between France and England in order to spy. John Barsad, who was his friend, is the chief witness against him. Darnay was allegedly involved in traitorous activities as far back as five years ago, during the outbreak of the American Revolution.

Mr. Lorry is called to give evidence against Charles Darnay, and he identifies Darnay as the man who came on board in the middle of the night at Calais on the way from France to England. Miss Manette is called and, though she identifies him, she strongly regrets that her evidence could bring him any harm. Lucie testifies that the prisoner confided in her that he was traveling under an assumed name on a delicate business. Dr. Manette testifies that he also recognizes the man.

The case is thrown into uproar and made fruitless, however, when a Mr. Carton reveals himself. Carton looks so much like Darnay that a positive identification of the defendant is made impossible. Darnay's defense counsel, Mr. Stryver, shows that Barsad was himself a traitor. The jury deliberates for a long time. Lucie faints and is taken out of the courthouse. Mr. Lorry tells Jerry to remain to take the verdict to Tellson's. Jerry receives a piece of paper on which it is written that Darnay is acquitted.

Chapter 4: Congratulatory

Dr. Manette, Lucie, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defense, and Mr. Stryver all congratulate Darnay on his escape from death. Dr. Manette's face is clouded over by the negative emotions caused by being cross-examined about being imprisoned. The Manettes depart in a hackney-coach, and a slightly drunk Mr. Carton asks to be allowed to speak to Mr. Darnay. They dine in a tavern, and Mr. Carton proposes a toast to Miss Manette. After Darnay leaves, Mr. Carton looks at himself in a mirror and reflects that he does not like Darnay because he too much resembles what Carton himself could have been, had Carton not been so dissolute. He hates Darnay for inspiring Miss Manette to look at him with such compassion.

Chapter 5: The Jackal

Mr. Stryver is prone to alcoholism, and he is a drinking companion of Mr. Carton's--they had been fellow students in Paris. Mr. Stryver, despite all of his capacity to push himself ahead, became a much more successful lawyer when Mr. Carton began working on and helping summarize his documents for him. Thus Carton became Stryver's jackal. When Stryver talks about how pretty Miss Manette is, Carton denies it, claiming she is nothing but a blond "doll." Carton leaves Stryver's house and returns to his own, crying himself to sleep. He is haunted by the honorable glories that once were available to him but are now out of his reach.

Chapter 6: Hundreds of People

Four months after the trial, Mr. Lorry dines with the Manettes. The Manettes live in Soho, a charming part of London not yet fully urbanized. Dr. Manette has revived his medical practice out of the house and lives comfortably. He converses with Miss Pross, who is upset because, as she terms it, hundreds of people come looking for Miss Manette (whom she calls "my Ladybird") although Miss Pross thinks they do not deserve her. Mr. Lorry recognizes Miss Pross's devotion and values her more highly than wealthier women who have balances at Tellson's. He questions Miss Pross about whether Dr. Manette knows the identity of the person who caused him to be jailed for so long; she thinks he does. When Lucie and her father arrive, Miss Pross fusses over the girl, arranging her bonnet and smoothing her hair. Miss Pross had scoured the neighborhood for French expatriates to teach her cooking tricks, and she is now considered a sorceress in the kitchen. After dinner, Mr. Darnay comes to call. Dr. Manette is in good humor until he gets flustered when Darnay tells a story about the Tower of London, in which many prisoners' initials were carved. The only ones that couldn't be matched by a former prisoner were D.I.G., which the guards figured was an imperative to dig (they dug, but found only remains of a possible letter).

Mr. Carton joins the party as it moves inside out of a rainstorm. Lucy tells of her fancy that the footsteps that echo outside her house are the footsteps of people to come in and out of her life. Mr. Carton observes that this vision represents a great number of people who really will be in her life.

Chapter 7: Monseigneur in Town

Monseigneur is a powerful lord of France who holds receptions every two weeks in his hotel in Paris. It takes four men to muster the ceremony necessary to serve him his morning chocolate. His idea of general public business is to let things go their own way, and his idea of specific public business is for things to go whatever way is most profitable for him. Monseigneur found that these principles, in addition to the reduction of his finances, made it advantageous for him to ally himself with a Farmer-General by marrying his sister to one. Everyone in his court is unreal because none knows how to do a lick of work that is useful to anyone else. The Marquis de Evremonde, also known as Monseigneur, condemns him as he leaves, and then rides away in his own carriage.

Monseigneur's carriage, driving recklessly fast, runs down and kills a child. The Marquis gives Gaspard, the child's father, a gold coin, and gives Defarge another gold coin for making the philosophical observation that the child is better off dead. As the Marquis is driving away, Defarge throws the coin back at the carriage. Upper-class people continue to drive through Saint Antoine as the poor and hungry look on.

Chapter 8: Monseigneur in the Country

The Marquis continues driving in his carriage through another poor village, this one made destitute by over-taxation. He stops and demands to speak with one of the villagers, asking him why he stared so intently as the Marquis drove up the hill. The man replies that there was a man under the carriage hanging from the shoe. He describes the man as white as a miller and tall as a ghost. The villager claims that when the carriage stopped, the man underneath dived headfirst over the hillside. The Marquis loses patience with the story and asks Monsieur Gabelle, the Postmaster, to put the villagers out of his sight. The Marquis sets off again but is waylaid by a woman with a petition. Her husband has died and she wishes for a piece of wood or stone to mark his grave; too many have died and become heaps of unmarked earth. He pushes away from her without replying and continues the journey to his château. When he arrives he asks if Monsieur Charles has yet arrived from England.

Chapter 9: The Gorgon's Head

The château is all stone, as if a Gorgon's head had looked at it. Monseigneur sits down to dinner after complaining that his nephew has not yet arrived. When Charles Darnay does arrive, Monseigneur observes that he has taken a long time coming from London. Darnay accuses Monseigneur of an effort to have him imprisoned in France with a letter de cachet. Monseigneur does not deny this, but he complains about the inaccessibility of such measures and the privileges that the aristocracy has lost. He considers repression to be the only effective and lasting policy; Darnay replies that their family has done wrong and will pay the consequences. Darnay renounces his property and France. Monseigneur mocks him for having not been more successful in England, then mentions the doctor and his daughter but ominously refuses to say more.

Owls howl through the night, and when the sun rises its slanting angle makes the château fountain seem full of blood. The villagers wake up first to start their toil, and the occupants of the château awake later, but when they do arise, they engage in frenzied activity. Monseigneur was murdered during the night. There is a knife through his heart, containing a piece of paper on which it is written: "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques."

Analysis

As in Shakespearean tragedies, the great elements of tragedy are provided by the upper classes, while the lower classes provide comic relief, often by the distinct color and topics of their language. In Chapter 1, the Cruncher family provides comic relief from the heavy sentimentality of the reuniting of the Manettes. Jerry Cruncher uses laughably vivid language to censure his wife's sense of religion: "You're a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me?" There is humor in the fact that Jerry objects to the very characteristics that actually make his wife nice. For a man who claims not to believe in religion, Jerry has a very real fear of the success of prayer, believing that he has been "religiously circumwented into the worst of luck."

Physical appearance and names continue to be accurate indicators of the conditions of the humans they belong to. Despite Jerry's favorite appellation of himself as an "honest tradesman," the details illustrate that the opposite is more likely the case. The last name of Cruncher is illustrative of the morbid nature of his job, which is echoed by the younger Cruncher's hobby of "inflicting bodily and mental injuries of an acute description" on boys younger and weaker than himself on Fleet Street.

The boy is a physical double; he is destined to develop into his father. He wears a slightly less dangerous version of the spikes that adorn his father's head. These spikes, which an earlier chapter described as making him an undesirable player of leapfrog, are portrayed as more hazardous in this chapter; they might "tear his sheets to ribbons." The father and son are also united in their resemblance to animals, looking like a pair of monkeys as they absently survey Fleet Street.

Also in Chapter 1, Dickens drops more clues to foreshadow the unsavory nature of Jerry Cruncher's real business. One as yet inexplicable detail is the rustiness that surrounds Jerry. Others include the fact that while he returns home from Tellson's with clean boots, he wakes up in the morning to a set of muddy boots.

Old Bailey is described in Chapter 2 as a perfect example of the precept, "Whatever is is right," a direct quotation from Alexander Pope, an eighteenth- century satirist. The phrase is the last line of the first Epistle of his Essay on Man, which Pope wrote to laud man's abilities and the great possibilities of his relationship with God. The first Epistle is mainly concerned with theodicy, that is, explaining why a perfect God would allow suffering in a world of his own creation.

The French philosopher Voltaire challenged the optimism of "whatever is is right" in his satire Candide. In his own way, consistent with his self-image as a social crusader, Dickens also finds this optimism unlikely. It seems unforgivable that Old Bailey is allowed to continue in its abuses, despite the fact that it has handed down incorrect and probably unjust sentences.

Trials, like the famous madhouse named Bedlam, not only were designed to deal with criminals and the insane, but they also served as entertainment for the general public. Families would go on outings to Old Bailey to jeer at criminals. Dickens strongly critiques this excessive interest in human suffering, illustrating that the only reason for the interest in Mr. Darnay's person is the possibility of his severe sentence. Dickens condemns this monstrous interest in viewing a body that is later to be mangled as "at the root of it, Ogreish."

Darnay's acquittal in Chapter 3 is the second example of resurrection in the novel. His conviction is almost certain before the appearance of Mr. Carton, and this is what has brought out the crowd. Dickens compares the onlookers to blueflies, noting their buzz after any piece of evidence in Darnay's disfavor is disclosed. The title of the chapter refers to the crowd's disappointment when there is no blood for them to see, and the final image of the chapter is of the masses buzzing Old Bailey in search of other carrion to feed on.

Dickens included frequent biblical references, and these would have been very familiar to the audience of his day. In Chapter 2, he depicts the mirror that hangs over the bar as having recorded innumerable criminal faces. He reflects on how haunted Old Bailey would be if the mirror would give up its previous reflections, "as the ocean is one day to give up its dead." Dickens alludes here to Revelations 20:13--"And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works."

A more obvious biblical reference is the portrayal of Barsad by the defense lawyer as "one of the greatest scoundrels upon the earth since accursed Judas-which he certainly did look rather like." This is, of course, a reference to Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus in return for money. The assertion that he looks like Judas is absurd, because there is no record of how Judas looked, but it is representative of the wild accusations and poetic license used in courts of the day. Barsad's characterization as Judas highlights the thematic connection of Darnay's acquittal with Jesus's resurrection.

In Chapter 4 we learn that in Book II ("The Golden Thread"), the golden thread most obviously refers to Lucie's hair. It also refers more abstractly to her curative power over her father. She commands the golden thread because she connects him to an earlier time that was not painful and to a present beyond his miserable period of imprisonment. Lucie is important not only for her golden nature, which has the power to redeem him, but also for the connective nature of her existence. She is the only person able to pull her father away from recollecting his time of misery.

The conversation between Carton and Darnay reintroduces the theme of doubles. Although their facial features are the same, Carton's dissolute behavior marks their difference. This behavior is observable in his unkempt, "debauched" appearance. Another set of doubles is Lucie and her father. They have many of the same facial characteristics, most notably the habit of knitting their foreheads up, but their different experiences have left the Doctor's face almost unrecognizably marked with cares, while Lucie's face is still fresh and fair. As a social crusader, Dickens was preoccupied with the way that debauched or unhealthy environments could corrupt even good people, and the presence of doubles in his novel illustrates how the same characteristics might grow in different ways in response to different environments.

Chapter 5 is primarily concerned with establishing Sydney Carton's admiration for Lucie Manette and his self-loathing in the knowledge that he has done nothing in his life worthy of her admiration--or anyone's admiration, for that matter. His love for Miss Manette and his self-hatred generate motives that will be crucial later on.

Despite the presentation of Carton as debauched, Dickens exercises the sentiments of his readers to garner some sympathy for Carton. His propensity to shoot himself in the foot is traced back to primary school, where he did other boys' work rather than his own. The responsibility for his own lack of success is placed somewhat on Stryver, who was born with more advantages than Carton. The chapter ends with the pathetic image of the sun rising sadly. Carton's state is pitiable enough to draw an emotional response even from nature herself, or at least that is how it seems from Carton's perspective.

The description of the Manettes' Soho home, which opens Chapter 6, is in strong opposition to the description of the Defarges' dwelling in Paris. All of the misery, filth, and want which are apparent in Paris are nowhere to be seen in this charming rural suburb. If Doctor Manette has something in common with the French underclass, this is not it. Nature is allowed to function uninterrupted here, and its fruits are seen in beautiful hawthorn and peach trees. Class struggle is clearly not a possibility in this part of London, or at least it is not an issue for the Manettes.

"Hundreds of People," the humorous title of Chapter 6, is derived from Miss Pross's exaggeration of the number of Lucie's admirers. Miss Pross has great concern for her "Ladybird." This concern seems excessive, especially since Lucie has just three suitors at the most. This chapter develops more fully the character of Miss Pross, who up to this point has only been seen in a forceful and somewhat masculine light. Her character is referred to as "a Sorceress, or Cinderella's godmother," alluding to her transformative power over food.

The running joke of the chapter is that Mr. Lorry continuously recalls Miss Pross's phrase, "hundreds of people." Throughout the evening he notes that they still have not turned up; only Carton and Darnay are visiting. The phrase is somewhat justified, however, in that Lucie fancies that the people walking outside will eventually walk into her life--this would indeed include hundreds of people.

The main theme of Chapter 7 is the uselessness and absurdity of the pre-Revolutionary French upper class. Although they consider the world to be in order so long as everyone is dressed correctly as for a fancy ball, their position is unsustainable because none of them performs any useful jobs. The military men know nothing about war, the religious men are lascivious, and the doctors cure only imaginary diseases.

The corruption of the upper class is conveyed through the ironic religious language used to describe Monseigneur. His personal room is called the "Holiest of Holies," a direct translation from the Latin sanctum sanctorum and ultimately from the Hebrew Bible, referring to the especially sacred inner chamber of a temple. As for his philosophy of personal gain: "the text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: 'The earth and the fullness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.'" The altered pronoun is the substitution of "Monseigneur," for "Lord," the irony being that Monseigneur does not consider the exchange a very considerable alteration. The substitution is a pun in French, because "Monseigneur" literally translates as "my Lord," so the biblical address ("my Lord" referring to God) and the feudal address ("my Lord" as a reference to an aristocrat or a superior) are perhaps not as distant as the two beings themselves really are. The line between religion and political hierarchy is further blurred by the extent to which his servants kowtow to Monseigneur. Their excessive adulation seems to violate the first commandment, that "thou shalt have no other gods but me." Monseigneur's contempt for religion is further demonstrated by his valuation of the nun's veil as the "cheapest garment she could wear," having no appreciation for her intentional humility, when he resolves to sell her into marriage for more.

A Farmer-General was a type of French tax collector whose job was to "farm" the taxes of a particular district at his discretion. Such collectors were notorious for ripping off their struggling neighbors by collecting even steeper taxes than what they were required to send to the monarch, then pocketing the difference. The Farmer-General is an extremely wealthy man described as carrying "an appropriate cane with a golden apple on top of it." The cane is appropriate in the sense that the Farmer-General is not really a farmer, but merely collects money. His harvest is made of gold.

In Chapter 8, en route from Paris to his country house, the Marquis is put into direct contact with the poor people whom he wants nothing to do with. Consistent with the negative images of the French aristocracy in this novel, the Marquis is brutally contemptuous of the plight of the lower class. He is willing to stop his carriage not in response to poverty and want, but only when he thinks that the class hierarchy is being breached. The trouble is that a lower-class man is staring at the carriage instead of showing respect. The Marquis shows his contempt for the villagers by calling them "pig" and "dolt."

Dickens uses an illusion to classical mythology to illustrate how frightful the appearance of the coach was to the lower classes. He describes the "cracking of his postilions' whip which twined snakelike about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies..." The Furies were ancient Greek goddesses usually represented with snakes twined in their hair, sent to avenge wrong and punish crime. The irony is, of course, that the Marquis's assumed role is to perpetuate, rather than to avenge, wrong, although the Marquis probably would claim that the poor morally deserve their poverty. The religious undertones of his power are reinforced by the image of him being waited on by goddesses.

Although Dickens consistently writes in English, the French language is extremely important to those chapters that he sets in France. For example, the Postmaster's name, Gabelle, who is also "some other taxing functionary," is a direct reflection of his occupation. "Gabelle" was formerly the general name for taxation, but it became associated right before the Revolution with a particularly oppressive salt tax. Hence, the Gabelle's name evokes the most infamously unjust pre-Revolutionary tax. Dickens peppers his text with other French words, such as "flambeau," to describe the lighting of the château. Most noticeably, the names of the French aristocracy are given either in French or in direct translation. For example, Monsieur the Marquis, which does not make sense in English, is a direct translation of Monsieur le Marquis.

The dramatic cliffhanger in Chapter 8 is that Monsieur Charles of England almost certainly refers to Charles Darnay. Is possible that Charles is associated with this terrible man?

The title of Chapter 9 refers again to Greek mythology. A Gorgon was a woman with hair made of snakes and whose gaze turned the beholder into stone. The most famous Gorgon was Medusa. The identification of a Gorgon's gaze with Monseigneur's house is apt, highlighting the viciousness of the ancien régime (the name for the "old rule" of the monarch and aristocrats in feudal France).

The murder of Monseigneur is the first event in the great class struggle that erupts in the text. Details of the furnishings of the château also hint at the character of the family who own it, and they give further justification (beyond Monseigneur's personal brutality) for his murder. His furniture, "diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France," is mainly in the style of Louis XIV, the so called "sun-god" who ruled France from 1643 to 1715. The style is highly decorative, and at the time in which the novel is set, it is somewhat out of date. This opulence, in combination with even older furnishings, not only displays Monseigneur's wealth but also illustrates that his disregard of the common people is not particular to him; his fortune has been entrenched in his family for many generations and has its roots in feudalism.

The irony in the description of the château as solid, stony, and rooted in history is that Dickens portends that it will be destroyed in the French Revolution. (See the passage, "If a picture of the château as it was to be a very few years hence... [Monseigneur] might have been at a loss to claim this own from the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked ruins.") Because Dickens did not witness the French Revolution firsthand, his primary reference on the period was Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, as he acknowledges in his preface. Carlyle's book includes a chapter on the destruction of aristocrats' chateaux in the period following the storming of the Bastille.

The passage foreseeing the destruction of the château also serves to foreshadow the actual vulnerability of the seemingly impregnable Monseigneur himself. Further foreshadowing of Monseigneur's death can be traced to the hooting of the owls on the night of his death. This is an allusion to Shakespeare's Macbeth on the night when King Duncan is killed. Macbeth says, "I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?" and Lady Macbeth replies, "I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry" (II.ii.14-15). Popular superstition in the 19th century held that an owl screaming was a harbinger of death.

Chapter 10: Two Promises

A year later, Charles Darnay is back in England, happily working as a tutor of French. He has been in love with Lucie since he met her, and he finally asks her father for permission to make his feelings known to her. Despite Dr. Manette's hesitations, Darnay convinces him that his intentions are honorable and sincere. He does not wish to come between Lucie and her father; he wishes, if possible, to bind them closer.

There is always a touch of reserve in Dr. Manette's reception of Darnay, and this struggle is evident in his expression of dread, and although he gives his blessing to Darnay, something is not quite right. Darnay tells the doctor that he is using an assumed name and tries to tell him why he is in England and what his real name is, but the doctor stops him. He says that if Charles does marry Lucie, he should tell him these secrets on the marriage morning. When Lucie returns to the house that night, she hears him working on his shoemaking again for the first time since Paris and is very distressed. She knocks on his door and he stops.

Chapter 11: A Companion Picture

Mr. Stryver and Mr. Carton are drinking together while the latter prepares the former's legal papers. Mr. Stryver, after claiming that his own gallantry is superior to his friend's, announces that he intends to marry Lucie Manette. This causes Carton to drink his punch more rapidly although he claims to have no objections. Stryver feels that he is doing Lucie a good turn and marvels at his own economic disinterestedness in his choice. Stryver recommends that Carton find a woman with some money or property and marry her.

Chapter 12: The Fellow of Delicacy

On his way to Lucie's house in Soho to declare his intentions, Mr. Stryver passes Tellson's and decides to step inside to ask Mr. Lorry's opinion of the matter. Mr. Lorry expresses some politic confusion, and Stryver asks what could possibly be wrong with his proposal. After all, he is eligible, prosperous, and advancing. He considers that if Lucie recognized these qualities and turned him down, she would be a fool.

Despite the fact that he is at Tellson's and must act properly, Mr. Lorry grows angry at this disparagement of Lucie. Mr. Lorry suggests that because it might be painful for Stryver, the doctor, and Lucie if the former were to make an unwelcome suit, perhaps Lorry himself should go to Soho and feel out the subject. Mr. Stryver agrees.

When Mr. Lorry arrives at Stryver's house later that evening with a confirmation that a proposal would be unwelcome, he gets a strange response from the would-be suitor. Stryver pretends to have forgotten the subject. When he is reminded, he professes to be sorry for both the doctor and Mr. Lorry, insinuating that Lucie has gotten herself into trouble and is no longer fit to be engaged. Lorry is so surprised that he merely leaves.

Chapter 13: The Fellow of No Delicacy

Mr. Carton had never spoken well or made himself agreeable at the Manette household, but he used to haunt their street at night, dreaming of Lucie. One day he visits her and she asks him what the matter is. He claims that he is beyond help in his profligate ways, but he says his familiarity with the Manettes' family scene has given him the desire to be a good man again. Lucie tries to convince him that this is a possibility, but Carton declares that it is only a dream, however happy. He merely wants to open his heart to her and have her remember that he did so. Before he leaves he promises that he would do anything for her or for anyone close to her.

Chapter 14: The Honest Tradesman

Jerry Cruncher sits on his stool on Fleet Street outside Tellson's and sees Robert Cly's funeral procession approaching. A crowd belligerently follows the funeral procession because Cly was allegedly a spy, and Jerry climbs along with the mob on top of his coffin as they take over the procession. Jerry prudently leaves the mob before the police arrive.

Jerry goes home and lectures Mrs. Cruncher for praying again. He says he is going out fishing in the middle of the night, and his son follows him out to see what he is doing. He sees his father creep down to a river and open a coffin. Young Jerry runs home with the nightmarish image that the coffin is chasing him. The next morning, young Jerry asks his father what a Resurrection-Man is, and he says that he would like to be one when he grows up. This pleases his father.

Analysis

Chapter 10 contains several references which would be more obvious to Dickens's contemporaries than to modern readers. When describing Darnay's character and success in London, Dickens writes that he expected "neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses." The pavements of gold refer to the famous story of Richard Whittington, who grew up to be Lord Mayor of London three times, after having come to the city when he heard that the pavements were made of gold. Beds of roses allude to a passage in Christopher Marlowe's famous "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (1599), in which he promises his love beds of roses. Darnay is an even more attractive character because he expects none of these pastoral or urban advantages, but instead is willing to work hard.

Psychic troubles cause the Doctor to resume his shoemaking. Trouble is foreshadowed when Darnay leaves the house; the Doctor senses that Darnay will have very troubling news. Evidently something has been a throwback to his time in prison, since the return to shoemaking shows that the Doctor is seriously disturbed by something Darnay has said. The Doctor's occasional regressions will continue to be a great cause of concern for his friends and his daughter.

The humor in Chapter 11 comes from Stryver's prideful presumption that Lucie will willingly and eagerly accept him as a husband. Gender roles in the nineteenth century were such that Lucie could not and would not express direct interest in a man whom she loved or desired, but she could reject the suit of a man who was not agreeable to her. Stryver's dwelling on the subject of marrying for love rather than money illustrates the fact that many marriages were made for economic convenience rather than love. Although Stryver congratulates himself on sidestepping his economic interests, he recommends an economically prudent marriage to Carton. Ironically, he will fall back on this type of union himself, marrying a rich widow with three sons when he finds that his attraction to Lucie is not mutual.

The title of Chapter 12 is, like others, ironic. Mr. Stryver is far from delicate; he commits a number of indelicate actions. His very deportment lacks tact, as he throws his overly large body around the street and then around the interior of Tellson's--with no regard for the safety of others. His entire conversation with Mr. Lorry is indiscreet, and he puts Mr. Lorry in the very awkward position of turning Stryver down on Lucie's behalf. Still, it is fortunate that Mr. Lorry is able to intervene to present a worse situation later. Although marriage tended to be dominated by economics at the time, it is indelicate of Stryver to mention Lucie's reasons for accepting him as materialistic. Mr. Lorry is forced to remind Stryver that he needs Lucie's acceptance to go ahead, stressing that "the young lady goes before all." But Stryver looks at the matter backwards the whole way through. When he is planning his intended wedding, he is merely debating when to "make her happiness known to her" and when to "give her his hand." This is a humorous reversal of the usual assumption that a woman gives her hand in marriage, not the other way around.

Stryver's second and more seriously indelicate action is his allusion to Lucie's virtue. His pride is hurt by the fact that she is not inclined to accept him, and he protects his hurt feelings by suggesting that Lucie has acted improperly or even foolishly, as though she has demonstrated that after all she is ineligible for his attentions. This is a very serious charge; in the nineteenth century, a woman's virtue was priceless while a stain on her reputation was irreversible. It is good that Stryver does not voice this idea to anyone other than Mr. Lorry, who is too bewildered to be outraged, because it could have done serious damage to Lucie.

The humor in the title of Chapter 13 is that a fellow of no delicacy can be better than the fellow of false delicacy. Carton has no delicacy because he honestly tells his feelings to Lucie while knowing they are not returned. However, something productive comes of this interchange, in that Lucie is made aware of his true character and Carton is uplifted by her compassion.

Gender roles function in this chapter in precisely the formula of a sentimental novel. The sentimental novel, which excites the readers' compassionate feelings, often includes the successful efforts of good women to reform men who are morally corrupt. In this genre, women are seen as moral beacons whose influence is necessary to produce a more ethical society.

Chapter 14 foreshadows the mobs engaging in class struggle by showing how quickly a mob can form, and it recalls the mob thirstily drinking the spilled wine. Mob members show their collective power by threatening to throw those officially in charge of the funeral procession into the river. This power reversal echoes later mob scenes in France but, crucially, Dickens shows that the mobs do not get completely out of control in England. The very suggestion that someone will call the guards is enough to disperse the crowd, whereas in revolutionary France the mob might be more likely to kill the guards at the risk of their own lives. Cruncher, for his part, is involved in the mob scene for a very particular reason: he has a professional interest in funerals and dead bodies because he is a "Resurrection-Man." This position helps explain his previous uneasiness at the idea that anyone really could be raised from the dead.

The opening section of Chapter 14 makes a connection between Jerry Cruncher and Dante Alighieri, the 13th-century Italian author of the Divine Comedy. "Time was when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place and mused at the sight of men" refers to the fact that Dante supposedly sat upon a stool to contemplate. There is a poetic connection, too, in that both were concerned with what happens after death, although Dante was concerned about the soul's experience in the afterlife while Cruncher is concerned with how he can profit from a dead body.

Chapter 15: Knitting

There is an unusual amount of early drinking in the Defarges' wine-shop, despite the fact that Monsieur Defarge is not in. Monsieur Defarge enters with a person who repairs roads and who is apparently named Jacques, whom he leads to the apartment that Doctor Manette used to occupy. Defarge introduces him to the other three men named Jacques. The road-mender recounts the story of how he saw a man hanging by the chain under Monseigneur's carriage. He says that although he had never seen this man before, he recognized him again because of his unusual height. When he was returning home from working on a hillside, he saw the man bound and led by six soldiers. He also claims that the captured man recognized him. The man is lame, and the soldiers drove him along with the butts of their guns through a village full of gawking people and to a prison gate. The road-mender saw him behind bars in the prison on his way to work the next morning. The man has been imprisoned for having allegedly killed Monseigneur, and soldiers have built a gallows for his execution.

The road-mender is asked to leave, and Defarge confers with the other Jacques characters. They decide to register the man as doomed to destruction. One Jacques expresses uncertainty about the safety and secrecy of their register, but Defarge claims that his wife knits it using symbols that no one but herself understands. The two Defarges take the road-mender to see Versailles, where he waves and shouts enthusiastically at royalty and aristocrats. When a man asks Madame Defarge what she is knitting, she answers that she is knitting shrouds. At the end of the spectacle, the Defarges express contempt for the upper classes.

Chapter 16: Still Knitting

A policeman tells Monsieur Defarge that there may be an English spy stationed in Saint Antoine named John Barsad, supplying a physical description of him. They return to the shop and Madame Defarge counts their money. Monsieur Defarge shows some signs of fatigue, and Madame Defarge encourages him, saying that they might not see the revolution in their lifetimes but that they need to help prepare it.

The next day, Madame Defarge recognizes Barsad when he enters the shop. A rose lies beside her on her table, and when he enters she puts it in her hair and everyone else leaves the shop. Barsad chats with her about the cognac he orders, and he tries to trick her into complaining about poverty or about Gaspard's execution. From this reference it becomes clear that Gaspard is the prisoner who was mentioned in the previous chapter. Monsieur Defarge enters the shop and also denies that the village sympathizes with Gaspard. The spy realizes that he is not meeting with much success, so he tries to get a rise out of the Defarges by telling them that he knows about Doctor Manette. He informs them that Lucie has married Darnay and then reveals that Darnay is the nephew of Monseigneur and as such is the new Marquis. They feign indifference, so he leaves.

Chapter 17: One Night

Lucie's father assures her that her relationship with Charles Darnay will not cause divisions between them. He assures her that by enriching her own life she will enrich his. He mentions his imprisonment for the first time, and he tells about how he used to imagine her remembering her father. She cries and says that she thought of him throughout her whole childhood.

The marriage is a small affair, with only Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross as guests, and it does not change Lucie's place of residence. Lucie remains worried about her father, and when she checks on him in the middle of the night she sees that he is sleeping peacefully.

Chapter 18: Nine Days

Everyone is happy on the wedding day, with the exception of Miss Pross, who still thinks that her brother, Solomon, should have been the groom. Mr. Lorry flirts with Miss Pross, reflecting that perhaps he made a mistake by being a bachelor.

Charles Darnay reveals his identity to Doctor Manette, who looks quite white afterward, but the marriage goes ahead. The couple marries and goes on a honeymoon to Wales for nine days, leaving Doctor Manette without his daughter for the first time since he was rescued from Paris. As soon as Lucie leaves, a change comes over her father, and he reverts to his shoemaking and does not recognize Miss Pross. Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross decide to not notify his daughter of the change in her father, and they watch him at night by turns.

Chapter 19: An Opinion

On the tenth morning, Mr. Lorry finds Doctor Manette behaving normally again. Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross decide to proceed as if nothing had happened, but Mr. Lorry presents the Doctor's own case to him as if it were someone else. The Doctor realizes that he has been shoemaking by looking at his own blackened hands, and he acknowledges that his shoemaking equipment should be taken away from him--but without his knowledge. He also explains to Mr. Lorry that "the patient" (himself) is not able to remember what happened during his relapses, and that continuing his professional activities will not affect his condition.

When Doctor Manette leaves the house to visit Lucie and her husband, Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross hack the shoemaking equipment to pieces in the middle of the night. They then burn the pieces in the kitchen fire.

Chapter 20: A Plea

When the Darnays return from their honeymoon, the first person to greet them is Sydney Carton. He takes Charles aside and asks him to forget the fact that he ever said that he didn't like him. Charles assures him that it was enough that Sydney saved his life at the trial, and he gives Carton the privilege of coming back and forth to the Soho house whenever he likes.

Carton leaves. Darnay speaks generally of the conversation at dinner, remarking on what an odd and dissolute character he is. Darnay means no harm and is only speaking the truth, but later that night Lucie implores him not to speak of Carton in that way but to feel some sympathy for him, which Darnay readily agrees to do.

Chapter 21: Echoing Footsteps

Lucie grows older and continues to listen to the footsteps echoing around the house. She has an angelic baby boy who dies as a child, and she has a girl whom she names Lucie. Carton continues to hold a special and privileged place in the family. Stryver marries a wealthy widow with three children, offers these children as pupils to Darnay, and is offended when Darnay refuses.

When Lucie turns six, in 1789, events in France begin to affect the household. Mr. Lorry says that the Paris customers of Tellson's are so nervous that they are beginning to send their money to London. He asks if little Lucie is safe in her bed, and then wonders why he is so nervous, because there is no reason that she would not be. Meanwhile, in Paris, the attack on the Bastille is brewing. Saint Antoine arms itself with weapons and stones and descends on the Bastille, led by Monsieur Defarge. Madame Defarge leads the women in the attack. Monsieur Defarge forces a turnkey to show him to One Hundred and Five, North Tower, the cell that Doctor Manette formerly occupied. Defarge knocks on the walls until he finds the hiding place of a document, which he removes before the Bastille is destroyed.

The mob is waiting for Defarge to execute the governor. When he is beaten to death by the mob, Madame Defarge is close at hand with her knife to behead and mutilate the body. The mob carries seven prisoners released from the Bastille as heroes.

Chapter 22: The Sea Still Rises

A week after the storming of the Bastille, Madame Defarge is having a conversation with the Vengeance. Defarge bursts into the store with the news that the mob has found an aristocrat named Foulon, who told starving peasants that they should eat grass. The Defarges and the Vengeance immediately create a mob to punish Foulon. The women of the mob urge one another on.

When they see that a bundle of grass has been tied to Foulon, they clap as if they were at a play. They successfully hang him on a lamppost the third time after the rope breaks the first two times. The mob is still anxious for blood, so they murder his son-in-law. They return to their homes in Saint Antoine and, although they are still starving, they feel satisfied and bonded after the violence of the day.

Chapter 23: Fire Rises

Saint Antoine is a changed place without Monseigneur, as France is a changed place without people of his class. Although he was source of oppression, he was also a source of pride and a symbol of luxury. Two "Jacques" figures greet each other in the countryside. One explains that he has been walking for two straight days and asks the road-mender to wake him when he is done working.

The road-mender is fascinated with him and examines him while he sleeps. He wakes him at the appointed hour, and they both go into town. Monsieur Gabelle grows nervous because they are all looking into the sky, and he also looks. The château where Monseigneur had lived is on fire. The villagers watch the fire without offering to help put it out, and they follow Monsieur Gabelle to his house to persecute him for being connected with tax collection. Gabelle locks himself in his house and resolves that, if attacked, he will jump off his own roof and crush some of the men below. The mob sets fire to other châteaux belonging to noblemen and hangs functionaries who are less fortunate than Gabelle, but Gabelle escapes.

Chapter 24: Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

Three more years of revolution in France go by. Monseigneur's class is dying out, and the monarchy no longer exists. Because Frenchmen come immediately to Tellson's upon arriving in London to discuss financial issues, it has become a center of intelligence about the revolution. Charles Darnay visits Mr. Lorry at Tellson's to try to dissuade him from traveling to Paris on business. Darnay grows angry when he hears men of Monseigneur's class and Mr. Stryver discussing how they will punish the peasants when the revolution is over. He overhears another Tellson's clerk asking Mr. Lorry if he has found the man to whom to give a letter addressed to the Marquis St. Evrémonde.

The address is shown around, and the other French noblemen admit that they don't know him personally but do know that he supported the revolution and parceled out his land among his peasants. Darnay claims to know the man and promises to deliver the letter to him. He opens it, and it is a plea for help from Monsieur Gabelle, who has been imprisoned after all. Darnay feels justified in having renounced his title, but he worries that he did not settle affairs in the manner that he should have, and he resolves to go to Paris. He assumes that his gesture of handing over his title will make him welcomed by the revolutionaries. He conveys a verbal message from the recipient of the letter (himself, though Mr. Lorry does not know that) to Mr. Lorry, saying simply that he will come and is leaving immediately. After writing two letters-one to Lucie and another to the Doctor-he leaves for Paris in the middle of the night, without informing either of them in person.

Analysis

A Tale of Two Cities is divided into three books of unequal length. Their structure is defined by geographical movements between the two cities. The first book is an escape from Paris, and the major arc of the second book is to set up the return to Paris. The third deals with a more difficult, second escape from Paris. An important factor in the emotional nature of Darnay's return to Paris at the end of the second book involves the connections that he has made in London. The name of the second book, "The Golden Thread," refers to Lucie's hold over them all, a pull which Darnay has to resist for the first time in his decision to return to Paris without her. Lucie's pull is outweighed by the loadstone of Darnay's responsibilities in France.

Allusion and symbolism are rife in the novel. There is a highly theatrical element to the way the Defarges give and receive symbols. When Defarge says that the weather is bad, all of the men know to get up and leave the wine-shop. This illustrates not only his power over the small community, but also the premeditated strategy in their plans. Madame Defarge keeps a register of those who have done wrong and those who are marked to be killed in her knitting, using patterns which are indecipherable to anyone else. The importance of symbols to the Defarges' interactions reflects a general preoccupation of the revolutionaries. To mark their difference from the previous regime, the revolutionaries began marking the years after the revolution as Year One, Year Two, Year Three (etc.) of the Republic.

In Chapter 15, Dickens foreshadows the beginnings of revolution with an image of the accused man being dragged along the road. The language that the road-mender uses to describe the sight of the man is almost supernatural, describing the people as having long, giant-like shadows. The soldiers that make up the man's escort taunt him for being lame, and his face is bloodied. The man begins to take on a Christ-like character when he is dragged through the village with a crowd watching. His reluctance and victimhood strongly resemble Jesus bearing the cross on the way to crucifixion. The man symbolizes the sacrifice of the lower classes at the hands of French aristocrats.

Madame Defarge is the dominant character of Chapter 16, and Dickens uses various literary allusions in elaborating her story. The ties between Madame Defarge and Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare's Macbeth are very strong in this chapter, with the "frightfully grand woman" (as Defarge terms his wife) urging Defarge himself not to lose sight of his murderous goals. She demonstrates her violence by aggressively tying up her money in a piece of cloth as she describes how her husband should crush his enemies. This pattern echoes the scene in Macbeth when Lady Macbeth urges her husband to kill King Duncan, taunting him with his own uncertainty (which he experiences as cowardice).

Madame Defarge's knitting also invokes classical mythology. The patterns that she knits hold significance in terms of the future of the people around her. Dickens directly and repetitively compares her to the Fates. The Fates are three goddesses of Greek mythology who control human lives, and they too were often pictured knitting. They included Clotho, who spun the web of life, Lachesis, who measured the length of it, and Atropos who snipped it short. Because Madame Defarge is powerful in the revolutionary movement, she holds powers similar to those of the Fates.

In a novel full of conflict and turbulence, Chapter 17 provides a rare bit of restfulness. Even so, Dickens keeps his audience engaged through foreshadowing about something ominous about to happen to the family that has finally found happiness. The dominant image in the chapter is of the moon, with the Doctor and his daughter having their conversation outdoors in the moonlight. The narrator reflects that moonlight, like the passage of human life, is invariably sad. This brings the reader away from the increased sentimentalism of the chapter and back to the sad reality that there are still unresolved problems in the novel to threaten the Manettes.

The undefined threat in this chapter is so strong that it affects Lucie. When she goes to check on her father, she is "not free from unshaped fears." The fears remain nameless and shapeless, but they take form very quickly in the following chapters. The main plot element of Chapter 17, however, is that Lucie's father does not object to her marriage. This point clarifies the supposition that Darnay alone is not the threat that hangs over their family.

Lucie's importance as "the golden thread" is further demonstrated by her absence, moreso than in the previous sentimental scenes with her father. The change in Doctor Manette is made more painful by the earlier description of his rescue as a resurrection. His reversion to his jailtime behavior is therefore likened to a second death. The link to his prison days is so strong that he works on the very same woman's shoes that he had left unfinished.

In accordance with the religious imagery surrounding Doctor Manette's resurrection from the dead, he is described in biblical terms in Chapter 18. "Into his face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn" is a reference to Psalm 126, in which God is asked to "Turn again our captivity ... as the streams in the South," and Psalm 137, which reads: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." These Psalms are both considered to be written by a singer in exile, which highlights Doctor Manette's imprisonment as not merely an incarceration but an exile from his family.

In Chapter 19, the violence of the destruction of the shoemaking equipment, although it has a farcical character, foreshadows the later violence in the novel. That the Doctor's associates do the deed late in the night makes Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry feel like accomplices in a horrible crime, even though they are trying to help the Doctor. Their guilt pales beside the horrible brutality of a number of real crimes in this novel, but Dickens makes the comparison nevertheless, calling the bench "the body."

That this "crime" is upsetting for Miss Pross sheds light on how unprepared she will be to commit a real crime (albeit in self defense) at the close of the novel. Dickens readies his reader for this role for Miss Pross, describing her at the shoemaking bench "as if she were assisting a murder-for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure." Miss Pross is developed here again as a very moral character. She will prove, however, that she loves her Ladybird enough to engage in actions on the moral fringe in order to protect her.

Chapter 20 reinforces the idea that Lucie is a moral heroine. She embodies the virtue which is perhaps most associated with Christianity, mercy. She has the Christ-like ability to forgive those who have sinned, and Carton feels this mercy as a sort of redemption. Her beauty, which once seemed her primary characteristic, is in reality secondary to and caused by her virtue.

Darnay is also portrayed as a moral hero. His wife's pity for another man, instead of making him jealous, makes him prize her even more. He responds to her beauty on a moral rather than a carnal level. The narrator reports, "She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man that her husband could have looked on her as she was for hours." He is attracted to her goodness, rather than merely her appearance, although her goodness does have a positive effect on her beauty.

The goodness of these two sets them quite apart from other Dickensian main characters. They lack the development and moral conflict of characters such as Pip in Great Expectations and Nancy in Oliver Twist. The setting in which Dickens places his characters in A Tale of Two Cities is itself the locus of conflict, rather than the characters themselves. Thus Dickens forgoes some of the human interest that makes his other novels great. Chapter 20 thus reads somewhat like a moral fable.

The title of Chapter 21 refers to Lucie's presentiment about the footsteps that echo around the Manette household in Soho. She worried in a previous chapter that the footsteps were the echoes of people coming into the family's life, and now the outside world does break spitefully into their happy circle. The echoes have not yet overtaken the family in the way that they will, however, because Lucie can still hear her own child's steps first and foremost. Little Lucie is a product of the novel in that she is bilingual, bridging the gap between the two cities.

Unusual for the novel, events in the two cities are brought together in Chapter 21, showing how linked the affairs of Paris and London are becoming. The two narrative threads of the Manette household and the Defarge household met briefly at the beginning of the novel, and now they are due to meet again. Events in Paris are becoming so extreme that even London is beginning to feel the shock waves or, to use Dickens's terminology, the echoes.

Chapter 21 also narrates one of the most recognizable events of the French Revolution, the storming of the Bastille. The Bastille was the major prison in Paris, the most concrete symbol of the ancien régime. The attack on it was seen as heroic, especially because it preceded the reign of terror, and it is still celebrated as liberational in modern France. In recounting this historical event, Dickens focuses on the awesome power of the mob rather than on its intent, heroic or not. He describes the mob as an uncontrolled ocean producing a tidal wave. As Saint Antoine awakes, the people do not seem like a community of humans but rather a natural force, being a "forest of naked arms" and emitting a dull roar.

The title of Chapter 22 refers to the French mob, which Dickens compared in the previous chapter to a sea. It would be unnatural for a sea to continue rising past high tide except in extreme conditions, and the storming of the Bastille would seem to be the extent of furor that the mob has been capable of. Dickens suggests the unnatural character of the mob by saying that its level of engagement is continuing to rise. The brute force of the mob stems from the fact that it empowers those who have never been empowered before. Even if the lower classes are starving and their life is not meaningful, they have found new meaning in the fact that they have the ability to kill others.

Foulon provides another example of a resurrection. In addition to the more metaphorical resurrections of Doctor Manette and Darnay, who were almost sentenced to certain death, and the exhuming of bodies by Resurrection-Men, there are examples of more literal resurrections--that is, of men who were presumed dead. Both Foulon and the spy Robert Cly attempted mock funerals to trick their enemies into believing that they were dead, but both were apparently "resurrected," being found alive.

The metaphoric title of Chapter 23 reflects the progression of the Parisian mob into a still more dangerous phase. The French revolutionaries are shown in strict contrast with the English characters in the other chapters of the novel, who have a developed moral sense often associated with the influence of religion (in France, the Catholic religion was suspect among the revolutionaries, with high-ranking church officials being associated with the upper classes).

In this chapter, the road-mender does not "trouble himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust he must return," in an allusion to the curse of Genesis 3:19, in which God turns Adam and Eve out of Eden and reminds them that "dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return." Also familiar would be the funerary oration "ashes to ashes and dust to dust," which was also common in Dickens's time. The French lower class had more pressing concerns than religion, as they were often at the point of starving and it was hard to follow the New Testament injunction not to worry about what one eats. The road-mender's lack of preoccupation also illustrates his naïveté in an unstable revolutionary society where anyone was liable to be denounced and return to dust at any moment. More broadly, rabid idealism tends to distract people from the realities of life and death.

Another biblical image in the chapter is that of the château on fire. The villagers describe it as a "pillar of fire in the sky," which they estimate is forty feet high. (This height matches the height of Gaspard's own gallows, illustrating the motive of vengeance for setting the house on fire.) The "pillar of fire in the sky" alludes to Exodus 13:21, in which God leads the Israelites out of Egypt: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light." The house is lit afire in the night, and it serves as a symbol of deliverance for the French people. The fire also suggests the end of times, the destruction of the world in the book of Revelations. But for the French mob, revolutionary principles have temporarily displaced religion.

The title of Chapter 24 presents yet another literary allusion, now to a story in the Arabian Nights called "The Third Calender's Tale." A loadstone is a type of magnet which, in the story, irresistibly draws a ship towards it. Its force is so powerful that it draws the nails out of the vessel, shipwrecking it. The title illustrates the power that Paris has over Darnay; he is drawn back into the city as though unwillingly.

Indirectly, this chapter illustrates the political climate of England at the time of the French Revolution. Although the revolutionaries had some admirers in England at the outbreak of the revolution, public opinion turned swiftly and heavily against them over the course of the terror. Mr. Stryver speaks on behalf of many Englishmen when he is disgusted by the seizure of property and the carnage of the Revolution, and it is obvious by the freedom of their conversation at Tellson's that Frenchmen of Monseigneur's class found safe haven in England. This conversation reveals Darnay as even more of a free-thinker in his continued sympathies for the French people, since they run counter not only to his own family, but also to the opinions of his adopted country. The courage of his opinions will only make the revolutionaries' behavior towards him more shocking after he returns to France.

Chapter 1: In Secret

The disorganization of France makes Darnay's trip long, and he is questioned at every step. When he nears Paris, he is woken in the middle of the night and told he is to be sent to Paris with an escort, which he is forced to accept and pay for. This escort is Monsieur Defarge. When they enter the town of Beauvais, people shout "down with the emigrant!" and Darnay knows he is in trouble. A decree had been passed the day Darnay left England, authorizing the sale of the property of emigrants and condemning those who return to death.

When he reaches Paris, Darnay is condemned to prison in La Force. Defarge reveals his identity and the fact that he knows that Darnay is married to Lucie Manette, but he refuses to help. Darnay is thrown into the La Force Prison, where he finds the other prisoners surprisingly genteel. He paces in his room and begins to understand what drove Doctor Manette to shoemaking.

Chapter 2: The Grindstone

Mr. Lorry occupies rooms in Tellson's Bank in Paris, preoccupied with the fact that the noblemen will not live to collect their money. He nervously hears the sounds of conflict on the streets and praises God that no one he loves is in Paris, at which point Doctor Manette and Lucie rush into his room with the news that Darnay is in prison. Manette is not susceptible to the violence of the revolutionaries, because they respect the fact that he was a prisoner in the Bastille.

Mr. Lorry asks Lucie to retire to a back room so that he can discuss the situation privately with the Doctor. They look together out into the courtyard, where a brutal-looking mob is using the grindstone to sharpen their weapons. Mr. Lorry explains to the doctor that they are murdering the prisoners. The Doctor descends to the courtyard, makes it known that he was a prisoner in the Bastille, and is hailed as a hero by the crowd. He is carried to La Force on the backs of the crowd, who are now as anxious to save Darnay for the Doctor's sake as they had been to kill him.

Chapter 3: The Shadow

Mr. Lorry worries that he is endangering Tellson's Bank by housing the wife of an emigrant prisoner, Lucie, in their lodgings. After shrewdly deciding not to ask Defarge for advice for fear that he might be wrapped up in the revolution, he finds Lucie, her daughter, the Doctor, and Miss Pross a suitable apartment near his own. Jerry Cruncher, whom Mr. Lorry brought with him as a bodyguard, now guards their house.

Mr. Lorry returns to his own lodgings, where he is visited by Monsieur Defarge with a message from Doctor Manette, who says that Darnay is safe, but that neither of them can leave prison yet. Defarge also carries a message for Lucie, and Mr. Lorry accompanies him to her new apartment. They are joined in the street by Madame Defarge, whom Mr. Lorry recognizes by her knitting. Lucie is overjoyed to receive her husband's message that he is safe for the time being and that her father has influence. She kisses Madame Defarge's hand in thanks, but the woman does not respond.

Mr. Lorry explains that Madame Defarge wants to see the whole family so she knows who to protect during uprisings in the street. Lucie begs her to help her husband if at all possible, but Madame Defarge says that after the poverty and suffering she has seen, the troubles of one woman mean little to her.

Chapter 4: Calm in Storm

Doctor Manette does not return for four days, during which time 1,100 prisoners are killed. Manette announced himself as having been a prisoner in the Bastille without trial, a fact which Monsieur Defarge reinforces, popularizing the Doctor immensely. He almost secured Darnay's immediate release, but the prisoner was arbitrarily returned to his cell. Doctor Manette gained permission to stay with him in the cell to ensure that he would not be murdered like the other prisoners.

The Doctor is asked to tend to a prisoner who was released but attacked with a pike anyway by mistake. He works hard to dress the wounds and save both the attacker and the attacked. Instead of reviving his old psychological problems, the Doctor's activities give him a sense of importance and help him become more confident. He has usee his influence to ensure that Darnay is not imprisoned alone but with others, and he has seen Darnay weekly to check on his health and convey messages from him to Lucy.

Try as he might to get Darnay released, the Revolution has moved too fast; the king and queen are tried and beheaded, and Year One of the Republic has been declared. Charles is to lie in prison for a year and three months.

Chapter 5: The Wood-Sawyer

Lucie is unsure for one year and three months whether her husband has been alive or dead. She establishes a routine in their new home, and she keeps herself hopeful by setting aside a chair or books for her husband and otherwise behaving as if he lived there, too. Her father informs her that there is a place that she can stand on the sidewalk during certain hours which is overlooked by a window in the prison which her husband may sometimes look out. Lucie faithfully walks back and forth on that sidewalk for two hours each day.

Jacques Four has now become a wood-sawyer and has a shack to cut wood near where Lucie walks. He notices that she is there every day, and he mocks her for knowing someone in the prison, pretending to guillotine the whole family with his saw. During December, a crowd of five hundred including Jacques Four and the Vengeance descend on Lucie while she is walking near the prison. She is frightened, but her father reassures her that they will not harm her. Madame Defarge walks by and salutes them. Charles is summoned to appear in court the next day.

Chapter 6: Triumph

Charles Darnay is on a list of twenty-three people to be tried the following day. He says goodbye to his friends in prison. The next morning, he is called to the Tribunal, where it seems that criminals are trying honest men. The Defarges are sitting in the front row. Darnay is charged with being an emigrant, and the public cries to take off his head. The fact that he renounced his aristocratic title has no bearing. When he reveals that he is married to Lucie, Doctor Manette's daughter, the crowd calls out in his favor.

Gabelle testifies on his behalf, as does Doctor Manette, who points out that far from being sympathetic to the English aristocratic government, that very government had tried him for his life for being a friend of France and America. Darnay is acquitted, and the crowd greets him with rapture. They lead him back to his home, holding him up in a chair. When Lucie comes to meet her freed husband, the crowd dances the Carmagnole around them. Lucie lays her head on her father's breast to thank him, just as he had laid his head on her when she had first met him in Paris.

Chapter 7: A Knock at the Door

Darnay has had to pay dearly for his food while he was in prison, so the household began to live very frugally. Even so, Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher, who usually went food shopping, had to shop at different stores to keep from raising suspicion or envy of their relative wealth. Before they go shopping, they staunchly pronounce themselves English citizens loyal to the King.

Once Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher have departed, four men pound on the door and re-arrest Charles Darnay without giving any reason. They say that he has been denounced by Saint Antoine, specifically by Madame and Monsieur Defarge, as well as one other person.

Analysis

Chapter 1 continues to paint a very unflattering picture of revolutionary France. Thus far, attention has been focused on the suburb of Saint Antione and the actions of the Defarges' gang. As Darnay travels through France, however, the reader receives a wider view of how the Revolution has affected society as a whole. The bloodthirstiness of the people has become routine, and it does not even need to be stirred up by a mob. Moreover, Darnay's escorts are irresponsible, and one of them is an alcoholic.

The two central themes of this chapter are reversals and death. The incarceration of aristocrats has become so common that no one in the street even notices Darnay being conducted to jail; it is as normal for an aristocrat to go to prison as it is for a laborer to go to work. Although Darnay has an understandable fear of the sort of characters he might find in prison, the refined members of society are jailed by coarse and vulgar men, rather than the other way around. Death is omnipresent in French society, and Dickens describes the imprisoned gentlemen as ghosts. The French Revolution has killed off the traits that were admirable in the French people, and the prison is filled with ghosts of beauty, stateliness, pride, and so on. Their jailors are also associated with death, but of a less attractive type. Their puffy faces recall victims of drowning.

By Chapter 2, the force of the mob is revealed as even more terrifying. Whereas Dickens formerly compared them to the natural forces of fire and water, they are now depicted in terms of savagery. Their thirst for blood dehumanizes them, and false mustaches and eyebrows stuck on their faces hide their identities so that they can kill with impunity. The crowd is "awry with howling" and seems bestial in its rage. The transgressive and hedonistic nature of the mob is illustrated not only in that the people's faces are smeared in sweat, blood, and wine, but also in that the men wear women's lace, silk, and ribbon on their clothing. The image of blood on stone is consistent throughout the novel in its association with the violence in France; the blood spattered on the grindstone connects this scene to the spilled wine on the cobblestones of Saint Antoine, as well as to the murder of Monseigneur (after which the stone faces of his château seemed covered in blood).

The position of the Manettes and Darnay in revolutionary France is complicated. Despite the fact that they all reside in England, they are all French, and as such they are not as clearly opposed to the Revolution as most emigrants are. Doctor Manette and Darnay have the most torn sympathies, with Manette angry at the aristocratic regime that imprisoned him but horrified at the excesses of the revolutionaries, and with Darnay concerned about the oppression that the peasants underwent but in fear for his life, being ultimately of the aristocratic class.

A threatening shadow in Chapter 3 is thrown by Madame Defarge, who only becomes more terrible as the novel continues. Her incitement of her husband to violence in previous chapters has given her the awfulness of Lady Macbeth, and her actions in Chapter 3 remain ominous. She interrupts her knitting to point a needle at little Lucie "as if it were the finger of Fate." Her sternness, combined with the fact that the Fates had the power to cut a life short if they wanted to, does not bode well for little Lucie.

Lucie is set directly into opposition with Madame Defarge for the first time in this chapter, and the contrast is described in terms of dark and light. Madame Defarge has dark, glistening hair emblematic of her dark nature, whereas Lucie is still the "golden thread," in her hair color and her sentimental, moral goodness. The darkness of Madame Defarge's nature is extended as a threat in this chapter when she stands over little Lucie, throwing a shadow over her. Recognizing the threat to her child, Lucie kneels next to little Lucie to protect her, which throws darkness over both of them. Madame Defarge seems to win the battle, at least in this chapter, because her darkness overwhelms their light. Lucie tries to appeal to Madame Defarge's femininity, highlighting the supposed bond between them on this count by calling her "sister-woman." But Madame Defarge has been dehumanized and dismisses these claims, always arguing that class struggle is more important than an individual's suffering.

Chapter 4 examines some of the ambiguities of the French Revolution. While Dickens has been extremely critical of the mob action driving it, this chapter adds some nuance to the depiction of the perpetrators of violence. A moral man like Doctor Manette sees fit to tend to both sides, and the duality of the revolutionaries is highlighted by the description of those who officiate the tribunal as both "stained and unstained" with murder. The same men who help Doctor Manette tend the wounds of a wrongly attacked man immediately launch another attack so savage that the carnage makes the doctor faint. This contradiction was also evident in an earlier chapter with the division of Darnay's escort as one sober man and one drunken man.

The theme of resurrection is raised once again in Chapter 4. The Doctor's newfound power is an affirmation of his full resurrection. The power of resurrection is depicted as something transferable, and Doctor Manette hopes to use his own resurrection to affect that of his son-in-law. The defining characteristic of the post-revolutionary society is its backwardness, demonstrated by the fact that criminals jail virtuous men rather than the other way around. The inversions are evident in other aspects of the Manettes' experience in Paris. For example, the Doctor's imprisonment, which had previously been a source of darkness and shame, becomes the primary source of his pride and power. The very conception of resurrection is turned on its head in this chapter, with the description of the guillotine as "the sign of the regeneration of the human race." Dickens's ironic tone in describing a killing machine as a source of resurrection is made more biting by the fact that this was a common belief among revolutionaries, who wore miniatures of it on necklaces in place of a cross.

Dickens disapproves of this use of religious imagery in the secular French Republic. Describing the guillotine he writes: "The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder." The executioner was known as "Samson" after the strong man in the Bible. The French Samson's blindness indicates that his work is counterproductive compared with what is intended by God. He also refers to the guillotine as the "National Razor which shaved close," punning on the part of the story of Samson in which he takes revenge on the Philistines for blinding him after a betraying woman named Delilah cut his hair.

In Chapter 5, the Carmagnole was a dance specific to revolutionary France. It was an equalizing and wild dance, executed in a circle with the combinations of dancers constantly changing.

The horror of the French Revolution is not only evident in its violence, but also in the role reversals and transgressions that the revolutionaries engage in. Dances tended to be organized in pairs, following a rigid pattern. The revolutionaries smash these patterns, with men dancing with women, women with women, and men with men. Dickens is more repelled by this sort of savagery than of an originally savage society, calling the dance a "fallen sport." It is repulsive to him because it represents the breakdown of an order that existed, rather than the absence of order to begin with.

The court scene in chapter 6 is one of the many manifestations of Dickens's dread of the power of mobs. Although the trial is ostensibly run by the president, it is really the reaction of the crowd to the trial that decides the result. When Darnay asks if it is a crime to hazard his life to save another French citizen, the populace shouts "no" and refuses to be silenced by the president's bell, continuing to shout until the shouting dies out of its own accord. The danger of this power is in the fickle nature of the crowd, who call for blood one moment and in the next moment cry in sympathy with the prisoner.

In this upside-down society, triumph is uncomfortably akin to its opposite. The mob descends on Darnay when he is acquitted in the exact same way that they would have if he had been condemned, with only slightly different results. The pike-decorated chair that the crowd places Darnay on seems more ominous than celebratory. The knowledge that the same crowd could just as easily decide to tear him to pieces almost makes Darnay faint, and the triumphal procession back to his home is so similar to the procession to the guillotine that Darnay has to remind himself which one he is involved in.

Dickens repeats "I have saved him," the last line of Chapter 6, as the first line of Chapter 7. To the readers of his serialized novel, it would have been a foreboding last line. The cliffhanger at the end of this chapter is the mystery of who the third person to denounce Darnay is.

Miss Pross's pledge of allegiance to the King ("my maxim is confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks, on him our hopes we fix, God save the King!") before she exits the shop is drawn directly from "God Save the King" or "God Save the Queen" (depending on the gender of the current monarch), a British patriotic anthem.

Before the Defarges enter, Lucie thinks that she hears footsteps on the stairs. This again ties the Defarges' malevolent intervention into her life with her previous fears of the echoing footsteps in her London home. Her earlier fancy that the footsteps that echo outside her house portended people coming to interfere in her life now comes true.

Chapter 8: A Hand at Cards

Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher continue shopping, unaware that Darnay has been arrested again. They coincidentally enter the Defarges' shop looking to purchase wine. Miss Pross sees a man in the shop and screams, because she recognizes him as her brother, Solomon Pross, who is now an officer of the French Republic. Jerry Cruncher is equally shocked because he recognizes the man as John Barsad, the English spy. He is trying to think of this name aloud, when Sydney Carton passes by and supplies the name for him.

Carton asks to speak to Barsad alone and reveals that he is a turnkey in the Conciergerie. This is where Carton recognized his face. He followed him back to the wine-shop and now asks him to accompany him to Tellson's Bank for a talk. There he meets Mr. Lorry, who also recognizes him as having been a witness at Darnay's trial. Carton tries to use what he knows about Barsad (the fact that he is currently employed by the Republican government under a false name but was formerly employed by the English government-which would lead the French government to believe he is a spy) to help free Darnay. He threatens to denounce Barsad, adding that he recognizes the man with whom Barsad was talking as Roger Cly. Barsad tries to claim that Cly is dead and had a funeral back in London, but Jerry Cruncher interjects, saying that he looked in that coffin, and there was no body in it. Despite the fact that he grows defensive when asked why he knows this, Cruncher sticks by his assertion, and Barsad gives up and agrees to help Carton. Carton asks to have a final word alone with Barsad.

Chapter 9: The Game Made

Mr. Lorry asks Mr. Cruncher how he knows that Roger Cly was not in his grave. Cruncher hints at his profession and defends himself, saying that he has to make a profit somehow. Barsad leaves and Carton explains that all he could get out of him was a promise to see him before he died. He surprises Mr. Lorry with his warmth and sympathy by asking him not to worry. Mr. Lorry's duties are done in Paris, and he has permission to leave the city. Carton wistfully asks Mr. Lorry if he felt his life was wasted, which it clearly was not, and envies the fact that the seventy-eight-year-old would have someone to mourn him if he died.

Carton leaves the house and goes to look at La Force Prison. The wood-sawyer speaks to him, recommending that he see people being guillotined if he has never seen it before. Carton resists the desire to hit him, and instead finds his way to a chemist's shop where he orders some drugs. He recalls a prayer that he learned when he was younger, and he stops to help a child across the muddy street. All night he walks the streets, and without having slept he attends the trial in the morning.

When Darnay is brought in, Lucie gives him a loving look which warms both her husband's and Carton's hearts. The jury, which includes Jacques Three, is bloodthirsty. The tribunal names the three who denounced him and they include Monsieur and Madame Defarge and, surprisingly, Doctor Manette. He protests that this is impossible, but Monsieur Defarge produces the document from Doctor Manette's cell in the Bastille.

Chapter 10: The Substance of the Shadow

Dr. Manette's document, written in his cell in the Bastille and hidden in its chimney in 1767, explains why he was imprisoned. When he was a young and successful doctor, he was accosted in the street by what he perceived to be a pair of twins. They asked him to enter the carriage and showed him that they were armed. They refused to give him details about the patient.

In the narrative of the document, Manette enters the carriage and they drive him to a solitary house, where he hears the cries of a woman. She is a beautiful young woman, whose surname Dr. Manette never learns, tied up on a bed, and she is raving with brain fever. She repeats the phrase "my husband, my father, and my brother!" and counts to twelve obsessively. The other patient in the house is a young peasant, her brother, who is dying of a knife wound. He explains that the noblemen had tried to exercise their feudal "right" to have sex with their serfs, but his sister was a virtuous girl and would not let them. The lord then tied her husband to a cart like a horse and drove him to death. He died in his wife's (the first patient's) arms, sobbing once every stroke of the clock at noon, explaining her fixation on the number twelve. He then took the girl to rape her. The boy took his other sister to a safe place and then attacked the noblemen, who gave him the fatal stab wound. As he dies, the boy curses the nobleman and his family.

The doctor is disturbed by this story and even more worried when he sees that the girl has recently become pregnant. The noblemen ask him to keep everything he has seen and heard a secret, but they grow alarmed when he refuses to accept their payment for his medical services. The girl dies, and the noblemen seem unconcerned. The doctor is returned to his lodgings. Knowing full well that any letter he writes will be ineffective because of noble influence on the court, he finishes a letter to the Minister, and the wife of the Marquis St. Evrémonde calls on him, clarifying the mystery of the nobleman's last name. She is the wife of the man who raped the peasant and wants to do penance by finding her living sister and doing well by her, but she doesn't know where to find her. Neither does Dr. Manette, so the Marquess leaves with her son, Charles Darnay, musing that he will eventually have to pay for the sins of the family if she cannot expiate them herself. The same night, a man demands to see Dr. Manette, captures him, and the two brothers burn the protesting letter that he had written in front of his face. He is thrown in the Bastille on their authority, and Dr. Manette denounces them and their family members.

The crowd and jury's reaction to this testimony is immediate. Charles Darnay is sentenced to death within twenty-four hours.

Chapter 11: Dusk

Lucie embraces her husband for what she thinks is the last time after he is condemned. Dr. Manette tries to kneel to both of them to apologize, but he is stopped by Darnay, who apologizes again for what his family did to the Doctor. Darnay is taken away and Lucie faints. Carton carries her to the carriage and orders that she not be revived so that she may suffer minimally. He kisses her before he leaves, whispering the words, "A life you love." Doctor Manette goes out to try to use his influence to save Darnay again, but everyone doubts he will be successful. Carton agrees with the rest that there is no hope.

Chapter 12: Darkness

Carton walks to the Defarges' wine-shop and asks for a drink in a poor accent. This accent is faked, because Carton was a student in France and can speak like a Frenchman, but it allows him to eavesdrop on the Defarges. They are discussing the Darnay case, and Madame Defarge says that the Revolution should stop at nothing but extermination, while her husband seems more moderate. Carton also learns that Madame Defarge was the sister whisked away to safety away from the Evrémonde brothers by the brother who Dr. Manette saw die of a stab wound, so she has a strong personal vendetta against Darnay.

Carton rejoins Mr. Lorry and Dr. Manette, who is showing signs of his old affliction and is asking for his shoemaking tools. Carton asks Mr. Lorry to blindly follow his directions, which Mr. Lorry agrees to do. Carton finds a certificate allowing him to leave the city in Doctor Manette's jacket and exclaims "Thank God!" He gives it to Mr. Lorry, and explains to him Madame Defarge's intention to denounce the whole family using the testimony of the wood-sawyer, who will swear they were signaling to the prisoners. He urges Mr. Lorry to ready Lucie and her daughter to leave the city the next day at two p.m. and to leave as soon as Carton appears to get in the carriage. Carton leaves but lingers in the courtyard, saying a goodbye to Lucie's window.

Chapter 13: Fifty-Two

Fifty men and women of all ages and walks of life wait to die at the Conciergerie, and Charles Darnay tries to resign himself to death. He writes a letter to Lucie apologizing for keeping his French identity secret from her and explaining that he did not know of his family's connection to Doctor Manette's imprisonment until the document was read out. He also writes letters to Doctor Manette and Mr. Lorry, but not to Carton.

Let into the prison by John Barsad, Carton visits Darnay an hour before his execution. He convinces Darnay to swap clothes with him and drugs him to put him to sleep. John Barsad enters the cell to drag Darnay to safety, and Carton remains in the cell to die in his place. A gaoler takes him to a waiting room, where various other prisoners mistake him for Darnay and greet him. A young woman accused of plotting recognizes that it is not Darnay but keeps his secret and asks to hold his "brave hand" on the way to the guillotine.

A coach holding Doctor Manette, Lucie, little Lucie, Mr. Lorry and an unconscious Charles Darnay disguised as Sydney Carton (and holding his papers) pass safely out of Paris. They are stopped and fear that they are caught, but it is merely a man inquiring the number guillotined that day. When they respond that it was fifty-two, he responds positively, saying that he loves the guillotine.

Chapter 14: The Knitting Done

The Vengeance, Madame Defarge, and Jacques Three hold a secret meeting in the wood-sawyer's shed. Defarge criticizes her husband for having pity on the Doctor, whereas she wishes to guillotine the whole family including the child. She wishes to have the wood-sawyer denounce the family by saying that all of them have stood outside the La Force prison and signaled without her husband's knowledge so that he could not undermine their plans. Madame Defarge sets out to visit Lucie, whose husband she assumes has recently been guillotined; Lucie will undoubtedly be in a state of mind to condemn the Republic, providing Madame Defarge with further evidence.

She arrives at the Manettes' apartment armed with a pistol and a dagger. Mr. Cruncher and Miss Pross are still occupying the apartment and have intended to leave that afternoon. They are both greatly excited and distressed by the day's events, and Mr. Cruncher vows to allow his wife to play and not to work as a resurrection-man again. Mr. Cruncher leaves to ready the horses, so only Miss Pross remains to confront Madame Defarge. They argue and engage in a scuffle in which Miss Pross accidentally kills Madame Defarge with her own gun and is permanently deafened by the noise it makes. She runs out of the apartment and escapes Paris with Jerry Cruncher.

Chapter 15: The Footsteps Die Out Forever

The tumbrils continue to rumble along the streets of Paris, and because time never reverses itself, the changes wrought by the Revolution cannot be undone. Carton rides in one of the tumbrils, ignoring everyone but the girl whose hand he holds. The Vengeance looks for Madame Defarge at the guillotine in vain. Carton holds the girl's hand to the end, and she thanks him for his support.

Carton goes to the guillotine with a peaceful, philosophical face. If he could have spoken prophetically he would have foreseen the future of the people whom he knows. He would have seen Barsad, Cly, Defarge, the Vengeance, the Jury, and the Judge all dying on the guillotine which they helped raise. He would see a peaceful life for Lucie and Charles Darnay back in England, with each generation of her family, including a son named after him, blessing his name and visiting his grave. He dies with the conclusion that "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Analysis

Chapter 8 is the first in which the threads of the story are drawn together towards a possible conclusion. The fashion in nineteenth-century novels was to introduce a large number of characters in different walks of life and, in the case of A Tale of Two Cities, in different countries, then to introduce a crisis, and finally to interconnect all of the characters to create a solution. One of the reasons that this novel is considered a masterpiece is that no chapter, no detail is wasted. Even a character like Solomon Pross, who was introduced long ago as a comical alternative to Darnay as a groom for Lucie, now becomes crucial to the resolution of the novel.

Chapter 8 also reinforces the importance of the individuality of faces. Carton repeats again and again, with great satisfaction, that Barsad has a quite remarkable face, a fact which allowed him to recognize him at the Conciergerie. This individuality is only broken down by the extraordinary resemblance of Carton to Darnay, but the uniqueness of this resemblance is what renders believable the idea that they are interchangeable. Other than this pair, and the small exception of the family expressions shared by Lucie and her father, the faces in the novel are exceptional. This runs counter to the ideal of equality of the French revolution, and Dickens seems to undermine the conformity of dressing the same to dance the Carmagnole by making Barsad's features recognizable even though he wears revolutionary garb.

Dickens has used the trope of replacement of religion with revolutionary principles in other chapters, but in Chapter 9 in particular he sets the misuse of ideology against the proper use of it. The tribunal is, in effect, a free-for-all, and the shouting of the crowd's opinion is not silenced by officials. When Doctor Manette claims that it is impossible that he would denounce his own son-in-law, the president of the tribunal is scandalized, arguing that "if the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her." This demand echoes God's demand of Abraham in Genesis 22 to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham is willing, but he is spared from killing his own son at the last minute by an angel. The president of the Tribunal, when he demands this sort of impossible sacrifice, claims that revolutionary ideals are as important as, if not more important than, religious faith.

The other use of religion in Chapter 9 is embodied by Carton, a dissolute man who is raised up by his ability to assist Lucie. To him, Lucie is almost some sort of deity; when he arrives in the courthouse he notes, "Mr. Lorry was there and Doctor Manette was there. She was there sitting beside her father." She is so important in his consciousness that he does not even need to name her, only using a pronoun as one might think of a divinity.

The prayer which he repeats to himself as he wanders the streets ("I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.") is from the Gospel of John 11:25-26, and it is the beginning of the Burial Service in the Book of Common Prayer, a traditional Christian prayer book. This passage comes directly before Jesus resurrects the dead Lazarus. Carton is simultaneously preparing for his own death by saying a burial prayer over himself and alluding to his own power to resurrect Darnay.

The title of Chapter 10 refers to the shadow that the Manettes felt the Defarges casting over their family. The document that Defarge stole from the Bastille is the substance of the threat, which he is able to maintain against the family. This is the crisis of the novel, where the worst card, Manette's own denunciation, is played. After this point, the resolution plays itself out, and the characters face only minor new challenges.

Chapter 10 also touches on the nerves that caused the French Revolution more thoroughly than any other part of the novel. Cruelty to the peasant class was illustrated by Monseigneur's behavior in previous chapters, but nowhere is the brute anger that caused the revolution literalized more than in the