A Tale of Two Cities

• A Brief Introduction• The “two cities” are Paris, in

the time of the French revolution, and London.

• Dr. Manette, a French physician, having been called in to attend a young peasant and his sister in circumstances that made him aware that the girl had been out-rageously treated and the boy mortally wounded by the marquis de St Evremonde and his brother, has been confined for 18 years in the Bastille, secure his silence.

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• He has just been released demented, when the story opens; he is brought to England, where he gradually recovers his sanity.

• Charles Darnay, who conceals under the name the fact that he is a nephew of the marquis, has left France and renounced his heritage from detestation of the cruel practices of the old French nobility; he falls in love with Lucie, Dr. Manette's daughter, and they are happily married.

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• During the Terror he goes to Paris to try to save a faithful servant, who is accused of having served the emigrant nobility. He is himself arrested, condemned to death, and saved only at the last moment by Sydney Carton.

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Sydney Carton is a reckless wastrel of an English barrister, whose character is redeemed by his generous devotion to Lucie. Carton, who strikingly resembles Darnay in appearance, smuggles the latter out of prison, and takes his place on the scaffold.

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• Movie:

• The narrative includes several striking minor characters — among them the fanatical Madame Defarge, the upright Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher, the odd-job man and part-time grave robber — but contemporaries were disappointed by the novel's lack of humour. It is most alive in its descriptions of mob violence.

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• The book gives a vivid picture (modelled on Carlyle's The French Revolution) of Paris at that period. It can be considered as a great historical novel. On the one hand, it exposes the cruel aristocracy; on the other hand, it shows respect for those kind-hearted, benevolent people. It's also the author's claim for social reform and humanity.

• To better understand the theme of the novel, the opening of the novel is selected here. Try to tell how the opening helps with the theme.

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

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