*Tale of Two Cities--Week Three.

In the preface of “Monseigneur in the Country,” the reader is divulged into imagery of a desolate countryside, deplete of vegetation. The repetition of “poor patches” of vegetation reinforces the image of the lack of food the country faces. to reiterate the poor conditions the people face, Dickens then depicts the “crimson” glow of the sun upon “the occupant”, the Marquis. The red glow upon the Marquis foreshadows the upcoming war, along with the cause of the war being the dichotomy between the “high breeding” and the “poor.” When the Marquis ran over a child, he tried to buy the child’s father’s forgiveness by simply throwing a “coin” at him. The instance of …. Is again shown when the Marquis comes upon a woman who “petitions” the Marquis to place a “morsel of stone or wood with [her] husband’s name” upon the “heap of grass” in which her husband is buried under, for each of the mounds of grass looks the same, and the woman cannot tell which mound of grass contains her husband. The indistinguishable “puffs of grass” symbolize how the wealthy viewed the less fortunate- each one the same, and not worthy of help, shown by the Marquis as he rode off in a “brisk trot” leaving the woman “far behind.”

The color red is spotted again, as the “water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood” and the “stone faces” in the Marquis house “crimsoned.” The reference to red and “blood” not only foreshadows the war, but also the death of the Marquis. One could say that karma strikes the Marquis, as he is found dead. A reference to “stone faces” is mentioned multiple times in “Gorgon’s Head” which symbolizes the “stone” personality of the Marquis towards others, and what the Marquis ultimately turns into.

When Charles Darnay, the Marquis nephew, enters into his home, Darnay decides that when the home is renounced to him, he will “abandon it” and live “otherwise and elsewhere.” Darnay, unlike the Marquis, understands the true value of wealth, and understands it is not associated with money. Darnay finds the home to be a “crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering” – the opposite of what most would correlate with a wealthy home. Darnay believes in “labour” rather than “gold” and “beds of roses” to prosper. Does Darnay truly have strong morals or is there an alternative reason for him giving up his inheritance, perhaps Miss Manette?

Ending the chapter, the Marquis, referred to as a “stone figure”, was a “knife” driven “into the heart.” Upon the knife, was a “frill of paper” in which a note was scrawled, “Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” The reader assumes that perhaps Darnay is a member of “Jacques”, who killed the Marquis, which foreshadows the upcoming war, brought upon by the members of “Jacques.”

Not only has the reader found out the nexus between Charles Darnay and his association with Jacques and the Marquis, but now the reader unearths the discovery that Charles Darnay is not his real name. When Charles tries to tell Dr. Manette his real name, Dr. Manette gets weird acting, like previously when the word “DIG” is brought up. When Lucie comes home, Dr. Manette and herself “walked up and down together for a long time” and later found all of Dr. Manette’s “shoemaking tools” out, which means that Dr. Manette had another relapse of his previous state of mind.

As the love triangle between Lucie, Carton, Stryver, and Darnay becomes more convoluted, the reader gains more knowledge of Lucie’s personality. Lucie’s main mission in the book thus far was to aid in the recovery of her father and “recall him to life.” The motif is again used in chapter 13, “The Fellow of No Delicacy” when Lucie must “recall” Carton back “to life.” As the motif was originally meant to denote the “business” that the men were in such as digging up bodies for money, the motif now takes on a different meaning. Perhaps Lucie is a character that must “recall” characters back to life, from the doubts and regret the characters have in their life.

The title of chapter 14, “The Honest Tradesman,” is ironic due to the fact that the reader finally discovers the true business that Jerry Cruncher is involved with. Thus far, the novel has been replete with foreshadowing of what Jerry Cruncher’s true business association is. When Jerry’s son follows Mr. Cruncher and three other men out during the night, the reader discovers that the men “dug” up bodies from the ground. Returning home, “Young Jerry” then asks Mr. Cruncher what a “Resurrection-Man” is, and what one does. Mr. Cruncher replies saying that they deal with “scientific goods” foreshadowing the true business of Mr. Cruncher- which is “digging” up people’s bodies and selling them to science for money. One mystery that still remains is who are the three men with Mr. Cruncher?

*Tale of Two Cities--Week Two.

As a Tale of Two Cities progresses, more secrets, clues, and mysteries begin to unravel. Commencing the plot of this week’s reading in a court room, a man named Charles Darnay is accused of treason in that he supposedly administered information from the English King onto the French King. Being a witness, both Miss Manette and Mr. Manette along with Mr. Lorry were questioned, and said that both had seen Mr. Darnay on the train. Was Mr. Darnay one of the passengers that was in the train in chapter one?

The court room provided a sort of “entertainment” for the town, as if it were a “play in the Old Bailey.” The violence and inhumanness that the town portrays is depicted through the description and imagery that Dickens uses when exemplifying the personality the people have towards court cases. Not only do the court cases serve as entertainment, but if the suspect was found innocent, or if there was any chance that the suspect “stood in peril of a less horrible sentence,” the onlookers lost interest. Each person was only there for the “ogreish” sentence to see someone “butchered and torn asunder.” Violence and the slaughter of mankind was a pastime, so to speak, for the English people, again reiterating the harsh crime and punishment which led England into a revolution.

Dickens expresses his opinion of the sadistic English behavior upon criminals with a “disease” that occurs within the courtroom. The diseases were claimed to have “came into the court with the prisoners” and affected the “Lord Chief Justice himself.” The whole courtroom was a “disease” along with the people in it- a contagious “morbid condition of the mind” that consisted of the pleasure society felt from the vulgar treatment—as if the “entertainment” the people had towards it fueled the disease as it soon started infecting everyone.

Continuing on, Darnay is found “acquitted” which is where chapter three gets its title “Disappointment”; disappointment that the “ogreish” society does not get to see someone be “quartered”, “butchered”, or torn apart, the people then had to go on as “baffled blue flies dispersing in search of other carrion.” One man testifying, Roger Cly, who had worked for Darnay, and also the other witness testifying had known Darnay, but was “merely a coincidence”, and not a “peculiar coincidence.” The obviousness the two men portray oddly represents mysteriousness- as if the two men worked with Darnay in whatever scheme he was a part of.

The reader soon starts speculating whether another man is in on Darnay’s plans, as the character of Sydney Carton is introduced. Sydney makes unusual comments such as “it’s not so long ago since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another “making it sound as if Carton has a part in Darnay’s past such as saving him from getting the death sentence previously. At the end of chapter 4, Carton speaks to himself in a mirror, pondering whether he is envious of Darnay since he reminds Carton of what he has “fallen away from, what [he] might have been!” The very last sentence creates an image of Carton with his “hair straggling over the table” and a “long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him.” The winding sheet signifies the “death” that Carton feels towards himself, being unhappy with the choices he has made in his life and where he has ended up.

In Chapter 5, Sydney Carton is referred to as a “Jackal,” which refers to “a person who performs dishonest or base deeds as the follower or accomplice of another” (dictionary.com). The importance of Carton being referred to as a jackal belittles Carton’s reputation, illustrating how Carton caters to the wants of Mr. Stryver, a “lion.” Mr. Stryver being a “lion” attributes to the power that he obtains over Carton.

The “business” that Mr. Lorry always speaks of multiple times begins to make the reader wonder if perhaps he is covering up for alternative matters that he is involved with, especially in chapter 6. Mr. Lorry speaks of having “business” with Doctor Manette “many years ago.” In the middle of the night, the business that Dr. Manette was a part of is haunts him, for he “gets up in the dead of night” and will “walk up and down” in his room. The repetition of “walking up and down” adds effect to the anxiousness that Dr. Manette exhibits. The reader then unearths the discovery of the word “DIG” engraved upon a jail cell, in which the mere discussion of this makes Mr. Manette uncomfortable. Does Mr. Manette have something to do with the word inscribed upon the wall? Does the “business” spoken of from Mr. Lorry deal with more than what he is letting on?

In the conclusion of chapter 6, the reader understands a deeper meaning of the title “Hundreds of People.” As the “rain drops” fell, “large” and “heavy,” the drops sounded like “a multitude of people” that were “in a great hurry in the streets speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke.” Being that no one was truly there, the rain sounding like people scrambling about symbolizes the upcoming war. The question asked if the “footsteps destined to come to all of us, or are [they] to divide them among [themselves]” and the last sentence of depicting how the men might “see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar bearing upon them” makes the reader wonder if perhaps the war is because of this group of people? A remark was then made by Mr. Lorry that the night could have brought “the dead out of their graves” an evident foreshadowing and clue into the true “business” the men perform.

*Tale of Two Cities--Week One

Before one begins reading Tale of Two Cities, By Charles Dickens, one must first have an understanding of what was going on pre-French Revolution. Before the French Revolution, the country of France was in a period where monarchy had corrupted which caused social and political upheaval. At the time, Louis XVI was king, but had run into a financial crisis, which weakened much of France. France “rolled with exceeding smoothness downhill” when it came to spending money, and also practicing inhumane treatments such as “sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive.” England, on the other hand, also could not “justify much national boasting” as “burglaries took place in the capital itself every night.”

With knowledge of the hardships of the two countries, the reader is introduced with a contradictory statement “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” the first ten lines of the story provide insight that even though there is “wisdom,” there is also “foolishness.” Although a country has “hope,” a country will also be filled with times of “despair.” Also, in times of “light”, comes times of “darkness.” Dickenson, through the technique of poetic lines and repetition, shows the dichotomy that each country, along with good times, will experience times of hardship.

To aid in the eerie tone of the novel, Dickenson creates an image with “steaming mist” that covers the air “like an evil spirit” that was “dense enough to shut out everything from the light.” The darkness that Dickenson creates adds to the tone and adds to the element of a gothic novel. In chapter three, Mr. Lorry depicts a town with “darkly clustered houses” in which each house and person encloses its own “secrets” and “mysteries.” Lorry also speaks of death and the mystery that goes along with death, again contributing to that of a gothic novel.

In chapter five, the reader is brought into a town in Paris on a “narrow street” where “red wine” had spilt and “stained the ground.” Being of a poor town, each person stopped in the midst of what he or she was doing to drink the spilt wine off of the ground. The frantic scurry for tasting a single drop of wine not only contributes to the poverty stricken tone of France, but the wine itself shows symbolism. The wine being “red” contributes to a connotation of blood, which adds effect to the turmoil that France is dealing with before the French Revolution, as the “time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones” foreshadowing the war that France is soon to encounter, in which “the stain of it would be red upon many there.”

Another clue to the foreshadowing of the war and also to add to the tone of an unprosperous community, is in the town on each shops there were merely “grim illustrations of Want.” The diction of “Want” being capitalized shows how important “wants” are to the people and how badly the people wished for more than what each obtained.

Also in chapter 5, when Mr. Lorry and Miss Monette enter the wine shop and men are speaking to the owner, Monsieur Defarge, the men refer to each other as “Jacques.” Jacques Necker was a French statesman who helped with finances while Louis XVI was king, during the time that this book took place. Jacques is known as being an affluent man during this time period, and would have became controller of finances if he was not protestant. However, because of his affluent reputation, the men referring to each other by “Jacques” shows how each of the men think they are of higher standards and more prosperous than others in the community.

In chapter 3, Mr. Lorry dreams of a “white haired man” who had died and been buried, and it was Mr. Lorry’s duty to dig the man out. The reader learns later on that Mr. Manette has white hair, and is in a condition much like the man that Mr. Lorry dreamt of, which makes the reader wonder if perhaps the man in the dream is Mr. Manette. The girl that is referred to in the dream must be Miss Manette, Mr. Manette’s daughter. The idea is confirmed more so later on when the real life meeting of Mr. Manette and Miss Manette happens much like Mr. Lorry’s dream, where Mr. Manette is confused as to who his daughter is. Lorry then feels as if he has to “dig” the man out, foreshadowing that Lorry feels as if it is his duty to help Mr. Manette “dig” him out of the emotional state he is in.

Repetition is used many times throughout the reading thus far, which aids in the ability for the reader to see the problems in both countries. The first occurrence of repetition the reader sees, is of the word “now” followed by problems in the country such as “hanging up criminals” and “burning people…by the dozen.” In Chapter three, “digging” is seen multiple times in Mr. Lorry’s dream to metaphorically show how Mr. Lorry must “dig” for the truth. The phrase “worse than useless” is used later on in the story, which again adds to the negative events taking place during this time.