A Tale of Two Cities

Rating:
Summary: A Little Bit of Dickens Goes a Long Way
Review: Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is considered "classic" and a "must read" by almost every high school English department. This label appears to be based on tradition, rather than the actual substance of the book. Thus, one may argue, "a little bit of Dickens goes a long, long way."

The novel is written as historical fiction, intended not only to entertain the reader but also to inform. Dickens teaches his audience about the French Revolution--the trials, the treason, the guillotine--by weaving it into the plot, and in this aspect, the novel is great. One may learn more about the Old Bailey and French guillotine in this book than in a single European History class. His descriptions are colorful and vivid, making the reader feel as though he or she is actually witnessing a particular scene as it progresses; however, it may be said that the author goes overboard with his explanations. For example, six of the eight pages in chapter nine are devoted to describing a minor character, Monseigneur the Marquis. This could be accomplished in a page and a half at most.

In-depth analyses of characters and locations help illustrate the historical setting; nevertheless, the massive descriptions cause the novel to lose any intent to entertain. While some background information is necessary to the understanding of the story, the reader feels as though he or she must read through excessive paragraphs packed with tedious details in order to get to one character or event filled with depth, action, and adventure.

Despite his tendency to ramble with details, Dickens creates a decent plot filled with love, war, life, and death. Though the story may drag at times, the ending neatly ties everything together, causing the reader to realize the importance of such minute details and making the time spent sifting through them worthwhile.


Rating:
Summary: writen to be lived
Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens is a book that you actually live as you read it. So much detail and suspense puts you right in the position of the characters. While it is a little slow to start, it illudes to a much deeper plan. It really gives you prospective on the capabilities of man, both good and bad. From human sacrifice to corruption by power, the book gives you so much contrast that the reader and actually look at the characters as people they might know. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and hope that you will too!

Rating:
Summary: writen to be lived
Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens is a book that you actually live as you read it. So much detail and suspense puts you right in the position of the characters. While it is a little slow to start, it illudes to a much deeper plan. It really gives you prospective on the capabilities of man, both good and bad. From human sacrifice to corruption by power, the book gives you so much contrast that the reader and actually look at the characters as people they might know. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and hope that you will too!

Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Cities: Reconsidered
Review: A Tale of Two Cities is an entertaining novel written by Charles Dickens in 1859. Dickens writes in a sentimental, sympathetic, sarcastic, horrified, grotesque, and even a grim tone. The books setting is from 1775 to 1793 in Paris, London, and their outskirts. Though A Tale of Two Cities has a sad, sweet, and thought-provoking ending, the beginning and middle of the novel is about the sufferings of Doctor Manette, a Bastille prisoner.
One night in November 1775, a mail coach was going from London to Dover. Jerry Cruncher is one of the two men in the mail coach. Jerry receives a message from a man in the distance, Mr. Lorry, by hollering to see who the man in the distance was. Mr. Lorry sends the message stating " Wait at Dover for Mam'selle". Jerry responds to that message with "recalled to life". The setting shifts to Saint Antoinette, in the outskirts of Paris, for a moment. There we witness a terrible accident in which wine bursts onto the streets. All of the poverty of the town immediately rushes to the wine and drink, sopping it with rags and feeding it to their children. One poor man rubs his finger in the "muddy wine-lees" and scribbles the word "blood" on a wall. This foreshadows the deaths that are to come during the upcoming time period.
Meanwhile, Lorry and Lucie are led up a dangerously steep rise of stairs by Doctor Manette to visit a shoemaker. When the shoemaker is asked his name, he replies "One Hundred and Five, North Tower".
The setting is now moved to 1780. Jerry Cruncher scolds his wife for "praying against him" because he is a grave robber. Charles Darnay is then charged for divulging information to the king of France. Darnay is also charged for passing English secrets into French hands. Darnay is released, but then charged again, almost immediately, for knowing too much information.
Madame Defarge knits as a hobby. She knits, everyday, names into her piece of work. We later realize that these names are the names that Madame Defarge is planning to condemn. Her knitting symbolizes the kindness and innocense of a kind old woman knitting in her chair. Ironically, she is to hatefully condemn whomever's name she knits into her piece of work.
Finally, Darnay is found guilty of knowing too much and is sentenced to death by the guillotine. Carton feels that he must allow Darnay to live by sacrificing himself in Darnay's position. He believes that the people of the town will think that he is Darnay because the two men look similar. We are told that Carton must die so that Darnay may live happily with his newly wedded wife. As Carton is led to the guillotine, he tells the reader that "It is a far, far better thing and a far, far better rest that I go to".
This novel is very entertaining to the reader. Dickens did a wonderful job foreshadowing the blood that is yet to come with the wine cask. Dickens thoroughly explains all of his characters throughout the novel, allowing us, as the readers, to believe as if we, ourselves, are one of the characters. However, Dickens does give us a fabulous ending, but he takes his time in getting us to the ending. His style of writing is very old fashioned, making the novel a little more complex, and a little more complicated to read at times.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: A Tale of Two Cities is probably the best book that I have ever read. It is well written and the plot is wonderful. I have to say that it was a bit of a slog getting through it but the end makes it worth it. If you read anything in high school or college english this book should be it.

Rating:
Summary: Every evil will be brought to its earthly justice...
Review: A Tale of Two Cities offers a swift, exciting story and an unforgettable rendering of the French Revolution, in a lethal, vengeful and exiguous Paris and a tranquil London. This novel as Dickens's most memorable effort to see a world in a very confined space indeed: a work very short by its nature and yet in which hundreds, even thousands of people do appear in a state of belligerence. The book is riddled with the howling mobs, epic scenes and tightly packed incidents that concentrate on a few central characters. It is an intimate piece of work, which somehow deftly evokes the epic presence of crowds and the vast movements of history, as well as the engrossing terror and compassion of individual characters.

Within the condensations of historical time, the lives of the characters play themselves out. Besides the dreadful Madame Defarge of whose power derives from her surreptitious but all engrossing lust for vengeance on the Evremonde family (aristocrats), Dickens is particularly concerned with three men, all obsessed with the same dreamy, beautiful and svelte figure of desire: Lucie Manette. Doctor Manette, who had been for 18 years jailed by the Evremonde in the Bastille to cover up its atrocious crimes, reveals much more fully his character through actions than by mere dialogue and introspection. Realizing his tormented imprisonment that has thrown him into a delirious repression as strength, he announces himself to the Revolutionists and pleads for Charles Darnay's life and liberty.

An heir of the Evremonde family but lives under the name Darnay in England, his ambiguous historical guilt is converged through a crucial historical ellipsis. The other central figure is Sydney Carton; a lawyer with thwarted ambition that takes on a mythical aspect at the end to save his friends and so to fulfill his promise. If Charles Darnay is the society's innocent victim who suffers because of the sins of his forefathers and of Madame Defarge's inveterate hatred of the aristocrats, Sydney Carton, who suffers from an inexplicable melancholy, is the sacrificial hero who redeems those sins in an re-enactment of Christ's expiatory death.

The novel is also redolent of the theme of resurrection: the release of people from the realm of death and from their own morbid isolation. The novel begins with the rescue of Doctor Manette from the proximity of the Bastille. Apprehension, repression and revulsion weigh in his mind and make it difficult for him to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him. There has always been a strong and extraordinary revival of the excruciating train of thought and remembrance that are the first cause of his malady. Charles Darnay, who is accused by being a traitor and forfeit to the French people, has to be rescued from the realm of death, or more precisely, the wrath of Madame Defarge by, ironically, Doctor Manette. Imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, she is utterly implacable and inimical. She is intransigent to recognize in her determination to exterminate the entire Evremondes insanity. The inveteracy of her pursuit is unfathomable for she is completely deprived of pity and compassion. Her surreptitious, conspired management of Charles Darnay's arrest is cunning but not without immense cruelty. The scheme manifests in a woven form, or knitting, which represents calculation, patience, pertinence, and an urge to retaliate.

The doctor realizes that up to that time, his imprisonment and repression have been associated in the minds of others with his personal affliction, deprivation and weakness. But he feels now, that his suffering is strength and power with which he can deliver Charles Darnay. The urge to returning to France has passed through his mind often as he cannot help thinking and having had some sympathy for the miserable people. Letter from an old servant who is in peril rouses the latent uneasiness in his mind to a vigorous resolution. One can immediately discern Darnay's futile attempt to save the servant and win influence with the revolutionists in order to do good, for no sooner has he arrived in Paris than he languishes in jail. The lack of reason and pity on Madame Defarge'' behalf is exposed to the fullest extent as one realizes how she has cunningly managed and manipulated the actions behind the scenes by letting Doctor Manette expend his force in a mock victory, accusing Darnay and re-arresting him, arraigning him to a new trial, and using the doctor's own manuscript on which written his confession and curse of his persecutors hidden in the Bastille against Darnay. All this Madame Defarge has premeditated in order to lure Darnay back to Paris and put whom on trial as a former aristocrat and a member of the very culpable Evremonde family who also happens to wrong the doctor.

The root of all the terror and bloodthirst, or even the Revolution, under Dickens's hand in this novel, is Madame Defarge's hatred for the Evremonde who had caused the death of her family. She is therefore the revolutionary impulse incarnate who is held together by class-hatred. Stony, absorbed in her knitting, seemingly unobservant, she is in absolute control of the mob. With her indomitable will she seem less a person than a force of destiny. She might have imbued the mob with her incendiary speeches but the real diabolism of the revolutionary mob rests in its overweening arrogance, its god-like assumption of power over the lives of the French people. Portrayal of the Revolution is achieved through an acceleration of events such as the arrest on mere suspicion, the mock trials and sheer murderousness.

Lastly the concept of martyrdom contained within the novel is to a good deal paradoxical: a Christianly, self-sacrificial death with a resurrection context and a prophetic countenance that brings together and contrasts ideas of justice and mercy. It echoes with the opening paradox "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."

2004 (45) ©MY


Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Men
Review: A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is a chronical of the lives of the aristocracy and the lower class through the times leading up to and during the French Revolution. It Is a tale of both London and Paris, but I found that the real story happens in the latter of the two. The theme of two's is used frequently throughout the story. There are people living double lives-going by secret names. The story shows both sides of the French Revolution; It shows the lives of the rich and poor. The theme of being resurrected and being condemned to death go hand in hand throughout the story. The main theme, that also has two sides, is that of love and hatred. I saw the powers of hatred break apart families and condemn men's lives; I saw the power of love ultimately defeat hatred and restore those condemned lives. I really did enjoy reading this book. It touches very deeply on the the victory of love and how love can change. It is a story of change. I didn't think I would enjoy it when I first started reading the book, but it hooked me and changed the way I felt. It is right around 400 pages, and there are footnotes to help in the understanding of the history of the story.

Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Men
Review: A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is a chronical of the lives of the aristocracy and the lower class through the times leading up to and during the French Revolution. It Is a tale of both London and Paris, but I found that the real story happens in the latter of the two. The theme of two's is used frequently throughout the story. There are people living double lives-going by secret names. The story shows both sides of the French Revolution; It shows the lives of the rich and poor. The theme of being resurrected and being condemned to death go hand in hand throughout the story. The main theme, that also has two sides, is that of love and hatred. I saw the powers of hatred break apart families and condemn men's lives; I saw the power of love ultimately defeat hatred and restore those condemned lives. I really did enjoy reading this book. It touches very deeply on the the victory of love and how love can change. It is a story of change. I didn't think I would enjoy it when I first started reading the book, but it hooked me and changed the way I felt. It is right around 400 pages, and there are footnotes to help in the understanding of the history of the story.

Rating:
Summary: Charles Dickens: A Tale Too Slow
Review: After I finished the first one hundred and fifty pages of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, I was in dismay. Never having read a novel by Charles Dickens, I was expecting much, much more. The "great" Charles Dickens is praised around the world by critics and readers alike, but by the start of A Tale of Two Cities I didn't believe it. I was inclined to quit reading, but the realization of the novel being an assignment kept me going.
At the beginning, the pace of A Tale of Two Cities is monotonous. Dickens spends too much time in one scene; in one passage. Dickens lingers too long in one place. At times, Dickens overuses his marvelous ability to lag sentences on forever, and to create a full scale scene in just a paragraph, and he forgets about the reader. It is almost as if he gets caught up in his own writing, not caring for the reader. The wordiness of his sentences is his foe; yet his friend. When utilized correctly, the wordiness is more effective than any author that I have read, but when exploited in the wrong manner, excess is purely at work. Dickens chooses to ramble on in certain scenes, where, instead, he could get to the point and be finished. The excess of words and phrases hinders the reader's interest in the novel, and causes boredom and monotony during certain sections.
Dickens's wordiness has much do to with the plot development. The excess of Dickens's words contributes greatly to the slow, dull story of A Tale of Two Cities at the beginning. The length of his sentences, phrases, and paragraphs ties in with the boredom of the first one hundred and fifty pages. The extra length makes one simple sentence or scene, such as the descriptions and adventures of Monsieur the Marquis, seem not interesting at all. Many characters are introduced, and much information is received; but we still gain only minor information from these occurrences and characters. The plot needs to be rejuvenated; refreshed from its tedious ways. This weak development of plot, right at the beginning, is sometimes just long enough to give readers the chance to stop. Readers may very well lose interest and abandon all hope of A Tale of Two Cities because of the storyline.
Although the beginning plot of A Tale of Two Cities is lacking, in some ways the lacking beginning is made up in character development. Dickens is a master of characters. He presents the reader with certain characters who go through numerous changes and situations throughout the beginning and end of the novel. These experiences give change to and better the character in the end. "Idlest and most unpromising of men" (90), Sydney Carton, is a classic example. Carton "careless...and insolent" (81) overcomes the realization of his personality and stature from the beginning of the novel, and perpetrates the most selflessness and courageous act of our times; self sacrifice. Starting from the beginning, Dickens gives examples and experiences of Carton. This leads over to the novel's end when Carton eventually changes for the better, and commits his act of eternal bravery for Lucy Manette.
Dickens's third person point of view in the novel is one of the novel's greatest strengths. Being in third person, A Tale of Two Cities can jump from scene to scene; from city to city like the blink of an eye. Third person point of view helps to create the intimate relationships of the characters such as Lucy and Darnay, Lucy and Manette, and Carton and Lucy; while it, also, gives opportunity to develop the overall plot of the French Revolution mixed into each other. Third person in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities gives the reader an example of a relationship of people going through the hardships of the time (i.e. The French Revolution). It makes the story more personal and really hits home much harder. If Dickens had written the book in first person, there would have been no way for the book to skip back and forth between cities. There would have been no way for Dickens to go from the peaceful streets of Soho to the storming of the Bastille; from Mr. Jerry Cruncher "sitting on his stool in Fleetstreet" (159) to Saint Antoine and the Defarge's wine shop.
The second half of the novel brings great changes to the previous half. The plot and style of writing pick up drastically. The story line unifies, and plays out amazingly. Dickens ties all of his characters from the beginning, that seemed to have no relevance to the story at all, into the ending. The stirring and adventurous second half really brings the novel together, and the "greatness" lost in the first one hundred and fifty pages of the novel, Dickens regains in the end. Dickens's sense of plot is like no other. He leads the reader on from chapter to chapter in the second half, and the novel becomes exhilarating. Dickens is still a little wordy in the second half, but because of the plot acceleration his prolixity is not as noticeable. Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is certainly written by a master artist. Although slow starting off, A Tale of Two Cities turns into an enriching masterpiece that should be read by anyone who can get his hands on it.

Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Cities
Review: Although A Tale of Two Cities is both confusing and sometimes monotonous, it is truely a great novel. Sydney Carton ,the books necessity, is both useless, and vulgar. At the beginning of the novel while talking to his partner he is referred to as the "Jackal" foreshadowing his life to come tainted by his decisions made early in the novel. Although most readers finish this novel with more pros than cons, they come to a sense that they owe a great deal of credibility to Carton, as he examplifies more than meets the eye. Having established the reputation of worthless, he has a hard time proving himself to the people amoungst him. Finally in his one chance to make his life worth the while, he sacrifices himself for his friend Lucie Mannette's husband, Charles Darnay. Darnay was one of many to be captured during the era known well as the French Revolution. As they come to find out Darnay will be lead to death only escaping it with the help of Carton. During Darnay's trial early in the novel, the public comes to find that Darnay and Carton have a striking resemblance. So, seeing this as great chance to bring meaning to his life, Carton, decides to sacrafice himself for the one and only, Charles Darnay. Thus, proving his life, saving his true friend, and adding an intriguing crux to this novel. So, as you, the reader, leave this novel you part it with both feelings of admiration and hatred, creating a love hate relationship.