A Tale of Two Cities Totally Explained

Everything about A Tale Of Two Cities totally explained

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens. The plot centres on the years leading up to the French Revolution and culminates in the Jacobin Reign of Terror. The story touches upon Dr. Alexandre Manette's 1757 imprisonment, but the actual story timeline begins in 1775. The first issue of Dickens's literary periodical All the Year Round appearing April 30, 1859, contained the first of thirty-one weekly installments of the novel, which ran until November 26, 1859.
The opening – "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." – and closing – "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I've ever done; it's a far, far better rest that I go to than I've ever known." – of the book are among the most famous lines in English literature.
The book tells, first and foremost, the story of Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, who look alike, but are very different. Darnay is a romantic aristocrat; Carton is a cynical lawyer. Both fall deeply in love with the same woman, Lucie Manette. Other major characters include Dr. Manette (Lucie's father), who was unjustly imprisoned in the infamous Bastille for many years under a lettre de cachet, and Madame Defarge, a female revolutionary with an implacable grudge against the aristocratic Evrémonde dynasty.
The title reflects the way in which the setting alternates between England and France. Two of the 45 chapters are set in both countries, nineteen in England and 24 in France. They tell of the shameless corruption, abuse and inhumanity of the French nobles towards the peasantry. The masses, oppressed for centuries, rise up at last and destroy their masters – but in the process, they themselves become just as evil and corrupt.

Plot summary

Book the First: Recalled to Life

In 1775, Jarvis Lorry takes a coach to Dover to meet a young woman, Lucie Manette. Lorry and the other passengers riding inside are on edge because there are frequent attacks by highwaymen. Along the ride, Lorry imagines what it would be like to be "buried" for 18 years. He falls asleep and dreams of speaking with a ghost (who, we later learn, represents Dr. Manette). When he arrives, he informs Miss Manette that her father, Doctor Manette, whom she'd been told was dead, has actually been a prisoner in Paris for the past eighteen years, and has recently been released by the French government. Tellson's Bank is sending Lorry and Miss Manette to identify the Doctor (who had been one of Tellson's clients) and bring him to England. The news upsets Manette greatly (she faints briefly); he tries to comfort her, but Lucie's guardian, Miss Pross, takes over when she fears he's frightened Lucie too much. The story shifts abruptly to Saint Antoine, a suburb of Paris, where a cask of wine accidentally splits and spills on the ground. The poor seize the unexpected windfall, jubilantly drinking the wine off the street. Watching the degradation in disgust is Monsieur Defarge, the owner of a wineshop and leader of a band of revolutionaries. Afterwards, Defarge goes back into his shop and talks to a group of fellow revolutionaries, who call each other "Jacques" (a code name for members of an actual French revolutionary group, the Jacquerie).
Mr. Lorry and Lucie Manette arrive and Defarge takes them to his apartment to see Dr. Manette. The doctor has gone completely mad. He sits in a dark room all day making shoes, a trade he learned while in prison to pass the time. Lorry and Miss Manette take him to England.

Book the Second: The Golden Thread

Five years later (1780), Dr. Manette has recovered from his ordeal. French émigré Charles Darnay is tried at the Old Bailey for treason. Those testifying against him are a John Barsad and a Roger Cly (both British spies), who claim that he'd been reporting on British troops in North America to the French. Dr. Manette and his daughter vouch for Darnay because he'd sailed with them on their voyage to England. Darnay is acquitted, in part because the witnesses are unable to tell him apart from junior defense counsel Sydney Carton, who bears a striking resemblance to him. Sydney Carton is depicted unflatteringly as a drunkard; conversely, Darnay is set out as a handsome, gallant victim of a deficient British legal process. Carton becomes enamored of Lucie and jealous of Darnay.
   In Paris, the Marquis St. Evrémonde, Darnay's uncle, is returning from an audience with Monseigneur, one of the 'greatest lords in France', when his coach runs over and kills the son of the peasant Gaspard; he throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss; in the assembled crowd are the tricoteuse Madame Defarge and her husband. Monsieur Defarge gives words of aid to the distraught Gaspard and the Marquis tosses him a coin as well for his words. As the Marquis exits, Defarge throws the coin back into the carriage, enraging the Marquis and leading him to exclaim that he'd willingly kill any of the peasants of France.
   On his way back to his château, the Marquis passes through a village, where a road mender tells him that he saw a man clinging to the bottom of his carriage. The Marquis has his servant investigate, but no one is found.
   Darnay returns to France to meet his uncle. Their political positions are opposite: Darnay is a democrat, while the Marquis is an adherent of the ancien régime. The Marquis is a cruel, heartless nobleman:
ť "Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."

That night, Gaspard murders the Marquis in his sleep, leaving the note "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques."
   Returning to England, Darnay asks Dr. Manette for his consent to marry Lucie. He isn't the only suitor however. Both Stryver, Carton's patron (by way of comic relief) and, more seriously, Carton himself, are captivated by her. Carton is the only one who reveals his feelings directly to Lucie; Stryver is convinced of the futility of his aspirations, and Darnay proposes the marriage to Dr. Manette. When Carton confesses his love to Lucie, he admits he's incapable of making her happy; she's inspired him to lead a better life, but he lacks the energy to follow through. However, he promises to "embrace any sacrifice" for her or one that she loves, meaning he'd die for her. Meanwhile, Darnay agrees to reveal his true surname to Dr. Manette on the morning of his marriage to Lucie.
   In Paris, Monsieur and Madame Defarge await the revolution. Madame Defarge is tireless and unyielding, as opposed to her husband, who is worried the revolution won't arrive in their lifetimes. They learn from an informant that a spy is to be quartered in Saint Antoine. He is John Barsad, one of those who had given false testimony against Darnay. The following morning, Barsad enters the Defarges' wine shop, and Madame Defarge recognizes him from the informant's description. Barsad acts as an agent provocateur and tries to get her to express anger over the execution of Gaspard, but she isn't fooled. Trying every tactic he can think of, Barsad mentions that Darnay is to be married to Lucie Manette. This upsets Monsieur Defarge, because he realizes that his group of revolutionaries have just condemned all of the Evrémondes to death, and this will now include Lucie Manette, who will be marrying into the family. (M. Defarge was once a servant to Dr. Manette, and feels warmly towards the family.)
   On the morning of the marriage, Darnay, at Dr. Manette's request, reveals who his family is, a detail which Dr. Manette had asked him to withhold until then. This unhinges Dr. Manette, who reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. His sanity is restored before Lucie returns from her honeymoon; to prevent a further relapse, Lorry destroys the shoemaking bench, which Dr. Manette had brought with him from Paris.
   Later, in mid-July 1789, Jarvis Lorry visits the Darnays and tells them of the uneasiness in Paris. The scene cuts to the Saint Antoine faubourg for the storming of the Bastille, with the Defarges in the lead. With the hated prison in revolutionary hands, Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell. He uncovers a manuscript which Dr. Manette had written during his confinement and hidden up a chimney, condemning the Evrémondes, père et fils (father and son), for his wrongful imprisonment and the destruction of his family. (Only later do we learn that Defarge has found this letter, and what its contents are.)
   In the summer of 1792, a letter is delivered to Tellson's bank, addressed to the heir of the Marquis of Evrémonde. The letter is from one of the Marquis' retainers, Gabelle; he writes that he's been imprisoned, and begs the new Marquis to come to his aid. By chance, though the bank is unaware of his identity, Darnay receives the letter. He makes plans to travel to Paris, where the Reign of Terror is running its bloody course. Readers who dislike Darnay as a character often find his actions here problematic: they assert that Darnay is foolish to underestimate or ignore the great danger he'll face, and note that Darnay leaves without informing his wife of his plan. Lorry is sent on ahead with a cryptic message to the imprisoned Gabelle that he's on his way.

Book the Third: The Track of a Storm

In Beauvais, former home of Dr. Manette, Darnay is denounced by the revolutionaries as an émigrant, an aristocrat, and a traitor. A military escort takes him to prison in Paris. Dr. Manette and Lucie—along with Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher, and the daughter of Charles and Lucie Darnay, "Little Lucie"—leave London for Paris and meet with Mr. Lorry. Dr. Manette uses his influence as a well-known prisoner of the Bastille to protect Darnay on the night that mobs kill thousands of less-fortunate prisoners. A year and three months pass, but Darnay is finally tried and Dr. Manette is able to get him released.
   But that very same evening Darnay is put on trial again, under new charges brought by the Defarges and one "unnamed other" (we soon discover this other is Dr. Manette, through the testimony of his letter; Manette doesn't know his letter has been found, and is horrified when his words are used to condemn Darnay).
   While Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher are on their way to the market, they stop at a tavern to buy wine. There, Miss Pross finds her long-lost brother, Solomon Pross, now a revolutionary official. Neither is happy with the meeting. Jerry Cruncher has trouble remembering where he's seen Solomon before, until Sydney Carton suddenly appears (stepping forward from the shadows much as he'd done after Darnay's first trial in London) and identifies Solomon Pross as John Barsad, a man that testified against Darnay in England. Carton blackmails Solomon Pross, telling him that he overheard Solomon's conversation inside the tavern (with Roger Cly, whose earlier "death" was faked), and knows Pross is an opportunists, who spies for the French or the British as it suits him. If this were revealed, Solomon would surely be executed, so Carton's hand is strong.
   When Darnay is again brought before the tribunal, he's confronted by Defarge, who identifies Darnay as the Marquis St. Evrémonde and reads from the paper he found in Dr. Manette's cell in the Bastille. The document describes how Dr. Manette had been locked away in the Bastille by the deceased Marquis Evrémonde (Darnay's father) and his twin brother (who held the title when we met him earlier in the book, and is the Marquis who was killed by Gaspard) for trying to report their crimes against a peasant family. The younger brother had become infatuated with a girl. He had kidnapped and raped her and killed her husband, brother, and father. Prior to his death, the brother of the raped peasant had hidden the last member of the family, his younger sister, "somewhere safe." The paper concludes by condemning the Evrémondes and all of their descendants, thereby adding Dr. Manette's condemnation of Darnay to those of the Defarges. Dr. Manette is horrified, but his protests are ignored. Darnay is sent to the La Force Prison and sentenced to be guillotined the next day.
   Carton, while wandering the streets at night, stops at the Defarge wine shop, where he overhears Madame Defarge talking about her plans to have the rest of Darnay's family (Lucie and "Little Lucie") condemned. Carton discovers that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family mentioned savaged by the Evrémondes. The next morning, Carton urges Mr. Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie and "Little Lucie."
   In the early hours of the day of his execution, Darnay is visited by Carton, who, because of his love for Lucie, has decided to trade places with Darnay. He accomplishes this through the help of the blackmailed Solomon Pross/Barsad. As Darnay is unwilling to allow the sacrifice, Carton drugs him and has him carried out to a waiting carriage. Darnay, Dr. Manette, Mr. Lorry, Lucie, and "Little Lucie" flee France. Darnay uses Carton's papers to flee France and presumably escape to England.
   Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher, who have stayed behind briefly, prepare to leave Paris. Meanwhile, Madame Defarge goes to the residence of Lucie and her family, hoping catch them mourning for Darnay, since it was illegal to sympathize with an enemy of the Republic. Miss Pross sends Mr. Cruncher out to fetch a carriage. While he's away, she's confronted by Madame Defarge. Knowing that if Madame Defarge realizes that her would-be victims have already departed she might be able to have them stopped and brought back to Paris, Miss Pross refuses to allow Madame Defarge to look into the rooms of the Darnays' apartment. They struggle and Madame Defarge is shot and killed by her own pistol; the noise of the shot permanently deafens Miss Pross. Miss Pross and Cruncher then quickly leave France.
   The novel concludes with the guillotining of Sydney Carton. If he'd any chance to express his final thoughts, they'd be full of prophecy: many of the revolutionaries, including Monsieur Defarge, would be sent to the guillotine themselves, and a future child of Charles and Lucie Darnay would be named after Carton.

Analysis

A Tale of Two Cities is a moral novel strongly concerned with themes of resurrection, imprisonment, revolution, shame, redemption, social injustice, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. It is one Dickens's only two ventures into historical fiction (Barnaby Rudge is the other one). The novel has fewer characters and sub-plots than typical for Dickens. The author's primary source was by Thomas Carlyle: Dickens wrote in his Preface to Tale that "no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of Mr CARLYLE'S wonderful book" Carlyle's view that history cycles through destruction and resurrection was an important influence on the novel, illustrated especially well by the life and death of Sydney Carton.
   The novel covers a period between 1757 and 1793, up to the middle period of the French Revolution.
   The novel is primarily a great story. Originally published as a serial novel in a newspaper, its installments often both begin and end with great drama and mystery. Dickens' take on the French Revolution is balanced: he describes the atrocities committed by both sides.
   The two cities referred to in the title are London and Paris. Throughout the novel, pairs of people, places, etc. are compared and contrasted.

Language

Dickens uses many literal translations of French idioms (such as "What the devil do you do in that galley there?"), which are presumably intended to make Paris seem more foreign in comparison to London. The Penguin Classics edition of the novel dryly notes that "Not all readers have regarded the experiment as a success."

Humour

Dickens is renowned for his humour, but A Tale of Two Cities is one of his least comical books. Nonetheless, Jerry Cruncher, Miss Pross, and Mr. Stryver provide much comedy. The description of Cruncher's night-time activities is particularly witty, mocking Jerry's fishing pretenses: "he brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature". Jerry Cruncher is a "Resurrection Man," a person who dug up cadavers and sold them to surgeons.

Irony and symbolism

A Tale of Two Cities is full of verbal, situational and dramatic irony. There is also much symbolism. Roads, blood, running water and the ocean, the colour red, homes, prisons and echoing footsteps are motifs in the novel.

Psychology

Dickens understands human nature among all social classes. He feels strong sympathy for such tragic characters as Dr. Manette and Sydney Carton. Many characters' weaknesses are viewed generously and humorously, as with Jarvis Lorry's conceit about his attractive legs or the dogged English nationalism of Miss Pross. But the deeper faults of characters like the Marquis or Madame Defarge are thoroughly damned.
Dickens shows us that human nature can be vengeful and overly ambitious. Dickens begins by criticizing the aristocrats' treatment of the poor people of France, and ends by noting that the same atrocities occur even when the lower classes take power.

Themes

"Recalled to Life"

The themes of death, committal and resurrection are general and recurrent throughout the novel. It may be said that they're in fact its most important themes, for Dickens intended originally to entitle the book Recalled to Life. (This instead became the heading for the first chapter.)
   The aforementioned concepts draw obvious parallels with the Christian faith and its ideals of deliverance and eternal life. Employing a less all-embracing interpretation, "Book the First" can safely be said to deal with the rebirth of Dr. Manette from the living death that's his incarceration.
   The theme of resurrection is first brought to the reader's attention by Mr. Lorry, who thinks obsessively of the words "buried alive". He regards himself as the vehicle for Dr. Manette's revival when he passes on the message "Recalled to Life" to Jerry Cruncher. He sees the candles on the table in the inn as being buried "in deep graves of black mahogany". He believes that he'll physically "dig" (a word repeated often to enforce its connotation) Dr. Manette from his grave.
   Jerry is also drawn into the theme: he himself is involved in death and resurrection in way that the reader doesn't yet know. The first piece of foreshadowing comes in his remark to himself: "You'd be in a blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!" The black humour becomes obvious only in hindsight, and Dickens keeps the mystery alive until it's finally solved. One stormy night, a number of years later in the novel, Mr. Lorry reawakens the reader's interest by telling Jerry that it's "Almost night [...] to bring the dead out of their graves". Jerry responds firmly that he's never seen the night do that.
   The author revels in parallels. The theme of resurrection is illustrated with figurative genius in the case of Charles Darnay, with his triumvirate of imprisonments and subsequent escapes.
   It is interesting to note that the demolition of Dr. Manette's shoe-making workbench is described as "the burning of the body". This is one of the few cases where that sub-theme has a positive connotation, liberating the doctor from his emotional slavery and the torturous memory of his long imprisonment.
   Death is a theme dealt with almost solely by the French Revolution, although there's a brief mention of the passing of Lucie's son. His death, together with that of Sydney Carton, denotes a peaceful transition to deliverance and resurrection, in particular when we compare it to all the other deaths, which are brutal, violent and graceless.
   Dickens holds the French and English equally liable for the social and judicial injustices in their respective countries. In both, death sentences are handed out for the most insignificant crimes, and life has little value. "From this room," the Marquis informs Darnay, "many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged." One peasant, the Marquis recalls, was run through with a sword because he dared mention his master's daughter. The Marquis and his cohorts believe in and take their "right of life and earth over the surrounding vulgar", which takes its revenge to similarly extreme proportions. The tables are turned, the roles of lord and slave reversed, and bloody retribution wrought.
   It turns out that Jerry Cruncher's involvement in the theme is that he "resurrects" dead bodies to sell to medical men. As often happens with such Dickensian characters, Jerry has a change of heart and changes his ways, becoming a grave-digger instead of a grave-robber.
   The devastating impact on Dr. Manette of his imprisonment in the Bastille might capture Dickens' sense of being trapped in his marriage to a woman he no longer loved. Even once he's freed, only Lucie can rescue Manette from recurrent delusions that he's still in prison; their relationship of father and daughter may have reflected aspects of Dickens' feelings for Ternan (who was the same age as his own daughters).
   Sydney Carton's self-sacrificing death atones for all his past wrongdoings. He even finds God during the last few days of his life, repeating Christ's soothing words "I am the resurrection and the life". Resurrection, therefore, becomes the predominant theme of the final part of the novel. Darnay is rescued at the last moment and recalled to life; Carton chooses death and resurrection to a life better than that which he's ever known: "it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there [...] he looked sublime and prophetic".
   Dickens, in conclusion, foresees a new and improved social order, rising from the ashes of the destruction which preceded it.

Water

Many in the Jungian archetypal tradition might agree with Hans Biedermann, who writes that water "is the fundamental symbol of all the energy of the unconscious—an energy that can be dangerous when it overflows its proper limits (a frequent dream sequence)." This symbolism suits Dickens's novel; in A Tale, the frequent images of water stand for the building anger of the peasant mob, an anger that Dickens sympathizes with to a point, but ultimately finds irrational and even animalistic.
   Early on in the book, Dickens suggests this with the quote “The sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction.” The sea, of course, represents the revolutionaries. After Gaspard murders the Marquis, he's “hanged there forty feet high- and is left hanging, poisoning the water.” The poisoning of the well signifies the silently building anger of the peasants.
   After Gaspard’s death, the revolt is clearly led by the Defarges; “As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled around Defarge’s wine shop, and every human drop in the cauldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex...” During the capture of the Bastille, the crowd becomes a sea. “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into a detested word, the living sea rose, wave upon wave, depth upon depth, and overflowed the city…” The revolution is described as a storm, raging throughout the streets of Paris. “In such risings of the sea-the firm earth shaken by rushes of the angry ocean”; this quote shows the destructive nature of the revolt.
   Darnay’s jailer is described as being “unwholesomely bloated in both face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water.” Later, during the Reign of Terror, the revolution had grown “so much more wicked and distracted…that the rivers of the South were encumbered with bodies of the violently drowned by night…” Later a crowd is “swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets…the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away.”
   During the fight with Miss Pross, Madame Defarge clings to her with “more than the hold of a drowning woman.” Commentators on the novel have noted the irony that Madame Defarge is killed by her own gun, and perhaps Dickens means by the above quote to suggest that such vicious vengefulness as Madame Defarge's will eventually destroy even its perpetrators.
   But the final two uses of water symbolism in the novel might seem to be exceptions (though it's arguable whether they in fact are), as water is used to show the return to peace. When Madame Defarge approaches Miss Pross, the basin Miss Pross is holding “fell to the ground broken and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge.” This quote may demonstrate water cleansing the bloodstained feet of Madame Defarge. When crossing the river, Mrs. Pross “dropped the door key in the river.” This may show water as a cleansing, restorative agent. In Carton's last walk, he watches an eddy that "turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it onto the sea," and compares his own previously purposeless life to it.

Imprisonment

Imprisonment plays a crucial role in the novel, from the separate literal imprisonments of Dr. Manette and Charles Darnay to Sydney Carton's psychological imprisonment by his inveterate profligacy and alcoholism.

Mob violence

Dickens roundly denounces mob violence, using Roger Cly's funeral to show that the British are no less susceptible than the French. This helps to maintain a balance between the two cities of the tale.

Darkness and light

As is common practice in English literature, Dickens depicts good and evil as expressions of light and darkness. Danger and fright are associated with darkness, while pleasure and happiness are associated with light. Lucie Manette embodies the theme of light and Madame Defarge that of darkness. Book the Second, "The Golden Thread", is intended to demonstrate Lucie's entwining a thread of bliss around those who come into contact with her, thus bringing them into her life and entangling them in her destiny.
Lucie meets her father for the first time in the Defarges' attic: "His old white head mingled with her radiant hair which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of freedom shining on him." Lucie's hair symbolises joy as she winds "the golden thread that bound them all together". She is adorned with "diamonds, very bright and sparkling", and symbolic of the happiness of the day of her marriage.
Darkness represents uncertainty, fear and peril. It is dark when Mr. Lorry rides to Dover; it's dark in the prisons; dark shadows follow Madame Defarge; dark, gloomy doldrums disturb Dr. Manette; his capture and captivity are shrouded in darkness; the Marquis’s estate is burned in the dark of night; Jerry Cruncher raids graves in the darkness; Charles's second arrest also occurs at night. Both Lucie and Mr. Lorry feel the dark threat that's Madame Defarge. "That dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me," remarks Lucie. Although Mr. Lorry tries to comfort her, "the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself". Madame Defarge is "like a shadow over the white road", the snow symbolising purity and Madame Defarge's darkness corruption. Dickens also compares the dark colour of blood to the pure white snow: the blood takes on the shade of the crimes of its shedders.

Social injustice

Charles Dickens was a lifelong champion of the deprived and exploited because of his personal experiences as a young boy. His sympathies however, lie only up to a point with the revolutionaries; he condemns the mob madness which sets in after the insurrection. When mad men and women massacre eleven-hundred detainees in one night and hustle back to sharpen their weapons on the grindstone, they've "eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun".
   The reader is given numerous examples of the ways in which the poor are tyrannised in France and England alike. Amidst the common anarchy, the executioner in England is "stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now hanging housebreaker [...] now burning people in the hand" or hanging a broke man for stealing sixpence. In France, a boy is sentenced to have his hands removed and is burned alive, because he didn't kneel down in the rain before a parade of monks, passing some fifty metres away. The clergy are extremely dishonest. At the lavish chateau of Monseigneur, we find "brazen ecclesiastics of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives [...] Military officers destitute of military knowledge [...] Doctors who made great fortunes [...] for imaginary disorders".
   The Marquis recalls with pleasure the days when his family had the right of life and death over their slaves, "when many such dogs were taken out to be hanged". He won't even allow a widow to put up a board bearing her dead husband’s name, to discern his resting place from all the others. He orders Madame Defarge's sick brother-in-law to heave a cart all day and allay frogs at night to exacerbate the young man's illness and hasten his death.
   In England, even banks endorse unbalanced sentences: a man may be condemned to death for nicking a horse or opening a letter. Conditions in the prisons are dreadful. "Most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and [...] dire diseases were bred", sometimes killing the judge before the accused.
   So riled is Dickens at the brutality of the law that he depicts some English establishments in acerbically sarcastic words: "the whipping-post, another deal old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action." He faults the law for accepting the appalling conditions without seeking reform. "Whatever is, is right" is the dictum of the Old Bailey. The gruesome portrayal of quartering highlights the insane atrocity of the penalty.
   Dickens is understanding of the reasons behind Jerry’s grave-digging, reminding the reader that Mr. Lorry is prone to rebuke Jerry more for his humble social status than anything else. Jerry reminds him that doctors, men of the cloth, undertakers and watchmen are also conspirators in the crime.
   Dickens believes that there's little or no difference between the peers of the realm and the underprivileged as regards their dealings with each other. In spite of his compassion for the poor, he assumes the philosophical stance that what happened in the revolution was a predictable upshot. "Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it'll twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it'll surely yield the same fruit [...]."

Relation to Dickens's personal life

Dickens was born in 1812, some twenty years after the last scene of the novel. The period the novel covers was one of great social injustice in both France and England, and it was a wish to highlight these which, in part, motivated Dickens to write it. He was inspired, too, by his interest in French history, acquired during his time there around 1845.
Some have argued that in Tale Dickens reflects on his recently begun affair with eighteen-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, which was possibly asexual but certainly romantic. The character of Lucie Manette resembles Ternan physically, and some have seen "a sort of implied emotional incest" in the relationship between Dr. Manette and his daughter.
Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay may also bear importantly on Dickens's personal life. The plot hinges on the near-perfect resemblance between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay; the two look so alike that Carton twice saves Darnay through the inability of others to tell them apart. It is implied that Carton and Darnay not only look alike, but they possess identical "genetic" endowments (to use a term that Dickens wouldn't have known): Carton is Darnay made bad. Carton suggests as much:

'Do you particularly like the man [Darnay]?' he muttered, at his own image [whichhe is regarding in a mirror]; 'why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you've made in yourself! A good reason for talking to a man, that he shows you what you've fallen away from and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you've been looked at at by those blue eyes [belongingto Lucie Manette] as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.'

Many have felt that Carton and Darnay are doppelgängers, which Eric Rabkin defines as a pair "of characters that together, represent one psychological persona in the narrative." If so, they'd prefigure such works as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Darnay is worthy and respectable but dull (at least to most modern readers), Carton disreputable but magnetic.
Whose psychological persona Carton and Darnay may embody can only be inferred. Dickens was quite aware that between them, Carton and Darnay shared his own initials. (Furthermore, Charles Darnay has the same initials as Dickens, and in early drafts Carton's forename was Dick, giving him the same initials but transposed.)

Characters

Dickens' talent for vivid narration often sees his characters revealed immediately in their appearances. The Marquis is portrayed as wicked, Jerry Cruncher as crafty and Lucie as good. Some are "flat" characters (in E M Forster's famous term), personifying one characteristic rather than incorporating many. The Vengeance and Jacques Three, for example, symbolise odium. Other characters are central to the plot and are hence more rounded and intricate. Darnay and Carton look the same, are both in love with Lucie, but different in personality. Dickens frequently compares and contrasts them to highlight their good and bad points.

Sydney Carton – quick-minded but depressed English barrister and alcoholic; his Christ-like self-sacrifice redeems his own life as well as saving the life of Charles Darnay

Lucie Manette – young Frenchwoman loved by both Carton and Charles Darnay

Charles Darnay – respectable young Frenchman who detests the aristocrats, though he's one himself, one of the main characters

Dr. Alexandre Manette – Lucie's father, kept a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years

Ernest Defarge – owner of a French wine shop and member of the Jacquerie; husband of Madame Defarge; servant to Dr. Manette as a youth

Madame Therese Defarge – a vengeful female revolutionary; arguably the novel's antagonist

The Vengeance – a companion of Madame Defarge referred to as her "shadow," a member of the sisterhood of women revolutionaries in Saint Antoine, and revolutionary zealot. Many Frenchmen and -women actually did change their names to show their enthusiasm for the Revolution

Jarvis Lorry – a manager at Tellson's Bank and a dear friend of Dr. Manette

Miss Pross – the fiercely loyal governess of Lucie Manette since Lucie was ten years old

Monseigneur the Marquis St. Evrémonde – cruel uncle of Charles Darnay

John Barsad (real name Solomon Pross) – perjurer, informer and spy. He is the long-lost brother of Miss Pross.

Roger Cly – another spy, Barsad's collaborator

Jerry Cruncher – messenger for Tellson's Bank and secretly a "Resurrection-Man" (more recently called a body snatcher)

Mr. Stryver – Rash, arrogant, and ambitious lawyer, senior to Sydney Carton. There is a frequent mis-perception that Stryver's full name is "C. J. Stryver," but this isn't true. The mistake comes from a line in Book 2, Chapter 12: "After trying it, Stryver C. J. was satisfied that no plainer case could be." The initials C. J. refer to a legal title (probably "circuit judge" or "chief justice"); Stryver is imagining that he's playing every role in a trial in which he browbeats Lucie Manette into marrying him.

The Seamstress – a young woman caught up in The Terror. She precedes Sydney Carton to the guillotine.

Gabelle – Gabelle is "the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary, united" for the tenants of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. After the Marquis's murder, he's responsible for collecting the rent for Darnay, to whom the title of Marquis has passed. Even though Darnay has told Gabelle to waive the rent entirely, Gabelle is still imprisoned by the revolutionaries, and it's his beseeching letter that brings Darnay to France. Gabelle is "named after the hated salt tax".

Adaptations

There have been at least three feature films made based on the book:

A Tale of Two Cities, a 1911 silent film.

A Tale of Two Cities, a 1935 black and white movie starring Ronald Colman. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

A Tale of Two Cities, a 1958 version, starring Dirk Bogarde. In the 1981 film History of the World, Part I, the French Revolution segment appears to be a pastiche of A Tale of Two Cities. A Tale of Two Cities, Jill Santoriello's musical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities performed at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, in October and November 2007. James Stacy Barbour and Jessica Rush were among the cast. A production of the musical is scheduled to begin previews on Broadway on August 19, 2008, opening on September 18 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. No cast or creatives have been formally announced, although "Playbill.com" speculates that "Many of the Florida cast members are expected to be invited back".
   Also, the novel has been adapted by Takarazuka Revue, the all-female opera company in Japan as a musical. The first production was in 1984, starring Mao Daichi at the Grand Theater; and the second was in 2003, starring Jun Sena at the Bow Hall.
   The novel was also adapted into a television movie in 1980, starring Chris Sarandon, and in 1989 Granada Television made a mini series starring John Mills, which was shown on American television as part of the PBS television series Masterpiece Theatre.
   In the 1970 Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "The Attila the Hun Show", the sketch "The News for Parrots" included a scene of A Tale of Two Cities (As told for parrots).
   The children's television series Wishbone adapted the novel for the episode "A Tale of Two Sitters."
   American author Susanne Alleyn's novel A Far Better Rest, a reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities from the point of view of Sydney Carton, was published in the USA in 2000.
   In the film A Simple Wish, the protagonist's father Oliver (possibly a reference to another of Dickens' famous novels) is vying for a spot at his theater company's production of a musical of A Tale of Two Cities, of which we see the beginning and end, using the two famous quotes, including "It's a far, far better thing that I do now", as part of a few solos.
   Diane Mayer's book, "Evremonde", which is the story of what happens to Charles and Lucie and their children after the French Revolution was published in the USA in 2005.
   In 2006, Howard Goodall collaborated with Joanna Read in writing a musical adaptation of the novel. The central plot and characters were maintained, though Goodall relocated the action of the novel from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution.
   A musical adaptation A Tale of Two Cities (Musical) is scheduled to open on Broadway in August at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 2008 after premiering at the Asolo Theatre in November, 2007.
   There also exists a simplified adaptation of A Tale Of Two Cities for students in Penguin Readers, in seven different levels: easystart, 200 words; beginner, 300 words ... up to advanced, 3000 words.

Further Information

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