Shaleah Joseph

February 26, 2013

English 10A

A Tale of Two Cities: Important Passages

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
or 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 wayin 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. (Dickens, 1859, page 7).
These famous lines that open A Tale of Two Cites already gives hints about
the tension between lone and family, on one side, and oppression and hatred, on
the other. The technique of using repetition of a phrase at the beginning of a
consecutive clause and the passages rhythm suggest that good and evil, wisdom
and folly, and light and darkness stand equally matched. The whole first
paragraph of the novel is made up entirely of contrasting pairs. In the French
Revolution, it was the time of great uncertainty and contradiction. This first
passage helps us prepare us for the existence of immense wealth and immense
poverty in France in the pre-revolutionary period.
Guiding Question: How do the contrasting pairs help us understand the
novels setting in the pre-revolutionary period?
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is
constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn
consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly
clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them
encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of
breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. (Dickens,
1859, page 15).
By nature of a human being, we are all left wondering about the thoughts,
actions, behaviors, and inner working of each other. As we can only know about
our own thoughts and actions. The passage also notes what an intriguing thing it

Shaleah Joseph
February 26, 2013
English 10A
is to think about, how we can never know as much about other as we know about
ourselves. A beautiful thing to know is that every human being is a secret and a
mystery to every other human being.
Guiding Question: If a human were not a mystery to another human being,
would the excitement of life still be the same?
The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street
in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many
hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The
hands of the man who sawed the wood left red marks on the billets; and the
forehead of the woman who nursed her baby was stained with the stain of the
old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the
staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall
joke so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap that in
it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-leesBLOOD.
(Dickens, 1859, page 33).
This passage, taken from Book the First, Chapter 5, describes the
scramble after a wine cask breaks outside Defarges wine shop. This opens the
novels examination of Paris and acts as a potent representation of the peasants
hunger. These burdened individuals are not only physically start, that are willing
to drink wine from the city streets, but are also hungry for a new world order, for
justice and freedom from misery. In this passage, Dickens foreshadows the
lengths to which the peasants anxiety will take them. This scene is echoed later
in the novel when the revolutionaries, who are now smeared with red, but the
red of blood, gather around the grindstone to sharpen their weapons.
Guiding Question: How is the red wine similar to the red blood, which is
brought up further in the book.
I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no ma on earth, and no man on
earth cares for me. (Dickens, 1859, page 89).

Shaleah Joseph
February 26, 2013
English 10A
This quote is said by Sydney Carton to Charles Darnay as an explanation
for why Carton drinks so heavily, However, while the quotation is Cartons
reason for drinking, it actually give little insight into Carton as a man. The quote
does not explain why Carton considers himself a disappointed drudge. In fact,
while most of the characters in the novel eventually reveal secrets about their
backgrounds that help explain their motivations, Carton never does. He remains
essentially a mystery to the reader and to the other characters in the novel.
Guiding Question: Why is Carton convinced that he is so alone and isolated?
O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy fathers face looks up
in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet,
think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you
love beside you.
This quote is said my Sydney Carton and is part of his professing his love
for Lucie Manette. Up until this point in the novel, Carton has remained
separated from his own emotions. Not only has he considered himself unworthy
of love, he has also characterized himself as being unable to love
others. Therefore, his profession of love for Lucie marks a significant change in
his self-perception. In addition, one must consider the way he makes this
declaration; he is not asking Lucie for anything in return, but is simply telling her
how he feels about her. It is clear that, whatever is in Cartons past, it continues
to plague him, making him consider himself unworthy of love. The quotation
becomes even more significant given that Carton does end up sacrificing himself
in order to keep Darnay alive.
Guiding Question: What is the point of Carton declaring his love to Lucie
even though he is not asking Lucie for anything in return?

Shaleah Joseph
February 26, 2013
English 10A
These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would
stop it forever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than in one of
their own horses or dogs; they only know what your breath tells them. Let it
deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them too much.
(Dickens, 1859, page 181).
In this quotation, found in book two, chapter 15, Monsieur Defarge is
speaking to a man who is mending roads that are speaking favorably of the
aristocrats. Defarge is speaking scornfully to the man, reminding him that the
aristocrats do not have any positive feelings for him, but instead would happily
see him dead. It helps highlight the conflict feelings of the peasantry, who have
been raised and conditioned to view the aristocracy as somehow better than
them, despite the fact that there is no reason to believe that they are actually
better people.
Guiding Question: How does the man change how the aristocrats view him?
As a whirlpool of boiling waters had a centre point, so all this raging
circled round Defarges wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron had a
tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defrage himself, already
begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued arms, thrust this man back,
dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, labored and strove in
the thickest of the uproar. (Dickens, 1859, page 221).
The speaker of the quote is the narrator. The narrator is describing the
beginning of the Revolution. He is also describing the role that Defarge would
play in the Revolution. At this point, the reader sees that Defarge will play a
central role in the Revolution, which foreshadows the fact that Defarge will also
play a central role in the events that will come after the Revolution, because
without his actions, Darnay would never be charged or convicted in
France. Though the quote does not make Defarge a villain, it does make it clear
that his behavior will be central to the action in the novel. In the novel, the
Revolution is planned at the blacksmith shop, and Defarge is one of the lead

Shaleah Joseph
February 26, 2013
English 10A
Revolutionaries. Historically, there may not be an equivalent location to
Defarges wine shop, but a central location for the planning of the Revolution
became an important plot device in the novel.
Guiding Question: What role does Defarges wine shop play in A Tale of Two
Cities?
Liberty, equality, fraternity, or deaththe last, much the easiest to
bestow, O Guillotine! (Dickens, 1859, page 284)
The Guillotine, a machine designed to behead its victims, is one of the
long-term symbols of the French Revolution. In A Tale of Two Cites, the guillotine
symbolizes how revolutionary chaos gets established. With the guillotine as a
symbol expresses exactly what Dickens meant by adding the two final words, or
Death, to the end of the French national motto. The quote, Liberty, equality,
fraternity means we are all free to do anything. We are born equal in dignity and
with right and fraternity, a brotherhood.
Guiding Question: What do you think would happen if this motto is broken?
Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six
tumbrils carry the days wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate
monsters imagining since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one
realization, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil
and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to
maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this
horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it
will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious
license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit
according to its kind. (Dickens, 1859, page 381).
In this concise and beautiful passage, which occurs in the final chapter of
the novel, Dickens summarizes his uncertain attitude toward the French
Revolution. The author stops short of justifying the violence that the peasant use
to overturn the social order, personifying La Guillotine as a sort of drunken

Shaleah Joseph
February 26, 2013
English 10A
lord who consumes human lives. Dickens shows a thorough understanding of
how such violence and bloodlust can come about. The cruel aristocracys
oppression of the poor sow the same seed of rapacious license in the poor and
compels them to persecute the aristocracy and other enemies of the revolution
with equal brutality.
Guiding Question: What do you think about Dickens opinion on the French
Revolution?
I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and in
their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years
to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the
natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out I see that
child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way
up in that path of life, which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my
name is made illustrious there by the light of his 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
even known. (Dickens, 1859, page 386).
Even though a debate has risen regarding the value and meaning of
Sydney Cartons sacrifice at the end of the novel, the surest key to interpretation
rests in the thoughts contained in this passage. In a novel that seeks to examine
the nature of revolution the struggles of France and of Sydney Carton mirror
each other. Here, Dickens articulates the outcome of those struggles, just like
Paris will rise from the abyss of the French Revolutions chaotic and bloody
violence. So too will carton be reborn into glory after a virtually wasted life. The
reader sees evidence of Dickenss faith in the essential goodness of humankind.
Guiding Question: What are your thoughts on Cartons wasted life?