Book Review

                           A Tale of Two Cities

Chapter 7 monseigneur in town

When I read this chapter, a kind of anger and despair arose from my heart. The monseigneur took the life as nothing and wanted to use one gold coin to compensate or more accurately to show his wealth and power. He didn’t demonstrate a little bit regret or sorry but only be arrogant. And the author used the word “rat” to describe the poor people which revealed that the common and poor people can never live under the brightness and the lives of them were just   of little importance as the rat.

At that time, the power contrast between the common people and the rich or powerful people was large and the law seemed useless in the face of such contrast. Monseigneur can kill the poor child without any worry of being punished. And other common people seemed to accept this cruel reality and became the “rat” living in the holes. It made me feel helpless after the anger. Why the life become so worthless and why the criminal don’t need to take any responsibility? It was a ridiculous period.

Chapter 13 The fellow of no delicacy

Sydney Carton loved Miss Manette deeply. At first, I guessed that he disclosed his distress for marring this lovely girl. However, I was wrong. He just wanted to show that how important the girl was for him and he knew that the girl would never belong to him which made him even more painful and he was willing to suffer from this kind of pain. He loved her but never dreamed to marry her because he thought that he was not good enough to pair her. What he could do was protect this lovely girl and sacrificed all of the thing to protect her.

This kind of love reminded me a saying that “ I love you but this love has no connection with you.” Sydney Carton loved Miss Manette but he didn’t claim for any response from the girl and he also didn’t use his distress to bind her and asked her to marry him. Without the girl, Carton may have degraded even worse. I was deeply moved by this kind of love.

The Best and The Worst

At first, I didn’t fully understand the meaning of the first paragraph of the book. After reading the whole book, I may understand a bit of it. During this period, the poor people fought against the aristocrat, killed the king and turned over the Bastille. They didn’t bear the cruelty of the so-called high-class people any more but fought for their own right. They tried to build a new France with freedom and equality. However, any new revolution may face some problems and some mistakes may happen in the process of revolution.

In the book, some innocent people also be killed by mistake. And I even feel that some revolutionist just sought to kill people without distinguish. Actually, not all the aristocrats were the terrible evil. Some of them also detested the things that other aristocrats did to those poor people. Although Charles Darnay was born in an aristocratic family, he never did any terrible things to the poor people and he even gave up all the wealth to show that he detested the behavior of his uncle and went to England earning living for himself. He was totally innocent but still was determined by the revolutionist that he should be killed. And I found that even the poor people also suffered from the revolution. The little girl appeared in the end of the book was a proof of it. It was impossible for her to do her accusation——plotting. At that moment, killing had become a way for these revolutionist to show their determination and power which was far away from their original purposes. So, they just killed for finish the assignment and didn’t really distinguish who was really needed to be killed.

It was no doubt that this revolution caused some unnecessary massacre and brought pains to the common people also. But its value should not be erased clearly. It might be the first time that common people woke up and fought against the aristocrats and turned over the tyrant. And it was the beginning of the following action bringing France to a new stage. The crazy part of this revolution can be understood. Madame Defarge determined to kill Charles Darnay because his father and uncle killed her family members.She wanted to revenge for her family member and she lost her spirit at that time. Her experience deserved empathy but she should not make the revenge control her and that made her death at last. We cannot demand that such a revolution can be a perfect one because the members of this revolution were common people and most of them might not accept any education. They just did the thing from the perspective that they thought right without the really scientific guidance.

Before reaching the true light, people must bear a lot of darkness. Although this revolution didn’t bring the light immediately to France, it had tore out the dark screen with a crack which was the start of the future light.

Three women

Three kinds of women leave deep impression on me. From my point of view, Lucie, Madame Defarge and Jerry’ s wife.

It is no doubt that Lucie was the perfect woman in most people’s mind that she was gentle and soft and always took care of others especially her father. She deeply loved her husband and tried her best to save her husband. Although she knew that France was not a safe place, she still went to it to help her husband. She had suffered a lot in her childhood that she didn’t have mother and father. However, she had a good life in general.

Jerry’ s wife didn’t occur a lot in the novel and most of readers may just ignore her occurrence. The reason why I noticed her was that she didn’t have any dignity in that family. Jerry could accuse her for some ridiculous reasons and even her child didn’t respect her anymore. She might be a representative of the most poor women in the England. Because of poverty, they may not accept any education and they cannot earn living by themselves. The only thing they could to was being obedient to their husbands. They even didn’t know how to fight against their husbands for their own rights. It was really lamentable.

Madame Defarge was totally different from the above two. She was neither gentle and soft nor obedient. She was brave and bold and she could do anything as well as men. For that, she earned the respect not only from her husband and from many other people. But she had been controlled by the desire for revenge and did something cruel. However, I still cherish her brave features which show the power of women. She was the leader of the women.

There was no tumult in England and the women seemed to be soft but the women seemed to be tough in France where the revolution happened. So I thought that the circumstance may influence the people. When people in a much safe place, they may forget to break out the inequality. Although Jerry’s wife suffered a lot from her husband, she didn’t think about leaving the family. Because she could bear it. But Madame Defarge was different. She didn’t have the choice and she must fight against the inequality to reach her goal.

And I found an interesting thing. Madame Defarge and Jerry’s wife don’t be written with their real name. Just Lucie could have her own name. The author seemed to indicate that the poor women with whatever quality, they still should be attached to their husband and only the educated and high-class women could have their own independent personality.

Carton

Before I reading the last page of the novel, I still wondered that he could escape from the prison. But the fancy broke down. He saved Charles Darnay two times using their similar appearance. In the first time, he appeared just to finish the task and earn the money. In the second time, he sacrificed his own life to show his last love to Lucie.  

I could not imagine what kind of love could make one give up his own life just to make his lover live a happy life. I think that this kind of man could only appear in the novel. Ahead of his knowing of Lucie, he was like a ghost wandering in the world without any goal. I could say that he became a true and lively man after he loved Lucie. He didn’t disturb Lucie and just accompany her as a devoted friend. His love was so deep and pure and selfless. Actually, he could choose not to save Charles Darnay and he could even have the chance to be the man with Lucie. However, he didn’t. At that time, he didn’t use a second to think about himself, the only thing he considered was making Lucie live a happy and sound life. From my point of view, I liked him more than Charles Darnay.

2022-08-25

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