A Tale of Two Cities
The tale of two cities is a historical story, one of Dickens’ long fictions. The background to the novel is the revolution of France. It portrayed a brutal and bloody story, but it also contained love and friendship. In the novel, Dickens sarcastically described a typical cruel nobleman—marquis of Evermonde. When he was young he and his brother stole a countrywoman by force and killed her family. What’s worse , he used his power to imprison Dr Manette , a kind and honest man who knew all the things they had done and wanted to disclose their crimes. In order to hide their crimes. Marquis of Evermonde and his brother threw Doctor Manette into prison for 18 years . During these 18 years, Doctor Manette lost his freedom and suffered a great in spirit. I felt unthinkable that Marquis of Evermonde and his brother killed people just as easily as they killed chickens. They deprived other people’s freedom as they liked and they thought it was normal and unremarkable. They had never realized that they had done something wrong or something improper. Because their nature was cruel and evil, like demons. There is an old saying which means: People who commit too many crimes will kill themselves. After all, there is justice in the world. The demons can’t be rampant forever. Because the world will not forgive them. They will pay their lives for their crimes. Let’s see the consequence of the Marquis. “He lay there like a stone with a knife pushed into his heart.” I think it was just what he ought to gain and it is a real exciting scene. The Marquis’ death was just the beginning of people’s resistance to the nobleman. Gradually more and more people joined in the revolution. One after another nobleman were sentenced to death and their heads were cut down. However, some innocent people were implicated in the revolution. Charles Darney was one of them. He was the nephew of Marquis of Evermonde. To the opposite of his uncle, Darney was a kind and independent young man. Dickens spoke highly of kindness, mercy and love in the novel too. This is the other thorn of the novel when Doctor Manette was released from prison. It was his daughter Lucie who took care of him and helped him return to normal. During this time, Dr. Manette and Lucie knew Charles Darney and Sydeny Carton, the two young man fell in love with Lucie at the same time. At last, Lucie married Chares Darney .Dr Manette accepted Darney as his son-in-law although he knew that Darney was the nephew of the man who threw him into prison for18 years. This is the love between father and daughter. And Sydeny Carton, the very great man, loved Lucie deeply. He promised Lucie that he would do everything for her happiness. He did it truly, he sacrificed himself instead of Darney who looked the same as him. This is love for lovers. This is the most wonderful thing in the world. It also reminds us that no matter how no matter when there is true love existing. At the end, Lucie, Dr Manette and Darney arrived in England safely. The tale of two cities is different from other historical fictions. Its characters and main plots are fictional under the real background of the revolution of France. The author made the experience of the fictional character Dr Manette as the main clue. The plots are complicated, and they are dramatic. The structure is complete and rigorous.
Madame Defarge with her knitting and Lucie Manette weaving her "golden thread" both resemble the Fates, goddesses from Greek mythology who literally controlled the "threads" of human lives. As the presence of these two Fate figures suggests, A Tale of Two Cities is deeply concerned with human destiny. In particular, the novel explores how the fates of individuals are shaped by their personal histories and the broader forces of political history. For instance, both Charles and Dr. Manette try to shape and change history. Charles seeks to escape from his family's cruel aristocratic history and make his own way in London, but is inevitably drawn "like a magnet" back to France where he must face his family's past. Later in the novel, Dr. Manette seeks to use his influence within the Revolution to try to save Charles's life from the revolutionaries, but Dr. Manette's own forgotten past resurfaces in the form of an old letter that dooms Charles. Through these failures of characters to change the flow of history or to escape their own pasts, A Tale of Two Cities suggests that the force of history can be broken not by earthly appeals to justice or political influence, but only through Christian self-sacrifice, such as Carton's self-sacrifice that saves Charles at the end of the novel.
A Tale of Two Cities is full of examples of sacrifice, on both a personal and national level. Dr. Manette sacrifices his freedom in order to preserve his integrity. Charles sacrifices his family wealth and heritage in order to live a life free of guilt for his family's awful behavior. The French people are willing to sacrifice their own lives to free themselves from tyranny. In each case, Dickens suggests that, while painful in the short term, sacrifice leads to future strength and happiness. Dr. Manette is reunited with his daughter and gains a position of power in the French Revolution because of his earlier incarceration in the Bastille. Charles wins the love of Lucie. And France, Dickens suggests at the end of the novel, will emerge from its terrible and bloody revolution to a future of peace and prosperity.
Yet none of these sacrifices can match the most important sacrifice in the novel—Sydney Carton's decision to sacrifice his life in order to save the lives of Lucie, Charles, and their family. The other characters' actions fit into the secular definition of "sacrifice," in which a person gives something up for noble reasons. Carton's sacrifice fits the Christian definition of the word. In Christianity, God sacrifices his son Jesus in order to redeem mankind from sin. Carton's sacrifice breaks the grip of fate and history that holds Charles, Lucie, Dr. Manette, and even, as the novel suggests, the revolutionaries.
In the novel, the Bastille symbolizes the nobility's abuse of power, exemplified by the unjust imprisonment of Dr. Manette by Marquis St. Evrémonde. Yet the Bastille is not the only prison in A Tale of Two Cities. The revolutionaries also unjustly imprison Charles in La Force prison. Through this parallel, Dickens suggests that the French revolutionaries come to abuse their power just as much as the nobility did.
The theme of imprisonment also links to the theme of history and fate. For instance, when Charles is drawn back to Paris because of his own past actions, each checkpoint he passes seems to him like a prison door shutting behind him.
Dickens had dear love and hate. He praised those who ought to be praised and attacked those who ought to be attacked. The motivation of the novel is probably to warn the English dominators. But I think we can learn something meaningful from the tale of two cities.
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