The Best of Times

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. 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 way–in 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.”

 

“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 ever known.”

 

“Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.”

 

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

 

“A heart well worth winning, and well won. A  heart that , once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.”

 

“The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.”

 

“If  you love someone , let is be and set him/her free, if he/she comes back to you, it's meant to be.”

 

“Resurrection in me, and life in me. Those who believe in me will die again, though they die, but those who live and believe in me will never die.”

 

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”

 

“The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can‘t have them.”

 

“Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.”

 

“Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.”

 

“Don’t try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.”

 

“I see Barsad, Defarge, the judges, all dying under this terrible machine. I see a beautiful city being built in this terrible place. I see that new people will live here, in real freedom. I see the lives for whom I give my life, happy and peaceful in that England which I shall never see again. I see Lucie when she is old, crying for me on this day every year, and I know that she and her husband remember me until their deaths. I see their son, who has my name, now a man. I see him become a famous lawyer and make my name famous by his work. I hear him tell his son my story.”

 

Dickens' work is built under the gloom of the French Revolution. Its undertones are dark and low. It was as if a world was separated between the various classes. The aristocrats were drunk, the commoners were frightened, and the people's sufferings and rebellion were overly indignant and out-of-control revenge made people feel overly heavy. In those days, everyone was fighting against themselves and the times.

Throughout the work, Lucy is happy and I think she is probably the luckiest person in the book. Her life is colorful, she not only has a father's love, husband's love, servant's love. But more importantly, she also has the love that only belongs to her. Carton loved her, and expected nothing in return. There were no worries in her life, he just looked at her silently and blessed her. When her life is in trouble and her lover is imprisoned, he stands up and chooses to die in order to fulfill their love. As long as his lover lives happily in this world, he can be free of worries. It is with such a simple but fulfilled wish that Carton can look at Lucy's happiness without sadness and sorrow, and can go away so peacefully.

There is a description of this in the book：Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creature -- found only among women -- who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bring hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives.

Miss Pross is Lucy’s servant. She is a typical low-level woman, vulgar, ignorant but kind. On the one hand, she is loyal to Lucy, straight-hearted and kind to take care of Lucy. But on the one hand, she is rude and ignorant to look down on people. In her eyes, only her younger brother is worthy of Lucy, but we all know that her younger brother is actually an asshole who has nothing to do.

At this moment, Mr. Lorry realized that Miss Pross would be jealous. Even though she is eccentric and selfless, she is also one of the ordinary women. However, she is wholehearted to take care of Lucy, in her mind, Lucy is her everything and the direction she need to follow. Lucy have youth, beautiful, good breeding and glorious hope, so out of pure love and admiration, Miss Pross is willing to take care of her. It was pure affection, it was her pure care for him.

If we meet someone as perfect as Lucy in our lives, how would we feel? We must be jealous to some extent.Every emotion has a reason to exist, and jealousy is no different. Jealousy is the original sin of human beings. Everyone is born with jealousy for a variety of reasons. Maybe when we were young, someone else had one more candy than us; or when we grew up, someone else earned a higher salary than us, someone around us was prettier than us, or he had a more cheerful personality. Jealousy goes hand in hand with everyone's growth. And what we have to do is to understand it, to accept it, rather than criticize it and blame ourselves.

What can we do about jealousy? There is no need to think about containing and eliminating it from the source. What we have to do is to properly control it, change our mentality to "he can do it, so can I", and turn jealousy into a motivation to motivate ourselves, to let ourselves become more outstanding. And finally when we reached the height of the people we are jealous of at the time, we will get a great sense of accomplishment and motivation to move on.

Perhaps jealousy will bring us anxiety and insecurity, but calm down and accept that we are jealous. Therefore, let jealousy become a driving force and a step for us to ascend.

The novel follows the story of Doctor Manette, which leads to peasants being exploited and controlled by the troubled aristocracy. There will be oppression, there will be resistance,  and then the peasants will rise up and take control of the cities. But in the end, they were blinded by hatred. Based on status, they killed the so-called aristocrats in their eyes, killed the people associated with aristocrats, and even killed the descendants of aristocrats. Hatred of character was no longer the measure of good or bad, and these civilians eventually became the people they once had hated.

The character who touched me most throughout the whole book was Carton, and I never imagined that Carton would end up the way he did. I liked him because of his talent, his knowledge and what he did when he is the assistant of Lawyer Stryver. I could see the dark feelings hidden in his carelessness, the contradiction between his inferiority and his desire for love, his disillusionment and helplessness. But I could not see that he would make such a huge sacrifice for his lover. It was as if he had found the meaning of his existence in his life, and he bravely, fearlessly and lovingly gave his life for Lucy's happiness.

Carton was undoubtedly a thoroughly tragic figure, and I learned in him that love is to be gained, and to wait for nothing in return. Carton was not surprised when he heard that Lucy and Darnay were married. For Carton knew that Lucy loved Darnay deeply. He drank to drown his sorrows until he passed out, and seemed to become what others called an unmotivated, lazy, and decadent man. But he knew clearly that his love for Lucy had never been serious. This love, and will not be reduced because Lucy became someone else's wife, one cent. It was happy for him even to look at Lucy from a distance. In Carton's short life, his love for Lucy was the thing that he was most proud of. Perhaps Carton was an interlude in Lucy's long life. But it was this little episode that gave her endless strength and carried her through all the darkness and mists. This episode is enough to make her every day after, full of sunshine and warmth. Although for this Carton paid the price of his life.

 The French Revolution is a bloodstain in the history of mankind. In that chaotic era, full of uncertainty. In this state of disorder, all of human nature was revealed. A Tale of Two Cities takes the French Revolution as the background, through the conflict of hatred between the nobility and the commoners, author Dickens only wants to convey that - blood cannot wash away hatred, much less replace love - the wounds caused by the tyranny of the nobility to the commoners will not be healed by blood, and the commoners' hatred for the nobility cannot replace the love for their deceased loved ones.

We are all talented people with feelings, please do not sink because of the moment of dissatisfaction, do not indulge in fantasy, put on a false face to yourself. We should be like Carton, find our own light and fight for it. Perhaps we also had a confused and ignorant attitude, also had a lazy and contemptuous attitude, also had a wandering and wandering attitude, also had a desperate attitude, but we can not sink. If you sink, it will be the worst of times. If you strive for light and happiness with talent and emotion, it will be the best of times.