A Tale of Two Cities Summary.docx

7/27/2019 A Tale of Two Cities Summary.docx

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A Tale of Two Cities Summary

How It All Goes Down

Its 1775. Trouble is a-brewin in the French countryside. Apparently, the

folks out there dont like to be starved and taxed to death. Who wouldve

guessed it, eh?

As our novel starts, a very businessman-like British gentleman makes

his way into the heart ofParis. Hes on a very unsettling mission. In fact,

its almost enough to make a businessman cry. You see, eighteen years

ago, a French doctor was imprisoned without any warning (or any trial).

Hes been locked up in the worst prison of all prisons,the Bastille. After

almost two decades, he was released again without any explanation

and hes currently staying with an old servant of his, Ernst Defarge.

Today, Mr. Lorry (thats our British businessman) is on a mission to the

French doctor back to England, where he can live in peace with his

daughter.

Dr. Manette may be free, but hes still a broken man. He spends most ofhis time cobbling together shoes and pacing up and down in his dark

room. Too accustomed to the space of a prison to understand that he

can actually leave his room, Dr. Manette seems doomed to live a pitiful

life.

Fortunately for Dr. Manette (and for Mr. Lorry, now that we think about

it), he happens to have the Worlds Perfect Daughter. Lucie, the child he

left eighteen years ago, is now a grown-up, smiling, blond, perfect ray ofsunshine. Everything she touches seems to turn to gold. Vomit if youd

like, but Lucie is indeed perfect. And shell need every ounce of that

perfection to restore her father back to health.

Of course, she does manage to bring Dr. Manette back into the

everyday world. We never doubted her for a second. Within the space of

five years (thats 1780, for those of you who are counting), Dr. Manette

is a new man. Hes a practicing doctor again; he and Lucie live in a small
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house in Soho. They dont have much money (Dr. Manettes cash was

all seized in France), but Lucie manages to shine her rays of

wonderfulness over their lives. In other words, theyre pretty happy. And

theyve adopted Mr. Lorry as a sort of drop-in uncle.

As we pick up the story in 1780, Dr. Manette and Lucie have been called

as witnesses in a treason case. Apparently, a young man named

Charles Darnay is accused of providing classified information to the

French government. English trials at the time resemble smoke-and-

mirror tricks: Dickens takes great delight in mocking the "esteemed"

members of the court. Thanks to Lucies compassionate testimony and

some quick work by a man who looks strangely like Charles Darnay,however, our man Charles is off the hook.

A free man, Charles Darnay immediately realizes just how perfect our

perfect Lucie actually is. He sets up shop in the Manette house, coming

to visit almost every day. The Charles look-alike, a disreputable (but,

lets face it, really likable) guy called Sydney Carton, also takes a liking

to Lucie. If Charles is shiny and good and perfect, Sydney is not any

of those things. He also likes to beat himself up a lot. (In fact, werethinking that he could really use one of those twelve-step esteem

boosting programs.)

Sydney loves Lucie with all his heart, but hes convinced that he could

never deserve her. What does he do? Well, he tells her precisely why

she could never love him. Surprise, surprise: she agrees. Shed like to

help him be a better person, but he would rather wallow in his misery.

After all, wallowing sounds like so much fun, doesnt it? Wallow, wallow,wallow. Thats Sydney in a nutshell.

Charles, meanwhile, fares a little bit better. He marries Lucie. On the day

of his wedding, he tells Dr. Manette a secret: hes actually a French

nobleman in disguise. A very particular French nobleman, as a matter of

fact: the Marquis Evrmonde. Because everything in a Dickens

novel hasto fit into a neat pattern, its no real surprise that the

Evrmondes were the evil brothers who locked Dr. Manette up in the


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first place. The good doctor is a bit shocked, of course, but he eventually

realizes that Charles is nothing like his father or his uncle (the evil

Evrmondes brothers). Dr. Manette is willing to love Charles for the man

he is, not the family he left behind.

Things are going swimmingly in England. Charles moves in with the

Manettes, he makes a decent wage as a tutor, and Dr. Manette seems

to be as happy as ever. But wait, wasnt this a tale oftwo cities? What

happened to the other city?

OK, you got us. While everythings coming up roses inLondon,

everythings coming up dead in Paris. We only wish we were kidding.People are starving, the noblemen run over little children with their

carriages, and everyone is pretty unhappy. In fact, theyre so unhappy

that theyre beginning to band together as "citizens" of a new republic.

Right now, Ernst Defarge and his wife are at the center of a

revolutionary group. We can tell that theyre revolutionary because

theyre super-secret. And they also call each other "Jacques." Thats

"Jack" in French.

In the village of the Evrmondes, the Marquis has been stabbed in the

night. Gasp! The government hangs the killer, but tensions dont ever

really settle down. Finally, the steward of the Evrmonde estate sends a

desperate letter to the new Marquis: because folks hated the old

Marquis so much, theyre now throwing the steward into prison.

A bunch of fluke accidents conspire to make sure that Charles gets the

letter. Hes the Marquis, remember? Even though hes thrown off his oldtitle and his old lands entirely, he cant help but feel responsible for the

fate of this steward. Without telling his wife or his father-in-law anything

about whats been going on, he secretly sets off for France.

Unfortunately for Charles, he picked a bad time for a summer vacation.

By the time he arrives on the shores of France, the revolutionaries have

overturned the country. The King is about to be beheaded. The Queen

soon follows suit. Murder and vengeance and mob mentality are all
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boiling over. Immediately detained, Charles soon realizes that hes made

a big, big mistake. By the time he reaches Paris, hes become a

prisoner. New laws dictate that hes going to be executed byLa

Guillotine.

Fortunately, Dr. Manette hears about his fate. With Lucie in tow, he

rushes to Paris. It turns out that hes something of a celebrity there:

anybody who was falsely arrested under the aristocratic rule of old is

now revered as one of the heroes of the new Republic. The doctor

shows up at Charles's trial and wows the judges with his heroic plea to

save his son-in-law.

Everything seems happy again. Sure, its the middle of the French

Revolution, but the Manettes and Charles are in the clear. Or at least,

thats how it seems for a few hours. All too quickly, however, Charles is

arrested again. This time, the Defarges have accused him of being a

member of the nobility and a stain on the countrys name.

Frantic, Doctor Manette tries to intervene. The court case for Charless

second trial goes very differently from the first one, though. ErnstDefarge produces a letter, written by Dr. Manette himself, which

condemns Charles to death.

Wait a second! Dr. Manette? Impossible! Well, not exactly. Long ago, Dr.

Manette scribbled down the history of his own imprisonment and

secreted it in a wall of the Bastille. The history tells a sordid tale of rape

and murdercrimes committed by Charless father and brother.

Incensed, the jury of French revolutionary "citizens" decides that Charlesshould pay for the crimes of his father.

Before he can be executed, however, Sydney Carton comes to the

rescue. A few good tricks and a couple of disguises later, Charles is a

free man. He and his family head back to England in (relative) safety.

Sydney, however, doesnt fare so well. He takes Charless place in

prison and dies on the guillotine.
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Crazy, huh? The novel, however, thinks that his sacrifice is pretty heroic.

And weve got to say, we agree.

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