A Tale of Two Cities -1859- Charles Dickens di Riccardo Pergola(VB tur)
This book is notably one of Dickens’ finest and most famous novels ever published. It is nothing like any other book I’ve ever read and It is by far the most complicated book I’ve ever laid my eyes upon, since the storyline interweaves together the political issues of a dramatic period of French history to the passion of love.
It’s a tale of chaos, espionage and adventure set in two cities, Paris and London, conquered by evil, prior to, during and until the end of the French Revolution. The novel reveals political corruption and social discontent in both countries in this period.
It’s 1775. Jarvis Lorry (who works for Tellson’s bank which has offices both in Paris and London, therefore he has access to France unconditionally) goes to Paris on a secret mission. He’s supposed to get Dr. Manette,a revolutionary man who has been locked up for eighteen years in a prison called the Bastille, and bring him to London. Along the way, he meets Lucie (Dr. Manette’s daughter) and tells her that her dad’s not dead like the French told her. Sure enough, in Paris, they find Dr. Manette working with the Defarges (the family that contributes the most to the taking of the Bastille) who is mentally ill since being in prison. All he does is fixing shoes at any time of day. But he agrees to go back to London.
In 1780, Charles Darnay, a young French noble of the Evrèmonde family who is disgusted by the way aristocracy prospered on the back of the poor, is being accused of treason by two British spies. They claim, falsely, that Darnay gave information about British troops in North America to the French. Darnay is not convicted because a witness who claims he would be able to recognize Darnay anywhere is unable to tell the physiognomic difference between Darnay and a barrister present in court, Sydney Carton, who looks almost identical to him. Carton and Darnay both love Lucie, but Darnay succeeds in marrying her.
The Marquis of Evrèmonde, the cruel uncle of Charles Darnay, runs over a child with his cart and is murdered in his chateau. Therefore Darnay inherits the house and the money, but he doesn’t want it because he doesn’t want to become like his uncle.
It is 14 July 1789. The Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille.
As time passes in England, Lucie and Charles begin to raise a family, a son (who dies in childhood) and a daughter, little Lucie.
Darnay, being called by a former servant who has been unjustly imprisoned, decides to come back to France to free him. But shortly after his arrival, he is denounced for being an emigrated aristocrat from France and is imprisoned in La Force Prison in Paris.
Lucy and his daughter go to Paris with Dr. Manette to try to help him. Mr. Lorry goes, too. After a while, Dr. Manette speaks on behalf of Darnay, and since Dr. Manette was a prisoner of the Bastille, he’s a hero for the young revolutionaries, so Darnay is finally freed after a year .But Darnay is immediately arrested again. He is put on trial again the following day, under new charges brought by the Degarges. Madame Defarge knows about Darnay’s past and since it was his rich family that had killed her poor family years before, she sets out for revenge. Darnay is sentenced to death.
Sydney Carton, the barrister who looks almost identical to Charles Darney wanders into the Defarges’ wine shop, where he overhears Madame Defarge talking about her plans to have the rest of Darnay’s family (Lucie and “Little Lucie”) arrested and afterwards condemned to the guillotine. In the morning of the day Darnay is going to be executed Carton urges Mr. Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie, her father, and Little Lucie, asking them to leave as soon as he joins them in the coach. But Carton has a plan… and he loves Lucie too much to let her husband be executed. Therefore he visits Darnay’s cell , drugs him , puts on his clothes to pretend it was him and has Darnay carried on the coach that is leaving towards England by a close friend.
Carton has decided to be executed in his place…
The conclusion of this novel has to make us ponder about every aspect of political and personal issues and the way to solve this very problems. Dickens succeeded in revealing those aspects by narrating about the commonly non-visible features of the evil of French Revolution, which was of course a “storm” that had come to Paris because of the despicable aristocracy, whereas on the other hand was cruel and ruthless itself. That is a controversy many people never thought about, neither did I.
I think, in my humble opinion, that this novel can actually be pulled alongside with “Animal farm” by George Orwell, since they share the same negative view of society and the same negative view of past, present and possibly future revolutions, which are helpless.
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