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班级：14英师3班 姓名：纪露露 学号：14010103012 Book Review on A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, which set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.Written in 1859, A Tale of Two Cities was published in weekly installments from April 1859 to November 1859 in Dickens's new literary periodical titled All the Year Round.All but only three of Dickens's previous novels had appeared as monthly installments.After published, A Tale of Two Cities was an instant hit.Families read it by the firelight;crowds waited for the next edition to be released.With sales of about 200 million copies, A Tale of Two Cities is the biggest selling novel in history.By this time Dickens was one of the most prominent writers and editors in England.At times, Dickens's prose emanates pure beauty that's so mied in most of contemporary works.In this book, Dickens has created a broad cast of characters, of two nations and multiple social claes and political affiliations, and effortlely weaved their stories.That is the reason why Charles Dickens is one of the most popular storytellers and this particular novel is world's bestselling work of fiction.A Tale of Two Cities depicts the plight of the French peasantry exploited by the French aristocracy, which lead to the revolution and many social phenomenas paralleling with life in London during the same period.In 1757, for knowing a secret, Dr.Manette, a French physician, was picked up and sent to the Bastille by the aristocracy Marquis St.Evremonde.18 years after, Alexandre Manette was released from the Bastille.Mr.Lorry, one of the bank's managers, arrives in Dover and meets with Dr.Manette's daughter Lucie who has believed her father to be dead and her governe, Mi Pro.Mr.Lorry takes her to France to reunite with her father who has been given lodgings by Defarge, owners of a wine shop.In 1780, Charles Darnay is on trial for treason against the British.And Darnay's defense counsel directs attention to Sydney Carton, a barrister present in the courtroom who looks almost identical to him.In Paris, Marquis St.Evrémonde’ s carriage hits and kills the child of a peasant, Gaspard.At that night, Gaspard kills the Marquis in his sleep.In London, Darnay gets Dr.Manette's permiion to wed Lucie;but Carton confees his love to Lucie as well.Knowing she will not love him in return, Carton promises to do any sacrifice for her.On the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and family lineage to Dr.Manette(Darnay is Marquis’ s nephew).As time paes, Lucie and Charles begin to raise a family.Carton is accepted as a close friend of the family and becomes a special favorite of little Lucie.In 1789, the Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille.The St.Evrémonde’ s chateau is burned to the ground.In 1792, Mr.Lorry travels to Paris to collect important documents.Darnay receives a letter written by Gabelle, one of his uncle's servants who have been imprisoned by the revolutionaries.Without telling his family or revealing his position as the new Marquis, Darnay sets out for Paris.After Darnay arrives in Paris, he is denounced for being an emigrated aristocrat from France and jailed in prison.Dr.Manette, Lucie and Mi Pro travel to Paris and meet Mr.Lorry to try to free Darnay.But after being released, Darnay is immediately arrested again.At this time, Carton met Solomon and identifies him.By threatening to denounce Solomon to the revolutionary tribunal, Carton blackmails him into helping with a plan.When Carton wanders into the Defarges' wine shop, he discovers that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family savaged by the Evrémondes.At night, Carton urges Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie, her father, asking them to leave as soon as he joins them in the coach.Shortly before the executions are to begin, Solomon sneaks Carton into the prison for a visit with Darnay.The two men trade clothes, and Carton drugs Darnay and let Solomon carry him out.Carton has decided to be executed in his place.Following Carton's earlier instructions, the family and Mr.Lorry flee to England with the unconscious Darnay.Meanwhile, Mi Pro kills Madame Defarge by mistake.Picking up this book was a brave move.This book was also a strong commentary regarding the Revolution.It was interesting to see the ironic way in which Dickens compares the aristocracy to the angry revolutionaries.The revolutionaries are mad for the aristocracy hurting and killing the innocent.Then, they turn around and start killing plenty of innocent people like the aristocracy just for the sake of watching their heads roll.The comparison in A Tale of Two Cities could be the theme of the novel, but the contrast alluded to in the titleallows Dickens to make a separate point.While Mi Pro represents England and a sense of English superiority, Dickens is not merely dredging up the ages old English-French conflict;he's saying something more subtle: that London at the time he was writing was a hair's breadth away from Paris during The Terror.These conditions, in which human brutality and cruelty arise and dominate for a time, are predictable, repeatable.That there is two side to the coin: the best of times and the worst of times;wisdom and foolishne;hope and despair exist side by side all times, all places.So the point of Carton's prophetic observations at the end is that in the blink of an eye, positions will be switched.But as contrast, Dickens is always an optimist.People have the capacity for good, retribution and vengeance will never match and outlast generosity and goodne;and love will, in the end, triumph.I am in awe of Dickens's ability to craft characters whose defining personality traits make them strongly through the story.And his depiction of France before and during the Revolution is vivid and bloody.For anyone who has read Dickens, the coined phrase “Dickinsonian characters” is highly accurate.The depth he goes to make us fall in love with them and his talent for describing their character so accurately is surely one of his greatest talents and should be always noted in his work.Besides the character and plot building aptitude, Dickens rouses every major emotion of mankind into this tale.The themes Dickens expounds upon are vast.From love to bitterne, from revenge to heroism, from sacrifice to friendship, and back to love again, he touches upon them all.This story covers almost all of the major themes in literature.Man struggling against nature, overcoming adversity, death being part of the life cycle, and of course, sacrifice, are just some of them.These struggles of man nature are also seen in echoes of other scenes, such as Manette's attempts with letting go of his time in prison as he makes his shoes, the memories of his time there still torturing him, and Lucie’s habit of sitting in her parlor as she hears the echo of the footsteps in the street, bringing a foreboding of what's to come combined with her personal battles and the political conflicts of the age.As there are so many meaningful quotes in this novel, I’d like to talk something about my favorite quotes which make me think a lot.“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms.Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppreion over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”
Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities sixty years after the revolution ended.In other words, human suffering isn’t simply an 18th-century French problem.A Tale of Two Cities, with all of the poverty and injustice it displays, is an exploration of conditions that will persist just as long as violence and inequity continue to flourish.“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.” A Tale of Two Cities is a novel that works on several levels.Most study it as social commentary about the French Revolution, but the theme that touches me most is love, which is overly sentimental.But the real topic of this book is love: the power of love makes us human, and it also gives us power to do things that we would never dream of doing.It is bravery, devotion and dedication that give ordinary people strength and allow us to be more than human.I firmly believe that in the end love is one of the few things that matters.Read A Tale of Two Cities.Charles Dickens will tell you that and so much more, in words that are immortal a and magnificent.So overall, I truly enjoyed reading this book even though I was impatient to see the action start a little quicker.Charles Dickens’s novel has helped to shape generations of readers’ understanding of love and one of the most pivotal events in modern history, French Revolution.Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton may not have appeared in the history, but they’re stamped in our cultural memory as key figures in the French Revolution.Dickens succeeds in making the French Revolution live in the hearts and minds of his readers.
