Emily Gong

AP English Notes: A Tale of Two Cities

Notes:
The Two Cities
• Setting: year 1775, England and France
• Contradicting views and attitudes of the time period: “It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times…”
• England: a place of fervent religious sentiments and a empire about to be
shaken by the American Revolution
o Prevalent burglaries and waylaying
o Farmers could not leave town without taking extreme precaution of
insuring their belongings to trusted upholsterers’ warehouses
o Highwaymen---regular citizens and businessman by day---gallantly
shot at another thief
o Chaos and havoc in jails & counties---the hangman “ was in constant
requisition”---recklessly awarding the death penalty to all types of
prisoners (“the atrocious murderer” & the petty thief)
• France: a failing nation with a plunging economy, with corruption rampant
o Its attitude towards citizen: brutal and cruel---sentence a youth to
have hands cut off, tongue torn out, and body burn alive because he
did not bow to a procession of monks walking sixty yards away
• The foreboding terror of a revolution: the inhumanity breeds unrest and
dramatic change
o There were growing trees, when that suffer was put to death, already
marked by the Woodman, Fate to come down and be sawn into
boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and knife in
it, terrible in history. --- reference to the guillotine
o “rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire”---the carts which will bear
the weight of the dead, the beheaded
o worked silently---generally accumulate to the apex of events
• Rulers neglected the pains & turmoil in their kingdoms & claimed
complacency to their divine right despite the unsettling rush of rebellion &
unrest
Characters
Charles Darnay
• Is French aristocrat who condemn his family’s horrific traditions and ways;
has disowned his family and their property to live a self-made and
prosperous life in England
• Is first intertwined into the story as a man on trial for treasonaccused by
Roger Cly & John Barsard
• Found innocent by Mr. Strvyer and Sydney Carton’s testimony of doubtful
identification
• Is virtuous, considerate, compassionate man who sympathizes with the
wronged peasants and abhors his uncle’s corrupt lifestyle, starving the poor
for his own superficial lifestyle
 • Is garnished with adjectives like “sublime”, “attentive”, “soul to be stronger
than the sun”a heroic adornment
• Resembles greatly the countenance of Sydney Carton, though they are
polar oppositesCharles: well-natured, courageous, accomplished, and
refined; Sydney: drunk, sullen, aloof, and tragically underachieved
• Visits his uncle, Marquis de Evremonde, the night before his death and
discards his property and renounces his aristocratic name; shows the
contrast between him and his antecedent=> the diversity of his judgment
to his uncle’s
o “We have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits of wrong.” ---Charles
o “the family honor”—paradoxical name to gory and heartless crimes
done by the Evremonde family
• hardworking, intuitive young man who earned his earning from tutoring
students French
o “he had neither expected to walk on pavements of gold, nor lie on
beds of roses”---a compliment to his diligent personality; willing to
work and rely on himself
• however, he keeps his true identity in secrecydoes not utter it until the
day of his and Lucie’s marriage
• His humility evident: he vows to never break Lucie from her father, that her
marriage to him will only secure the tie between father and child even
more: “Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and
French; but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing
can be.”
• His marriage with Lucie prompts a relapse in Doc. Manette—Charles is
unaware of this; the reason for the return of his shoemaking behavior is that
Charles has told Dr. Manette his true last name: Evremonde, the very
people to imprisoned Dr. Manette in the Bastille for many years
• Forgiving: he quickly accepts Carton as an extended family, when Carton
tells him he is no longer hostile to Darnay and dislike him; he assures Lucie
later that he will take nothing against Carton
• His values take him back to France, where he must go to rescue one of his
servants, Gabelle, from deathstrongly believes that his deeds of
confiscating the property and distributing it among commoners has been
noticed and shield him from harm
• Instead, he is locked up upon his arrival into Paris, escorting to his cell by
Monsieur Defarge, who is unyielding & ambivalent to Charles as the Doc.’s
daugther’s husband
• His compassion as his great weakness: he is overlooked in prison for a year
and three months, due to the influence of Dr. Manette
• Is a great embodiment of love & generosity: he is willing to risk his life to
save a servant’s, who is theoretically inferior to him
• Is saved by Sydney Carton and is whisk away from France unconscious and
under the guise of Sydney Carton, when the real Sydney Carton meets his
end
Sydney Carton
• A wastrel and a pessimistic, sarcastic, and alcoholic Englishman who
believes his life worthless & impassive and has tired himself as other
people’s laborer hence jackal; a dynamic change within him after his
unrequited love for compassionate Lucie Manettegives his life new values
and weight with his voluntary sacrifice to preserve the Manette family
• Is first shown to the reader as a lawyer at Charles Darnay’s trialwins over
the case when he exposes his face to prove the ambiguity of the accusation
against Darnay
• Hardly sober, he invites Charles to dine at a local tavern and mockingly
asks him how it must feel to be pitied and seen by Lucie; he hushed out
that he dislikes Charles Darnay (possibly out of jealousy)
• Carton is next seen been approached by Mr. Stryver, the “lion” striving for
prestige and control
o “that although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an
amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to
Stryver in that humble capacity”
o Repented his useless path: “you were always somewhere and I was
always nowhere.”
o The conversation turns for the worse when Mr. Stryver tries to cheer
Carton up by mentioning Lucie; Carton, averse to aggravate himself
more over his overflowing love, spats out that she is only a “golden-
haired doll” (doll--- with looks but no substance)
o Wistful of his desolate future w/ no one and nothing to share cries
himself to sleep
• Is well acquainted at the Manettes’ house, yet is naturally indifferent to
Lucie during his visit; he comments however passionately to Lucie’s remark
about footsteps
o “There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I
see them by the Lightning…And I hear them. Here they come, fast,
fierce, and furious!”
o Here: a hint of foreshadowing of their reunion: “Perhaps. Perhaps, see
the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon
them, too.” ---they do not share another evening together
• His impression in the Manette House: “He certainly never shone in the
house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year,
and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there.”
• Has stalked Lucie and walked restlessly around her house and the
neighboring paths, strolling off his growing love for herlater comes to her
to confess his affection, knows there is no delightful answer awaiting him,
and only wishes her to remember his love as a token of his appreciation to
her for his change in characterhe will no longer be the profligate, the
scum
o “since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse from old voices
impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had
unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning a new, shaking off sloth
and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight.”
 o “wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap
of ashes that I am into fire---a fire, however inseparable in its nature
form myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service,
idly burning away.”
o “"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a
visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and
between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to
say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to
you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that
there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would
embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold
me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this
one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming,
when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet
more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest
ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the
little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see
your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and
then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you
love beside you!”
• mysteriously arrives in Paris during Charles’s second arrest; corners John
Barsard with evidence of treason in order for Barsard to cooperate with
Sydney’s selfless plan
o change in Sydney: “Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the
end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on
Sydney’s arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt
to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of
inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner,
but changed and raise the man.”
• Carton strolls around the eroding neighborhood of France at the night
before Darnay’s second trialsince his arrival in Paris, he has fully
anticipated and prepared to switch his life for Lucie’s happiness; he buys
chemicals that, when amalgamated, will emit a smell that doses slumber
• Keeps repeating these words: “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the
Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”
• He blesses Lucie one last time at the end of Charles Darnay’s second trail,
whispering to her “a life you love”signal and clue to what he may do
next---will he die?
• He rushes back to Mr. Lorry after visiting Defarge’s wine shop--- persuading
Lorry to send the family and himself away next morning from France, for
they were in dangerheard at the wineshop Madame Defarge is really to
convict themasks Lorry to take his passport w/o any reason
• Tricks Charles Darnay to swap clothes with him, then dupes Darnay into
inhaling sleeping vaporBarsad takes Darnay, disguised as Carton, out of
prison---Carton’s final show of love to Lucie, true to his words
 • He comforts and holds hand with a poor seamstress to his deathhe has
ensured the Manette’s family a wholesome future
Doctor Alexander Manette
• A professional doctor who is caged in the Bastille for 18 years by the
Evremonde brothers to prevent him from revealing the truths of their
surreptitious acts-raping a girl peasant & murdering her brother
• Has lose his sanity in the beginning due to his long incarceration; he has
resorted to shoemaking when Lucie first meets him in Defarge’s wineshop
• The sight of his daughter rejuvenates his spirits and his hopeshe clearly
grows stronger with Lucie’s presence and care
• He is “resurrected” from his mental and physical imprisonment by his
daughteryet anything that provokes him will cause relapses of his second
personalitydistressed when questioned at court about his jail time and
Charles Darnay’s mention of a cell with DIG inscribed on the walls; goes
back to his shoe making after knowing Charles’s true identity, Charles’s
asking permission for his daughter’s hand, & after his failed attempt to
rescue Charles from the guillotine
• Manette's transformation testifies to the tremendous impact of relationships
and experience on life. The strength that he displays while dedicating
himself to rescuing Darnay seems to confirm the lesson that Carton learns
by the end of the novel—that not only does one's treatment of others play
an important role in others' personal development, but also that the very
worth of one's life is determined by its impact on the lives of others
• In Book 3, his incarceration and its experience becomes his strength; he is
able to use his reputation and his past as influences to saving Lucie’s
husband, Charleshe finally sees value and grace in his bondage and it no
longer torments him as it did beforethere is purpose to what he has
endured
• Is the exemplification of reincarnation and forgivenessat the end, he
seeks to protect the man whose family has done him such harm---knows to
see Charles as a standing individual and not coerce Charles to bare the
villainous reputation of his ancestor: he is not representative of anyone but
himself
• Was captured and fully informed of the Evremonde brothers’ crimeshe
was taken to Madame Defarge’s sister and brother to cure them is
thoroughly horrified by the maltreatment of the peasants’ family
• Is revered and respected by all; even the revolutionaries, like Monsieur
Defarge, are hesitant to hurt him and disobey his wishes
Lucie Manette
• Is the sacred “golden thread” in the story, able to revive both her father
from mental death and Sydney Carton from a directionless & insolent life
• Is the symbol of family, great compassion, and loveher striking beauty
and gentle personality all appeal and evoke each major characters’ bravest
& brighter sides
o Sydney Carton: is willing to devote everything, even his life, to grant
Lucie happiness and protection
 o Doc. Manette: is able to overcome his mental deterioration with her
caressing and fully wiling to put aside his overshadowed personal
vendetta towards the Evremonde family for her sake
• Is a direct contrast to Madame Defarge—she is genteel and empathic;
Madame Defarge is cold, vengeful, and bloodthirsty
• Is the love of Sydney Carton and was fancied also by Mr. Stryver as a
suitable wife; is the wife of Charles Darnay
• Is the lady that all hope to shield from the perils and gory of the French
Revolution and of human vicesimpersonates the good moralities of
mankindtruth, compassion, and sympathy
• Was an orphan before finding her jailed fatherrather fragile and weak at
first appearance
• Frequently hears “footsteps” that enter and exit out of her life
Monsieur Ernest Defarge
• An ex-servant of Doc. Manette and helped orchestrate the start of the
French Revolution
• Shows admirable loyalty to the doctor, which, in effect, slightly
counterbalances his thirst for killing and conviction that has engrossed his
wife, Madame Defarge
• Harbors the doctor at his wineshop in the beginning of the story, allow his
fellow revolutionaries to see firsthand the destruction done in the hands of
the corrupt French aristocracy
• Is completely opposed to the marquisevidence: throws back the gold coin
that Marquis rewards him; displays false sense of tranquility to the
Monseigneur when he holds back Gaspard after The Marquis runs over a
child
• Is Jacques Four when under duty
• However, he is more humane and is not completely driven by vengeance
and hatred; he shows times of fatigue and depression for his surreptitious
lifestyle-it is a long time.
• Recoils in front of Madame Defarge, who he fears
• Lead the peasant on the attack of Bastille, caused the death of a governor
Madame Therese Defarge
• Younger sister of the victimized family who met its destruction in the hands
of Evremondes
• Lives only for retaliation: is willing to do all means of destroying the
aristocrat familyeradicate any roots of the Evremonde family; plots in the
end to murder Lucie and her daughter
• Knits out indecipherable symbols that represent the names who have died
unfairly or those who are condemned to deathknits in front of Marquis de
Evremonde and Lucie and her daughter
• Utterly ruthlesswill stop at nothing to get what she wants “Tell the Wind
and the Fire to stop; not me!”; nothing to haggle with her; she will do all
that she can for her notorious, murderous wishes to come true
 • Plots with Jacques Three and the Vengeance to accuse Lucie of plotting with
prisoners by signaling to them when she waits near the wood-sawyer shop
• “But the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child
must follow the husband and father.”
• “There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a
dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be
dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of
a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great
determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its
possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive
recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up,
under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding
sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had
developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had
ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her. It was nothing to
her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw,
not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a
widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment,
because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no
right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of
pity, even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the
many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have
pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she
have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places
with the man who sent her there.”
Jarvis Lorry
• business-oriental bachelor with an affectionate heart and good morals
• first brought to attention in Chp. 2, where he is one of three passengers on
the Dover mail carriage
• his travels introduces to readers the truculent & uncertain times the
characters live in; the carriage ride- no one trusts the other; there is an
ubiquitous existence of suspicion & a fear of assault—Dickens does so
through portrayal of horses & creating murky atmosphere
• “usual genial position that the guard suspected eh passengers, the
passengers suspected one another, and the guard, they all suspected
everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses”
• belongs to the Tellson’s Bank & leaves Jerry with the message, “Recalled to
Life” later exposed to be related to Doctor’s Manette release from
imprisonment
• is greatly troubled by the deteriorating physical and mental conditions of
Doc. Manette—Chp. 3 reverberates the eerie dialogue between him &
Manette—“Buried how long? Almost eighteen years. You had abandoned al
hope to being dug out? Long ago. You know that you are recalled to life?
They tell me so. I hope you care to live? I can’t say. Shall I show her to you?
Will you come and see her?”
• orderly & methodical---everything in his prediction and according to
schedule
• Description: “Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each
knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-
coat…he had a good leg. His shoes and buckles were trim. He wore an odd
little sleek crisp flaxen wig. His linen was as white as the tops of waves that
broke upon the neighboring beach”very pernicious
• shelters himself from disturbing thoughts and awkward situations with
business---business is the neutral ground where everything sways according
to pattern & convention
o faces Ms. Manette’s problem with a mechanized tone—“I am a man of
business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. I your
reception o fit, don’t heed me any more than if I was a speaking
machine.”
o In providing information on Dc. Manette—“in the banking business we
usually call our connection our customers…”
o “And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying I had
no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with my fellow creature
are mere business relations, when you reflect that I have never seen
you since… Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them.”
o “A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of business---business
that must be done.”
o “A-a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact
business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kind
mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how
many shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should
be so much more at my easy about your state of mind.”  replies to
Lucie’s disperse of agony & fear
o His gesture---hard, indifferent, swiftDickens wastes no adjectives in
protruding the absence of grace and emotion in Lorry’s behaviors
• a show of loyalty--- he journeys with his ex-master’s daughter for their
meeting; also he later pleads Stryver to first allow him to ask Lucie if she
would want to marry Stryver (a responsibility and strong affections towards
the Manettes)
• He is a witness to the trial of Charles Darnay in Britainhe sees both Roger
Cly & John Barsad/Solomon Pross, later known as pronounced spies for the
French
• He proves himself a dear friend of the Manettes when Dr. Manette relapse
into his alter-personality as a shoemakerhe waits nine nights, overseeing
the doctor’s conditionin the end, he purposely demolishes his shoemaking
pieces, indirectly murdering his alter-ego=proving he is not merely just a
man of business as he proclaimsthe Manettes have soften him from a
machine into a human being
• His devotion to Tellson’s Bank is again shone through during the French
Revolution, when it is dangerous to enter Parishowever, he is firm about
saving the documents and concluding Tellson’s Bank affairs in France
 • He cares greatly about the bankconcludes that he cannot shelter Lucie
and her family from the French peasants in the bank, as her stay might
jeopardize the bankhe relocates them in a secure place near his home
• He escapes at the end with the Manettes, as planned by Sydneyhe takes
Sydney’s English passport and Dr. Manette’s certificate of leaving w/o much
questioning and successfully flees with the family, unknowing that Sydney
has substituted Charles at the guillotine
Jerry Cruncher
• A messenger man for the Tellson’s Bank who has a night job as a
Resurrection man
• An extremely suspicious man who claims that his wife must be plotting
against him with God as her weapon every time she prays
o “Worth no more than that…they ain’t worth much then. Whether or
no, I won’t be prayed again, I tell you. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going
to be made unlucky by your sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself
down, flop in favor of your husband and child and no in opposition to
’em. If I had had any but a unat’ral wife, and this poor had had any
but a unnat’ral mother, I might have made some money last week
instead of being counter-prayed and countermined and religious
curcumwented into the worst to luck. Buuust me!”
o is dreadfully afraid of the message “recalled to life””much of that
wouldn’t do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You’d be in a Blazing bad way,
if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!”
• is struck and fearful of God, due to his sacrilegious job as a resurrection
man
• is discovered by young Jerry that his father excavates the dead, but instead
of being appalled, the son’s infinite admiration of his father blinds him into
accepting his father’s side job as potential future occupationhe sees
nothing wrong with it
• hands are often covered with rust from his exhuming visits to the cemetery
• he provides heavy evidence during Carton’s interrogation of Barsad that
Cly, another British spy, was not buried in his coffin
• views him as, ironically, an “honest tradesman”
Miss Pross
• British housemaid who is superfluously loyal to Lucie Manette; sister of
wicked Solomon Pross
• Seen as “wild”, “red-haired”, but these description deeply contrast with her
affectionate and reflective nature
• Is the ultimate counterpart of Madame Defarge; Pross attempts everything
to protect her “Ladybird” vs. Defarge manipulates everything (the wood
sawyer’s words) to destroy her Pross even forfeits her chance of escape
with Jerry Cruncher, dreading the possibility of rising suspicions if two
carriages left the same house
• “If those eyes of yours [Madame Defarge’s] were bed winches…and I was
an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked
foreign woman; I am your match.”
 • Goes deaf after killing Madame Defarge in self-defense love conquers all
Monseigneur a.k.a. Marquis Evremonde
• Is the evil uncle of Charles Darnay who is nonchalant of French’s abrading
harmony and indignant towards the French peasants, measuring their worth
to be lower than his horses
• Lives in extravagant lifestyle with a contentious air
o “Yes, it took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and
the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in
his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by
Monseinguer to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips”
the excessive lifestyle that the aristocrats abuse while commoners
in France are plague with --“hunger was pushed out of the tall house,
in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was
repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the
man sawed off: hanger started down from the smokeless chimneys,
and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among it
refuses, of anything to eat.”
o Lives with opera, with servants, and surrounded by men of little use
and knowledge and embellished with clothes masked with
superfluous jewels and linens
• Is completely unsympathetic and holds with great disdain of the French
peasants—sees their lives valueless and wasted
o “It is extraordinary to me…that you people cannot take care of
yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in
the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See!”
o pays the father of the trampled child a gold coin, as if the child’s life
is tolled on a small price
o when Defarge comforts Gaspard, Marquis fondly approves of his
comment that the child was better dead than alivehe believes that
the extermination of all peasantry is hygienic; all of them are worth
more dead than alive
o “You dogs! I would ride over any of you very willingly, and
exterminate your from the earth.”
o Shuns off a woman with a petition to mark her husband’s gravedoes
not care for any type of comfort to those who are below him
• Refers to all the laborers as some sort of animal: complete disregard of
them as human beings “pig” and “dog”
• Sees him ultimately superior, the lack of acknowledgement that his
detested practices will bring him any danger
o “Let us hope so…Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of
the low.”
o “Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear
and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as
long as this roof shuts out the sky.”
• He dies with a knife stabbed into his heart and attached to the knife was a
message “drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”
 • He is a venomous character; he raped Madame Defarge’s older sister for his
pleasure and killed her brother, resentful that he had crossed hands with a
peasant
Mr. Stryver
• An arrogant, insensible lawyer who hunts for top society; has few etiquettes
and is contentious
• Is limited in skill and performance and highly depends on his partner, the
“jackal” Sydney Carton for research and argumentshe is the lion
• Believes that Lucie would once marry him because he was position, money,
and healthdoes not acquire much about romance and love into the matter
of marriage
• Is defiant as he abashes Lucie for her rejection of his marriage proposal
reverting the whole situation to his advantage, claiming that she was the
one seeking for his hand, that he was at no fault and felt Lucie as ineligible
for his standard
• “The polite rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite
bloated Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account
in the training of the young gentlemen, by direction them to bewared of the
pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of
declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine on the Arts Mrs. Darnay
had once put in practice to ‘catch’ him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond
arts in himself, madam which had rendered him ‘not to be caught.’”
John Barsad/Solomon Pross
• a British spy turned French spy who helps Carton with Darnay’s escape plan
he is the turnkey
• he is also the disloyal brother of Miss Pross, leaving her once bankrupted
and lost
• testified in the beginning against Charles Darnay for being a adversary of
the British
Roger Cly
• also a British spy who feigned death to escape from England
• is recognized by Carton during his mysterious arrival in France during
Charles Darnay’s second arrest
Gabelle
• Darnay’s French servant who supervised the distribution of the royal
property to the peasants and whose arrest prompts Charles Darnay’s
imperious decision for an urgent return to turbulent France
Gaspard
• A Jacque who kills Marquis de Evremonde for running over his child and is
later executed for his crime
Jacques
• Introduced 5 Jacques, which Monsieur Defarge as Jacques Four
• Are code names for revolutionaries at the wine shop
• Jacques Three---breeds chaos, is described as “cannibal”a lust for
bloodshed
The Vengeance:
 • The closest friend and ally of Madame Defarge
• Is ruthless and relentless for slaughter and sabotage; has a swelling enmity
towards the aristocracy equal to that of Madame Defarge
• May be an alter-ego of Madame Defarge
• Shows the level of animosity within Madame Defarge to befriend and favor
such people

Important Scenes:
Recalled to Life
• Reunion between Lucie & Doc. Manette:
o Dr. Manette--- a gloomy and death-like depiction of him, craving over
finishing shoes
o Recalled to Life---the life free from 18 years of imprisonment and
maltreatment; released into a life anewDr. Manette
• The Wine shop Scene:
o Wine=blood
o Is a scene foreshadowing the ceaseless thirst of the French peasantry of
murder, gore, and bloodshedsetting in motion the destitution of the
French system and the cruelty and dichotomy of wealth
o “All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their
idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine.”
The Golden Thread
• The Case against Charles Darnay:
o Exposes the ambivalence of justice and trust within the English system;
the intolerance of fairness and compassion is penitent to both England
and France
o The jury trust two disloyal spies over a genuinely true and kind-spirited
Frenchmanreversal of what the justice system and conscience should
really add up to
o “The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at,
was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less
horrible sentence—had there been a chance of any one of its savage
details being spared—by just so much would he have lost in his
fascination.”the rusting token of charity and modesty giving way to a
satisfaction for pain and death
• Monseigneur’s carriage accident:
o Evident here that the aristocracy discredit the peasantry as completely
diffident creatures that must serve their will
o Monseigneur sees his horses are more valuable than a human child’s life
o “Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven
away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some
common thing, and had paid for it and could afford to pay for it”
o first confrontation between the royals and the reckless revolutionaries
like the Defarges
• The Conversation b/w Darnay & Marquis:
o a point of contrast between Darnay and Marquis’s values and beliefs
 o Darnay: sees the faults of his antecedents and communicates his guilt to
his uncle
o Marquis: he will live the way that his ancestor did before; believes that
there are people who are inevitably above others
• Sydney Carton’s Confession to Lucie Manette:
o A turning point of Sydney’s character and the beginning of his
transformation
o Gives Lucie his blessing that he will do whatever it takes to fulfill her
happiness
• Comparison b/w Mr. Stryver & Sydney Carton: (love for Lucie)
o Mr. Stryver is contemptuoushe only fancies Lucie for her beauty and
sees her as a good companion; does not truly love herdiscredits Lucie
as a charming and well natured woman after she rejects him; bloating
pride and insolence
o Sydney—willing to go far and beyond his ability to grant her happiness
and joytrue love for a ladysacrifices his life for her marriage and
family
• The Resurrection Men/ “Honest Tradesman”:
o Jerry Cruncher—resurrecting the dead bodies to surgeons
• The Rendezvous of the Five Jacques:
o Discuss the gruesome details of Gaspard’s capture and execution
o The hatred boiling between the revolutionaries “The looks of all of
them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the
countryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was
authoritative too.”
• Madame Defarge’s Rose & Knitting:
o Rose a symbol of love; however, here it is a sign of grave warning of
prosecution and then death
o Rose in the hair of a cold-hearted and loveless ladyirony
• The Fall of the Bastille:
o Monsieur Defarge finds Alexander Manette’s letter
The Track of a Storm
• Capture of Charles Darnay: (the prisoners’ behaviors & Monsieur
Defarges’)
o Those imprisoned were calm and genteel, in contrast to Monsieur
Defarge’s impassionate and nonchalant manner
• The Meeting b/w Madame Defarge & Lucie
o Madame Defarge’s pitiless character vs. Lucie’s gratitude and
momentous compassion
o “That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received
it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands
that knitted. It was a passionate, loving thankful, womanly action, but
the hand made no response—dropped cold and heavy and took it its
knitting again.”

Symbols & Themes:

• Shoemaking: refuge from reality; ensnaring
• Knitting: Defarge’s method of denouncement
• Echoes of Footsteps: foreshadowing device for the upcoming chaos and
delusion for the Family
o First spoken of by Lucie in England of “ imagine[ing] them the footsteps
of the people who are to come into my life, and my father’s”
o In chp. “Echoing Footsteps”, footsteps are the main topic; the contrast of
previous benevolent people who had constituted Lucie’s English life (the
death of her son, the treads of Sydney and Mr. Stryver) to the thundering
approach of the Fall of the Bastille
o “Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far
out of her life1 For, they are headlong, mad and dangerous, and in the
years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door,
they are not easily purified when once stained red.”
• Wine/Blood: thirst for violence, destruction, and starvation for murder and
chaos
• Guillotine: symbol of condemnation and damnation; the representation of the
corruption and recklessness of the French peasantry
• Flies: the aristocrats
• Resurrection: redemption and rebirthDr. Manette and Sydney Carton
(metaphorically); Jerry Cruncher (literally)
• Duality: England vs. France, Sydney Carton vs. Charles Darnay, Miss Pross vs.
Madame Defarge
• Social Injustice: the dehumanizing treatment of the French peasantry under
the control of the aristocrats; the biased and corrupt execution of thousands
under the Republicseamstress with Darnay, wrongly accused of plotting
• Protection of Family: Sydney Carton’s death for the preservation of the
Manette-Darnay’s family