A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities A rather down to earth review

Book The First - Introduction • OK, I know that this is a summary and all, but we’ve just got to quote this opening for you. After all, it’s probably one of the most well-known opening lines in English literature. Here goes: (Advance slide)

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness […]" • The sentence goes on for awhile, but you get the general picture. There are lots of opposites at work in the good ol’ eighteenth century. • As our narrator points out, these opposites are also rather…similar. • Remember – Paradox, Anaphora, Antithesis, Parallelism • Confused? Don’t be. (Advance slide)

It’s 1775 • This chapter, the greatest of all openings, is a sort of guidebook to the time. • If you’re a backpacker, you could think of it as the Lonely Planet for the eighteenth century.

We don’t really meet any characters (but don’t you worry, they’ll be here soon enough). • What we do get, however, is a breakdown of the important places in the novel: France and England. • According to our helpful narrator, things in both countries are going along just as they’ve always gone. • In fact, everything is so gosh-darn normal that folks are pretty convinced that things will stay the same forever.

That’s our first hint that things are going wrong. Anytime anyone says that things are going to stay the same, there’s a good chance that things are going to change. A lot. Anyone who’s seen movies about high school friends going to college and growing apart knows that.

To get back to our story, though: our narrator gives us a bird’s-eye view of events in England. • America has just flown the coop. People are pretty upset about that. • In France, things aren’t going so well. The economy is in a bit of a freefall. • Protestants are being persecuted (the French royalty, you see, is Catholic).

In case you’re thinking that England is a much, much nicer place to be, though, we should warn you: Catholics didn’t fare so well in England, either. • Our narrator predicts that trees are growing in the fields of France that will soon be cut and shaped into scaffolds and guillotines. Lovely.

Back in England, lots of crimes occur on a regular basis. Just about everyone gets brutally punished, regardless of whether their crime was severe or trifling. • In other words, things may be going along just as always – but that sure doesn’t mean that they’re going along smoothly.

FATE That about sums up the state of affairs. • Our narrator offers up a foreboding reference to the Woodsman (Fate) and the Farmer (Death) who will be reaping and sowing their harvest very, very soon. • Yup. Things are about to get ugly. DEATH

WOW! That was something. Let’s move on to Book The First Chapter 2

The Mail • Our friendly narrator sets the scene: it’s a Friday night in November. We’re on the Dover road. • Long, long ago, in the years before the Chunnel was built, people who wanted to travel to France took a boat from Dover to Calais. • Based on this information, we’re guessing that we’re about to see some traveling going on. It’s just a hunch.

Anyhow, zoom in on a guy who’s supposed to be traveling by mail coach to Dover. • A mail coach is a coach that, well, carries mail. And people. It’s drawn by horses. • We say that he’s supposed to be in the coach because, at the moment, he’s walking in the mud alongside it. • In fact, all of the passengers on the coach are walking beside it. In the mud. And no one’s all that happy about it. • The horses, you see, have gotten bogged down in the mud. Finally, the coachman manages to push the horses up to the top of the muddy hill. By the time they climb up it, it’s almost 10:00

Side notes: • Besides being muddy, the night is cold and foggy and altogether disgusting. • The longer we think about it, the less we understand why anybody would want to travel to Dover, at all. • All of a sudden, the coachman (we’ll call him Joe, since that's his name) hears horses’ hooves pounding in the distance. • A rider is following them! • Everyone stops and listens as a horse draws up to the carriage.

The rider of the horse asks for Mr. Jarvis Lorry. • A small man answers. He seems to think that the rider’s name is Jerry. • As it turns out, this is because the rider’s name is Jerry. We’re starting to trust this Mr. Lorry already. • Jerry gives Mr. Lorry a letter. • All of the other passengers eye Jerry suspiciously. Now that Mr. Lorry’s got a letter from Jerry, they eye him suspiciously, too.

Yuk! What could that mean? If he looks anything like this guy, count me out! • Mr. Lorry assures Joe that there’s nothing the matter. He (Mr. Lorry) is from Tellson’s Bank in London. • Mentioning the name of Tellson’s seems to do the trick. All of a sudden, everyone trusts Mr. Lorry. • He reads the note that Jerry handed to him, and tells Jerry to ride back to London to deliver one message: "Recalled to Life."

Sound interesting? Just wait. It is! • The coach starts off again (this time with the passengers on the inside). • As it travels, Joe remarks to Tom (another passenger) that the message Mr. Lorry gave to Jerry was rather cryptic. • Tom agrees. They puzzle over it for the rest of the journey.

THAT’S ABOUT IT FOR CHAPTER 2 Take a break and go to Ch. 3 and 4 Review Slide Show

A Tale of Two Cities