A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens: Literary Review
- Category Literature
- Subcategory English Literature
- Topic A Tale of Two Cities
- Words 623
- Page 1
At the beginning of the novel, a gentleman, dressed as a businessman, enters the heart of Paris. He is on a most disturbing mission, enough to make any businessman cry.
He was locked up in the worst prison, the Bastille. After almost two decades, he was released, again without explanation, and now lives in one of his former servants, Ernst Defarge. Dr. Manette will be free, but he is still undone. He spends most of his time fixing shoes and pacing back and forth in his darkroom. The doctor, who is so used to the small space of the prison that he does not understand that he can now go wherever he wants, seems condemned to a life worthy of pity.
Fortunately for him , he has the most perfect daughter in the world. Lucie, the girl he was forced to leave eighteen years ago, is now a charming, smiling, beautiful, and perfect star in the sky. Everything he touches seems to turn to gold. Vomit if you want, but Lucie will not stop being perfect. In fact, it will take every last drop of that perfection to restore his father to health.
As expected, he manages to bring Dr. Manette back to reality. The truth is that we never came to doubt it. After five, Dr. Manette is already a new man. He goes back to medicine, and he and Lucie live in a small house in Soho. They don’t have much money, but Lucie is in charge of bringing brilliance and joy to their lives.
Apparently, a young man named Charles Darnay is accused of providing classified information to the French government. The English trials of the time resemble deceptive magic tricks. Thanks to Lucie’s gracious testimony and the swift action of a man who bears a strange resemblance to Charles Darnay, he is found not guilty.
Already a free man, Charles Darnay realizes how perfect our dear Lucie is. He ends up opening a store in the Manette house, so he visits almost every day. Double Charles, a man of dubious reputation named Sydney Carton, is also attracted to Lucie. If Charles is resplendent, good and perfect, Sydney is … just the opposite. He also likes to belittle himself. In fact, we think you could use one of those treatments to boost your self-esteem in twelve steps.
Charles, on the other hand, is doing a little better. He marries Lucie. On his wedding day, he reveals a secret to Dr. Manette: he is actually a French nobleman and not just any nobleman, but the Marquis de Evrémonde himself. Since everything in Dickens’s novels has to be perfectly interrelated, it is not surprising that the Evrémondes are the evil brothers who locked up the good Manette. Of course the doctor gets a good scare at first, but over time he realizes that Charles is totally different from his father and his uncle, so he is willing to judge him by the man who is , and not because of the family he left behind.
Fortunately, Dr. Manette finds out what happened and, together with Lucie, travels to Paris immediately. Upon arrival he realizes that he became something of a celebrity, as those who have been wrongfully arrested during the old regime are now revered as heroes of the new republic. The doctor appears at the trial against Charles and dazzles the judges when he pleads for the release of his son-in-law.
At last peace reigns again. Rather, the French Revolution continues to plague France, but the Manette and Charles are out of danger, or at least that seems for a few hours. However, soon afterwards Charles is arrested again. On this occasion, the Defarge accuse him of belonging to the nobility and being an embarrassment to the country.