Tale of Two Cities, Charles

¶ … Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens portrays the cities of London and Paris at a time just prior to and during the French Revolution. Through a skillful weaving of tales involving the lives of a number of English and French citizens as their lives play out against the backdrop of the intrigue and violence of the revolutionary period, Dickens shows that the personal lives of all individuals are intertwined with their political selves. In doing so he echoed a modern day political adage coined by feminist-activist Carol Hanisch: "The personal is political" (Hanisch, 1969). In contemporary political discourse this phrase in generally thought to have a positive and motivational message. However, by building his novel around a similar concept and setting the action within the context of a bloody revolution, Dickens seems to suggest that the link between the personal and political is not always beneficial. In fact, by presenting an argument that shows the lives of his two main characters Darnay and Carton, coming to an ultimate resolution in which they each find salvation at the hands of an outrageous political injustice, Dickens suggests that not only is the personal linked to the political, it is obliterated by it. In this paper, the juxtaposition of personal and political elements in Dickens' tale will be reviewed to show that Dickens mechanistic view of the state ultimately drove him to sacrifice his characters on the altar of politics.

1. Structural Details and Literary Elements

Dickens writes his novel in order to tell the story of men and movements and how they interact. The basic outlines of the novel are revealed in an intricate pattern, slowly unfolding to reveal personal intrigue meant to parallel the political intrigue raging in the streets. In order to better discuss the themes and politics in the novel, a brief summary of the story is first in order.

Dickens begins his story in 1775, with the famous passage juxtaposing the "best of time" and the "worst of times." He portrays the monarchs in both England and France in ways that show them mindlessly and arrogantly pursuing their interests while the forces of fate gather their strength around them and threaten to impose change. England, despite its daily problems of robberies and avarice, is clearly shown to be the preferable place, as France is ruled by a vain and despotic pair, for which wood was even then being grown to be used in the guillotine. He writes of France in this earliest section with harsh condemnation, setting the stage for the severe violence that will follow: "Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do the honour to a procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards" (p.2). Thus, Dickens opens the door for an overt political interpretation of his work to be made: How can a state can take such action for such unjust reasons? Nevertheless, it has. Along the road that these harsh sovereigns' tread, lay the stories of hundreds of "small creatures," Dickens claims. He has set the stage to tell a few of his own.

Dickens focuses on four main characters: Dr. Manette, a respectable and gentle soul who has just come, in the opening chapters, from spending eighteen maddening years in prison at the Bastille for reasons which remain mysterious for much of the novel; Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who chooses to live in England because he despises the injustice of the social system in France; Lucie Manette, the lovely young French daughter of the doctor, who has an inspiring and compelling impact on people around her; and Sydney Carton, a down-and-out English alcoholic attorney who loves Lucie, befriends Darnay, and wishes his life had more meaning.

With the stage set and the characters introduced, the story can be told. In 1780, Darnay is in England, on trial for treason. His case is not going well until Carton enters and takes up his defense. Carton points out that he and Darnay bear a striking resemblance to one another, and uses this point to suggest that witnesses who have identified Darnay as a spy have mistaken his identity. Later that night at a tavern Darnay and Carton meet Lucie and Dr. Manette and Carton sees that Lucie has feelings for Darnay, adding to a feeling of envy he already has for Darnay, who is successful and sensitive while he himself is on the brink of resignation and despair.

Darnay travels to France where he meets his snobbish uncle, who represents the worst in French aristocracy. In fact on the very day Darnay had arrived he had run over a child in the streets with his carriage and hadn't even shown a hint of concern, simply tossing coin to the parents and going on his way. In spending time with the uncle Darnay comes to despise his values and thereby rejects his family name. He announces his intention to return permanently to England.

We next find Darnay in England, after a year has passed. He has asked Dr. Manette for permission to seek Lucie's hand in marriage. Carton, too, loves Lucie and he quickly makes his appeal to her, telling her that she has the power to transform him. However, he sees that he has little hope of success. Darnay proposes and Lucie accepts. Prior to their wedding, however, Darnay tells Dr. Manette the secret of his true identity, revealing his uncle's name. Manette mysteriously relapses into the mentally ill state that he had exhibited when we first saw him coming out of prison. This little bout with madness is over quickly, however, and he recovers and comes to live with Darnay and Lucie. They have Carton over to their house and tell him that he is a welcome friend in their home.

It should be pointed out here that there are other minor characters and stories which are injected into the story, the most important of which is the tale of an English spy named Barsad who is in France seeking to gain information on the plot for revolution. He enters a wine shop owned by a DeFarge and asks a few questions. Even as he is doing this, Madame Defarge is sewing a secret registry of names that the revolutionaries plan to kill. This small exchange is meant to remind the reader that the real events of the revolution are occurring while the relationships between the four main characters are being explored. However even more important for the thesis of this paper is the fact that this exchange between seemingly minor characters comes later in the novel to hold major political importance, as these characters prove to be the ones that push our main characters into direct contact with the revolution in the moment of the story's resolution .

The scene has shifted to 1789. The revolution has begun, the Bastille has been stormed, and the revolutionaries are prowling the streets, killing aristocrats. Darnay receives a note from the man who has run his uncle's estate, asking him for help in winning his release from jail. Darnay goes to France to attempt to help, but he himself is placed in prison on immigration violations. The prevalent theme of imprisonment runs throughout the final section of the novel, as the characters find themselves struggling against the revolutionaries but always held in fear of their ability to mete out violence and ignore rights.

Lucie and Dr. Manette go to France to gain Darnay's release. They do so, through appealing to the revolutionaries, based on the fact that Dr. Manette had been in the Bastille. Darnay is released but immediately placed back in jail on charges brought by DeFarge. Carton goes to France to attempt to win Darnay's release, and finds an ally in his cause in the person of the English spy Barsad, who (in the crazy world of Dickens) just happens to be the long-lost brother of Lucie's servant.

Defarge, we find, has discovered that Darnay's uncle was responsible for Dr. Manette's imprisonment. (This had been the reason for Dr. Manette's mysterious relapse when told Darnay's true name.) The revolutionary jury condemns Darnay to die for the sins of his ancestors. He is sent to jail to await death. Carton later overhears DeFarge plotting to have Lucie executed, too, as well as the younger daughter she and Darnay have recently had. He decides a course of action.

Carton arranges for the Manettes to return to London. He goes to visit Darnay in prison, while visiting with his friend, tricks him into changing clothes with him. He then drugs his friend and enlists Barsad to carry Darnay's drugged body, disguised now as Carton, to a waiting coach so that he can return to England with his family. He then goes to the guillotine in Darnay's placed, disguised as his friend, and acting with the assurance that it is a "far better" thing that he is doing than anything he has ever done before.

2. Political Themes: The Loss of Personal inside the Political

Dickens uses characters, language, metaphor, and other literary elements in order to link his characters to the political themes in his book. It was been seen in the previous section how the setting of the novel indicated that an overt political interpretation was possible. In this section the precise nature of that political interpretation will be discussed.

Dickens makes suggestions throughout the text regarding the connection between the personal lives of his characters and their political selves. For example, when he is narrating the travels of a lorry driver who is on the way to pick up Dr. Manette from the prison at the novel's beginning, he remarks upon "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other" (14) It is in the way such individuals are situated relevant to their societies, and the way their mysteries are made known to their societies, that their explicitly political natures are manifested. Daniel Stout makes this point in a different way while discussing an interaction between Darnay and a border guard in France just before he is arrested for immigration violations:

In this novel, the fact that life has been borrowed is so prevalent that even nameless border officials know it. When Charles returns home to France and is told that "his cursed life is not his own," the Revolutionary official does not mean that Charles is only pretending to be "thicker than a gramophone record," but he does mean something that Charles had already begun to understand even in England - that his life has been and remains only on increasingly tenuous loan. (p.6)

This results in what Stout calls "the Indifference of personhood" in Dickens' novel (p.6). Dr. Manette is seen being mentally or not being mentally ill. Darnay is committed to England or not committed to England. There are rumors and intrigue that suggest either is the case. It hardly matters in the end. The point is that the society owns the person in some significant way, and that their political selves govern their personal selves in all aspects of life.