II. NOVEL: A TALE OF TWO CITIES, BY CHARLES DICKENS (1812–70)

A. Background of the Author

1. Biography

a) Early life and education, 1812–22

i. Born to John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens on February 7, 1812

ii. Childhood in Chatham, Kent, and early education

iii. His father’s books and early literary influences

b) Entering the world of the working poor, 1824

i. Father’s imprisonment in Marshalsea Prison for debt

ii. Sense of abandonment

iii. Work in Warren’s Blacking Factory (age 12)

c) Continuing education and work, 1825–27

i. Wellington House Academy

ii. Office boy for solicitors

d) Work as a reporter, 1828–34

i. Freelancing

ii. Work as parliamentary reporter

e) Early writing and editing, 1836–37

i. Previously published stories collected as Sketches by Boz in two series

ii. Serialization of The Pickwick Papers

iii. Edits Bentley’s Miscellany

f) Marriage and family, 1836–58

i. Marries Catherine Hogarth, April 2, 1836

ii. The first of ten children born, 1837

iii. Legal separation from Catherine, 1858

g) Commercial success, 1840–56

i. Editor of several journals

ii. Authors several serialized novels during this period

iii. Travels abroad

h) The theater, 1857

i. Directs and acts in Wilkie Collins’ play The Frozen Deep, an influence on A Tale of Two Cities

ii. Meets Ellen Ternan

i) The later novels and public readings, 1858–70

i. Composes three novels, including A Tale of Two Cities and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, left incomplete at his death

ii. Begins public readings for profit

iii. American reading tour and farewell readings in London

j) Death on June 9, 1870, and burial in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey

2. A sampling of other works

a) Oliver Twist, 1837–39

i. Monthly serial in Bentley’s Miscellany

ii. Brief plot summary

b) A Christmas Carol, December 1843

i. One in a series of five Christmas tales

ii. Brief plot summary

c) David Copperfield, 1849–50

i. First-person narrator, Bildungsroman

ii. Brief plot summary

d) Great Expectations, 1860–61

i. Weekly serial in All the Year Round

ii. Semi-autobiographical

iii. Brief plot summary

e) Conclusion: commonality of these novels with A Tale of Two Cities

3. Contemporary reception

a) Serialization and general popularity

i. Writing for monthly serialization

ii. Writing for weekly serialization

iii. Dickens’s readership

b) Reception of public readings in Europe and the U.S.

c) Disappointing reception of A Tale of Two Cities

B. Background of the Novel

1. The French Revolution

a) Background to the Revolution

b) The fall of the Bastille

c) The Reign of Terror

d) The aftermath of the Revolution

2. The influence of Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution

a) Influence of the historical content

b) Influence of Carlylean diction

3. The Revolutions of 1848

4. Dickens’s Victorian England

a) Suffering in the working classes and poverty

b) Influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Louis Mercier on Dickens’s view of the French Revolution

c) Dickens’s eyewitness account of an execution on the guillotine

5. The influence of Wilkie Collins’ play The Frozen Deep

C. Structure of the Novel

1. Serialization

2. The Victorian triple-decker novel

3. Story, plot, and subplot—duality and doubling

4. Beginnings and endings

D. Characters

1. Sydney Carton

a) The Byronic anti-hero

b) The sacrificial victim

2. Charles Darnay

a) Carton’s “double”

b) Anti-aristocratic beliefs

3. Lucie Manette

a) The Victorian heroine

b) Patterned on Ellen Ternan

4. Dr. Alexandre Manette

a) As prisoner

b) As physician

5. Marquis St. Evremonde—icon of aristocratic abuses

6. Jarvis Lorry—the man of “business”

7. Ernest Defarge—icon of the lower classes

8. Madame Defarge—the spirit of unrelenting revenge and female fury

9. The Vengeance—Madame Defarge’s allegorical companion

10. Jerry Cruncher—errand boy and “resurrection” man

11. Miss Pross—icon of English female virtues

12. C. J. Stryver—the solicitor

13. Gabelle

a) Former servant of the Marquis St. Evremonde

b) His name alludes to the French tax imposed on salt before 1790

14. Solomon Pross (aka John Barsad)—the spy

15. The Three Jacques—spying, secrecy, and denunciation

16. The Seamstress

E. Setting: Place, Time, and Atmosphere

1. Public and private spaces

a) The two cities: London and Paris

b) Dickens as the novelist of the modern city

c) Other public spaces

d) Private spaces

2. The years of the novel: 1757–93

3. Allusions to the place and time of writing, London in 1859

4. Atmosphere and mood

F. Literary and Narrative Techniques

1. Narrative point of view

2. Motifs and metaphor

3. Symbolism and allegory

4. Foreshadowing

5. Literary and historical allusions

G. Themes

1. Burial and resurrection

2. Class struggle and poverty

3. Revolution and war

4. Sacrifice, self-sacrifice, the scapegoat, and spiritual quests

5. Prisons, confinement, and release

6. The negotiation of public and private space

H. Style

1. Realism, Romanticism, and incantation

2. Parable, legend, and myth

3. Melodrama and sentimentality