A Tale of Two Cities

(Themes and Symbols)

  Class Struggle (essay)
 The overarching theme of the novel is the struggle
between those who have power and privilege and those
who do not. At the beginning of the story, the French
aristocrats exercise complete and more-or-less unfettered
freedom to persecute and deprive those of the lower
classes. This fact is harshly illustrated in Doctor Manette's
prison manuscript which details how one of the
Evremonde brothers utilized his medieval privilege of
harnessing a vassal to a cart and driving him like an
animal to his death.
 Later, when the tables have turned, it is the peasants who
use their newly discovered power to harshly persecute
the aristocrats through mass executions and
imprisonment. Darnay notes when he is first interred in
La Force prison that the rough looking men are in charge
and the prisoners are polite and civil. Jerry Cruncher is
deeply affected by the revolution and he more than any
other English character in the novel would have reason
to be inspired by the uprising of the French poor.
 But as a good Englishman, his avowal that its bloody
sights have caused him to reconsider his grave robbing
occupation indicates that he, at least, recognizes the futility in
avenging violence with violence.
  Self-Sacrifice (essay)
 The novel's theme of self-sacrifice is best exemplified in
the character of Sydney Carton whose willingness to give
his own life for Lucie's happiness creates the means for
Charles Darnay's salvation. He makes this willingness
known well before the dangers of the revolution overtake
the family.
 This theme is furthered by the seamstress who
accompanies Carton to the Guillotine who hopes that by her
death her cousin, a long-suffering member of the peasant
class, will profit by the bloody revolution. Charles Darnay is
willing to sacrifice his own happienss when he returns to
France in an attempt to save the life of his former servant.
Furthermore, Doctor Manette is shown to sacrifice his own
mental health when he suffers a relapse of his prison-born
derangement by allowing the nephew of his nemesis to
marry his daughter.
  Fate (short note)
 The machinations of Fate figure prominently in the novel.
For instance, when Defarge remarks that he believes it a
strange fate that the son-in-law of his old friend Doctor
Manette should be marked for death in Madame Defarge's
knitting. "Stranger things than that will happen when it
[the revolution] does come" she replies. And stranger
things do indeed occur.
 Doctor Manette himself is caught in Fate's web when his
prison manuscript becomes the means of destroying his
family and later Madame Defarge suffers the workings of
destiny when her unquenchable desire for revenge leads
her to the Manette's apartment and her accidental death
by her own weapon. Charles Darnay's mother provides
one of the more telling predictions of Fate in the novel
when she suggests that her son will have to pay for his
father's crimes.
 Symbols
 Stone (objective)
 Stone facades and structures figure prominently in the
story and almost always reflect some characteristics of the
persons or action being described. For instance, the
Marquis St. Evremonde stone chateau and its various
carved images are used to convey the unyielding
arrogance of its inhabitant and the manner in which he
becomes simply another feature in its statuary.
 The Marquis' face in death is characterized as being like
"a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry and petrified"
(125). Later in the story, the image of the bloody
grindstone outside Tellson's Paris office acts as a
metaphor for the hard, unyielding fury of the mob and
serves as contrast to the interior apartment which shelters
the Manette's and Mr. Lorry.
  Footsteps (short note)
 The footsteps that echo outside the Manette's Soho home
are in Lucie's fancy symbolic of the numerous people that
she believes will enter into her family's life. She
perceives them as dangerous to her life and Carton
immediately states "I take them into mine" which
foreshadows his willingness to sacrifice himself to the
Paris mob in Darnay's place.
 Later in the story the symbolic footsteps are shown to be
those of the Paris mob when Mr. Lorry visits the Soho
home at the start of the revolution and remarks that the
echoing footsteps are "very numerous and very loud" that
evening. The next scene is that of the storming of the
Bastille which are the footsteps "stained red, the footsteps
raging in Saint Antoine afar off“.
  Knitting (Objective)
 In Madame Defarge's hands the act of knitting is
transformed from a wholesome activity of the home to a
method of keeping a list of people to be killed. As such,
her knitting becomes an important symbol in the story.
Knitting also takes the place of eating and becomes
symbolic of the suffering in the Saint Antoine district as
in the scene in which Madame Defarge moves among the
women of her street, all of whom are knitting.
 The narrator remarks that "They knitted worthless things;
but, the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for
eating and drinking . . . if the bony fingers had been still,
the stomachs would have been more famine-pitched"
(182).
 Shoemaking (Objective)
 Like knitting, the work of making shoes is taken from its
normal associations with craftsmanship and good
productivity and becomes a symbol of Doctor Manette's
mental instability. When Lucie first encounters him he is
engaged in the task of making shoes which he ceases only
when he hears her voice and begins the process of
overcoming his derangement. Later, when he has a
relapse, he returns to shoemaking but after recovering his
senses he remarks to Mr. Lorry that he is loathe to part
with his shoemaking implements.
 As the outward symbol of the doctor's mental illness,
Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross spare no effort in their "murder" of
the shoemaking tools but later, when Darnay has been
sentenced to die because of the doctor's Bastille manuscript,
the doctor has a relapse and begs pitifully for the tools of his
prison occupation.