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1 Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, into a family of lower middle-class origins. His father, John Dickens, was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office who had a tendency to live beyond his means. Charles was the second child and eldest son born to John and his wife Elizabeth. Six more children were to follow, exacerbating the family s inability to successfully manage their burgeoning household on their meager income. Shortly before he turned twelve, Dickens father was sent to debtor s prison. John Dickens, his wife and children with the exception of Charles and his older sister, were sent to the Marshalsea Prison. Charles was removed from school and sent to work pasting labels on bottles in a boot-blacking factory, earning six shillings a week to help support his family. This became a defining experience in his life, and he later wrote that he wondered how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age. After the family was released from prison, Charles was further psychologically scarred when his mother insisted he continue working at the boot blacking factory. His father was able to rescue him from this situation and he was able to return to school, but these events left their marks on Dickens. Having known the humiliation and despair of poverty in his youth, he never forgot it. Repeatedly in his writing, he exposed the evils of society, the plight of the lower classes, and the need for reform. Themes of childhood poverty and abandonment run throughout several of his novels. In 1829 he became a free-lance court reporter, and in 1830 he met and fell in love with Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a banker. He became a successful shorthand reporter of Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons in 1832, and began to work as a reporter for a newspaper. His relationship with Maria Beadnell eneded in 1833, probably because her parents disapproved of him. His first story was published in the same year, under the name of Boz. In 1835 Dickens met AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY 1 and became engaged to Catherine Hogarth. They were married in Their marriage, although unhappy, lasted for twenty-two years and produced ten children, nine of whom survived. The first series of Sketches by Boz was published in 1836, and The Pickwick Papers, which was published in a series of parts through November 1837, was eventually published as a novel. In 1836 Dickens also became the editor of Bentley s Miscellany, and met John Forster, who became his closest friend and his first biographer. The success of The Pickwick Papers led Dickens to pursue a full-time career as a novelist. He began Oliver Twist in 1837 and published it in monthly parts until April Nicholas Nickleby first appeared in 1838, and continued through October Master Humphrey s Clock, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge were produced between 1841 and A Christmas Carol was published in December Between 1847 and 1853 Dickens produced Combey and Son, The Battle of Live, David Copperfield, and Bleak House. Hard Times and Little Dorrit appeared between 1853 and 1857, and he collaborated on a play with Wilkie Collins on a play, The Frozen Deep, in All the Year Round and A Tale of Two Cities were produced between 1859 and 1861, and his most autobiographical novel, Great Expectations, had been published in Although his health was poor, Our Mutual Friend was begun in 1864 and finished in Dickens loved the theater and attended plays regularly. In 1848 he began writing and acting in a number of amateur theatricals. In 1853 he toured Italy with Augustus Egg and Wilkie Collins, giving many public readings of his own works upon his return to England. It was Wilkie Collins who introduced him to Ellen Ternan, a young actress with whom Dickens fell in love and carried on an affair until the time of his death. Because of this relationship, he separated from his wife in Public

2 readings, an overseas tour and overwork probably contributed to Dickens death. He died of a stroke on June 9, His last novel, Mystery of Edwin Drood, was published unfinished after his death. Although he was a prolific writer, Dickens found writing difficult. He wrote slowly and meticulously, forcing himself to stay at his desk whether or not he felt like writing. He generally worked from nine until two and then went out to walk until five, picking up more material for his books. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens uses the omniscient viewpoint. This allows him to comment on the action and introduce historical information. Another advantage to this viewpoint is the ability to enter the minds of all the characters. There are several recurring symbols in A Tale of Two Cities. The color red and the spilled wine symbolize the blood that will be shed in the coming revolution. The gold thread represents Lucie s love for her father and Carton s love for Lucie. 2

3 It is impossible to understand the novel without understanding the setting. A Tale of Two Cities is set immediately before and during the French Revolution. The French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution. The American colonies had overthrown the rule of the British and had set up their own government, declaring the equality of all men. In France no one was equal. There were three classes, or estates in France. The First Estate was the Church, the Second Estate was the nobility, and the Third Estate was everyone else. Although the Third Estate made up 98 percent of the population, they had no say in the government. The Third Estate was the most diverse of the three estates, including lawyers, bankers and wealthy businessmen at the top, workers in the cities and the towns, and then the 80 percent of the Estate that was made up of peasants. Although the peasants worked on lands that belonged to someone else, were paid low wages, and had few material possessions, they carried the heaviest tax burden. The privileged classes were exempt from most taxes, while the peasants were taxed to the breaking point. As Louis XV and Louis XVI spent money extravagantly and raised taxes on the peasants while exempting the nobility, catapulting the government to bankruptcy. By 1787 the private banks refused to extend any more credit to the French government. Louis XVI s ministers had told him that he should tax those who were not paying taxes, but Louis was too weak to do anything that would cause him to be unpopular with his nobility. Louis finally called for a meeting of the Estate- General in Versailles in May, This was a representative body of all three estates, which had not met in 175 years. Although the king and the nobility considered this to be an opportunity to intimidate the poor, the representatives of the Third Estate, which BACKGROUND INFORMATION 3 included a young lawyer named Maximilien Robespierre, considered it to be an opportunity to establish a written constitution, equal taxation, and equal justice. The First and Second Estates, of course, differed in their agendas, although they did call for a written constitution and limits on the powers of the king. The delegates of the Third Estate were ignored, humiliated and finally locked out in the rain on June 20. They declared themselves to be the National Assembly, since they were elected by the people, and convened at an indoor tennis court, where they took what became known as the Tennis Court Oath they would not leave Versailles until a written constitution was established. Louis ordered troops to Versailles and Paris, causing panic among the people. They began arming themselves with farm implements. Angered by the high price of bread and the rumors that Louis s troops are going to murder them, the mob in Paris descended on the Bastille, a 400 year old military prison that is seen as a symbol of ancient repression. On the morning of July 14, 1789, a frenzied mob laid siege to the Bastille, storming in, taking the governor prisoner and beheading him. When Louis heard of the incident, he said, This is a revolt. His aide replied, No, Sire. This is a revolution was a somewhat peaceful year by revolutionary standards. The National Constitutional Assembly was housed in an old riding school, and the moderates, who wanted to follow the English model of a constitutional monarchy, were in power. The Royalists sat to the right in the Assembly, and those who wanted a true democracy sat to the left. This is the origin of our political terms of left and right. Behind the scenes, Robespierre, along with Georges Jacques Danton and Jean-Paul

4 Marat, form the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, or the Jacobin Club. In 1791 the royal family tried to escape from France, when they realized that their best chance for survival would be to appeal to another monarch for help. They had almost made it to the border when they were recognized by a postmaster and returned to Paris. The constitutional monarchy has been established, and on September 14, 1791, King Louis XVI signs it. However, the tensions continued to rise as the people felt the government was not solving their problems. The poor began to call themselves sans-culottes, meaning without knee breeches, because the poor wore full length trousers instead of the knee pants worn by the nobility. In August of 1792, the sansculotte, stirred up by Danton, called for the Assembly to depose the king or turn him over to the mob. The royal family was placed under arrest, where they awaited trial. It was at this time that a new device for executions was unveiled. The guillotine, named for its inventor Joseph Ignace Guillotin had been developed as a more humane method for execution. After it became the symbol of the bloodthirsty reign of terror of the French Revolution, its inventor came to hate his invention. In August and September Danton was the virtual dictator of France. He stirred up mobs to go from prison to prison, killing prisoners with little questioning. In what became known as the September Massacres 1,400 people were killed. On September 22 The National Convention declared the monarchy abolished and proclaimed 1792 Year One of the French Republic. Louis XVI was tried and convicted of treason, and was beheaded on January 21, With the abolition of the monarchy, the Assembly also did away with titles of respect such as Mr. or Mrs. or Your Highness. Because everyone was equal, everyone was to be referred to by the same title, so everyone was referred to as citizen. The Russians followed the same pattern after the Russian Revolution when they began to refer to everyone as comrade. The National Convention appointed twelve men to take over the everyday affairs of the government. This committee, with Robespierre as its leader, was called the Committee of Public Safety. This Committee gave the tribunal orders to suppress opposition to the Revolution. Anyone suspected of being an enemy of the people was arrested and executed. Between September 1793 and July 1794 over 2,500 people died under the guillotine in Paris. Over 10,000 were killed in the French provinces. This was the beginning of the Reign of Terror. 4

5 The opening chapters introduce the setting, which is both England and France, in 1775, as well as the main characters. Dickens sets the stage for the chaotic era, opening with his famous It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.. George III was the king of England and Charlotte was his queen. The king and queen of France were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Chevalier de la Barre was the Frenchman who was executed in the town of Abbeville in July 1766 for failing to kneel to a procession of passing monks. There is violence and religious persecution in France; rampant crime in England. He makes reference to trees already growing that the Woodsman Fate has appointed to be made a certain moveable framework with a sack and a knife in it, and that Farmer, Death had set aside certain oxcarts to be tumbrils of the French Revolution. Because of the mud on the road, the coach that delivers the mail between London and Dover is laboring up Shooter s Hill. The three passengers are walking beside the coach, having disembarked in order to ease the strain on the horses, while the coachman and a guard ride on the coach. The presence of the guard is necessitated by the frequency of hijackings of mail coaches by highwaymen. This ongoing threat of violence causes the three passengers to avoid eye contact. Just as each is wrapped from head to toe to keep out the wet and chill of the evening, each is also wrapped in anonymity, desiring to have as little to do as possible with the other passengers. As the coach reaches the top of the hill, the men return to their seats. BOOK 1 CHAPTERS 1-3 inside the coach, but the coach is overtaken by a rider. Fear overtakes their hearts much as the rider has overtaken the coach. Although the rider causes much apprehension for the guard and the coachman, it turns out he is a messenger bringing a note to Mr. Jarvis Lorry, the character Dickens is introducing in this chapter. Mr. Lorry assures the guard he is in the employ of Tellson s Bank, and is on his way to Paris on business. Jerry, the messenger from Tellson s, hands him a note saying, Wait at Dover for Mam selle. Mr. Lorry instructs Jerry to return with the reply, RECALLED TO LIFE. As the coachman and guard puzzle over this strange exchange, Jerry is left in the road with much the same reaction. As Jerry Cruncher makes his way back to London, trying to make sense of the message he has been asked to deliver, Jarvis Lorry is lulled into a restless sleep in the coach, dreaming he is digging someone out of a grave who has been buried alive. He asks, Buried how long? and the answer comes back, Almost eighteen years. I hope you care to live? I can t say. He asks the ghost if he wants to see her, and his mind invents various answers to the question. Mr. Lorry opens the coach window and allows the rain to fall on his cheek in order to bring himself back to reality. However, he would then fall back into the same dream. Finally, the light of day allows Mr. Lorry to become fully awake, and he exclaims in wonder at the thought that a man who has been buried alive for eighteen years will soon be released 5

6 SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES BOOK 1 CHAPTERS Divide students into groups, assigning each group background research on specifics of the time period: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; lettre de cachet (French system under which a French aristocrat could accuse anyone and the accused was never told the identity of the accuser or of the offense; nor was he given the opportunity to defend himself); George III and Charlotte; the growing unrest in France; the crime in England. 2. Ask students to choose a scene from one of the first three chapters and illustrate it. 3. Provide students with maps, giving them the assignment of tracing the route of the mail coach from London to Dover. What is the distance? Why Does the mail going to France leave from Dover? What is the distance from Dover to France? 6

7 VOCABULARY BOOK 1 CHAPTERS 1-3 epoch incredulity superlative tumbrils highwayman potentate despoiled illustrious retinue turnkeys pilferer myriads mutinous capitulated floundering emphatic blunderbuss substratum cutlass genial vexed adjuration quavering soliloquy apprehend expeditiously unfathomable submerged inexorable consolidation perpetuation inscrutable evincing sinister perplexed cadaverous emaciated admonish a usually extended period expressing disbelief surpassing others; supreme a vehicle carrying condemned persons (as during the French Revolution) to a place of execution a person who robs travelers on a road one who wields controlling power to strip of belongings, possessions, or value widely known and esteemed the body of attendants or followers of a distinguished person one who has charge of a prison's keys one who steals in small quantities an indefinitely large number willful refusal to obey constituted authority to cease resisting to struggle to move or obtain footing forceful and definite in expression or action an obsolete short-barreled firearm with a flaring muzzle the layer or structure (as subsoil) lying underneath a short heavy curved sword conducive to life, growth, or comfort; mild to annoy continually with little irritations to command solemnly; urge earnestly to speak in tremulous tones the act of talking to oneself to look forward to with dread marked by or acting with prompt efficiency so deep as to be unmeasurable under the surface of water not capable of being persuaded by entreaty; relentless to form into a compact mass cause to last indefinitely not readily comprehensible; mysterious show or demonstrate clearly; manifest singularly evil or productive of evil to disturb mentally; confuse suggesting a corpse especially in gauntness or pallor to become or cause to become very thin to warn gently; reprove with a warning 7

8 QUESTIONS BOOK 1 CHAPTERS In the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens uses seven dichotomies (things that are mutually exclusive or contradictory). Name them. 2. Who are the king and queen of England at the time of beginning of the story? Of France? 3. In what year is the beginning of the story set? 4. What is happening in France at this time? 5. What two metaphors does Dickens use in speaking of the events that are leading toward the French Revolution? 6. What are the conditions in England? 7. As the action of the story begins, what time of day is it? What is the weather? What does this do to the setting? 8. What was the attitude of the passengers in the coach? Why? 9. What do they hear? What effect does this have on the passengers, the coachman and the guard? 10. How is the horseman related to one of the passengers? What is the message he brings? 11. What reply is he given in return? 12. Describe Jerry Crutcher. 13. As Mr. Lorry s mind is lulled into unconsciousness by the monotony of the journey, what dream plays itself out in his mind? 14. What does he do to try to put an end to this dream? How successful is this? 15. What event finally brings Mr. Lorry fully awake? What is his response? 8