Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Motto of the revolution
La Guillotine
"national razor"; "that sharp female newly born"; the main method of execution during the French Revolution/Reign of Terror
Tocsin
an alarm bell. It was rung when the revolutionaries set the chateau on fire.
"God save the king"
Miss Pross says this
Versailles
Where the king and queen live in France. The Defarges and the mender of roads visit.
Soho
The area in London where the Manettes live
d'Alunais
The name of Charles Darnay's mother's family
Dover
Where Lorry is traveling by mail coach at the beginning of the novel
Tellson's Bank
Bank in London (with a branch in France) where Mr. Lorry works. The aristocrats in France sent their money their for protection
St. Antoine
Quarter of Paris where the Defarges' wine shop is; it is the center of revolutionary activity
Letter de cachet
letters signed by the king of France; king sentenced a subject to prison without trial, no opportunity to hear the charges filed against him, no chance to defend himself
Old Bailey
area where men and women who are being tried in court are held until they enter the next building for trial; courthouse where Charles Darnay is put on trial for treason
"goin' fishing"
Going to dig for bodies
Tumbril
A coach that takes people to the guillotine
"recalled to life"
resurrection; rescuing Dr. Manette; Darnay released from jail both times; message to Mr. Lorry from Cruncher
"Floppin'"
What Mr. Cruncher says his wife is doing when she is praying for him
Carmagnole
A ferocious dance by the mobs of Paris in which the heads of the executed were taken to the walls of Paris and put on wooden pikes.
La Force
The prison in which Charles Darnay is taken when he returns to Paris.
NewGate
Prison in London notorious for its inhumane conditions.
105 North Tower
Dr. Manette's cell number; He hid his letter here about why he was imprisoned
July 14, 1789
When the Bastille was stormed; When Defarge found Dr. Manette's letter.
Jacques
the use of the name Jacques to signify French peasants began in the peasant revolts in 1358. To maintain anonymity and to show solidarity, rebels called each other by the same name. The network of rebels using the Jacques appellation is referred to as the Jacquerie. The Defarges use it when referring to their revolutionary friends
Resurrection Man
a man who digs up corpses to sell to surgeons or medical schools for study.
"Keep where you are because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime."
Mr. Lorry
"Eighteen years!" Said the passenger, looking at the sun. "Gracious Creator of day. To be buried alive for eighteen years!"
Mr. Lorry
"Jerry, say that my answer was, 'RECALLED TO LIFE'"
Dr. Manette
"She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. 'You will leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.' Those words I said. I remember them very well.'"
Lucie
"If you hear in my voice ... any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!"
Mr. Lorry
"I have a business charge to acquit myself. In your reception of it, don't heed me any more than if I were a speaking machine -- truly I am not much else."
Sydney Carton
"I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me."
About Sydney Carton
"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."
Marquis St. Evrémonde
"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."
Lucie
"I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives... There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so."
Sydney Carton
"Let me carry the rest of my misdirected life the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; and that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity."
Charles Darnay
"This property and France are lost to me. I renounce them."
Gaspard
"The murder note left on the Maquis' dead body which morbidly mocks the fast carriage ride that resulted in the death of Gaspard's son: "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from JACQUES."
Motto of the Revolution
"Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!"
Defarge
"Judiciously show a cat, milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day."
Madame Defarge
"Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule."
Ernest Defarge
"And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph -- I hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband from France."
Sydney Carton
"This is a desperate time when desperate games are played for desperate stakes."
Dr. Manette
I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year 1767. I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust."
Madame Defarge
"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, ... but don't tell me."
Sydney Carton
"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?"
Sydney Carton
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
Sydney Carton
"Of little worth is life when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay it down if it were not."
Creative and saving power of love
Theme; restoring to life because of love; Lucie with Dr. Manette
The Violence and Bloodshed of the Revolution
Theme; Massive Slaughter at the Bastille ,Execution of Foulon, Trials and executions of the Aristocracy; "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."-Acton; Wine in the Street foreshadows the blood of the Aristocracy
February 7, 1812
When Dickens was born
Debtor's prison
Dickens' father was arrested and sent to this certain prison, Marshal Sea, in 1823
Blackening factory
Where Dickens was forced to work
Human suffering and injustice
Dickens book themes
Catherine Hogarth
Dickens' wife
London
Where Dickens worked at a law firm and as a reporter
1859
Year Tale of Two Cities was published
1844-45
Time that Dickens lived in Italy, Switzerland, Paris
Gadshill
Where Dickens died
June 9, 1870
Date Dickens died
Poet's Corner in Westminister Abbey
Where Dickens is buried
Stroke
What Dickens died of
Historical Romance:
A narrative with exotic, exaggerated, often idealized characters, scenes, and themes, often set in the past or in a distance time or place in which fictional characters take part in, influence, or witness real historical events and interact with historical figures from the past.
Thread of Circumstance
a series of events within a literary work which binds the lives of the major characters together through a series of interrelated events.