A Tale Of Two Cities
(Charles Dickens)
Dr. Alexandre Manette, wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years by two aristocratic amoral brothers, is ?recalled to life? and reunited with his daughter Lucie. In the difficult years he spent in prison, the good doctor cobbled shoes to preserve his wits. During times of stress after his release, the doctor could be found at his workbench, hunched over pieces of leather, unaware of his surroundings.
The doctor?s lovely daughter Lucie falls in love with Charles Darnay, son of one of those aristocratic brothers, though Darnay has forsaken his French family. During the revolution Darnay returns to Paris to rescue a loyal family servant only to be imprisoned.
Meanwhile, Madame Defarge knits names and identities of ?traitors? into her endless lengths of knitting, which never become sweaters or stockings or blankets. She coldly keeps knitting as heads fall at the guillotine, her powers seemingly endless. Of course, Darnay?s aristocratic connections make him a target of the Defarge?s malice, and it isn?t long before they trap him.
After Charles Darnay becomes imprisoned, the rest of the family follows him to Paris, only to put their lives in danger. Lucie goes to the prison walls every day, knowing that she won?t be able to see her husband but hoping that the sight of her will give him support and encouragement.
Sydney Carton, a lazy but good-hearted Darnay look-alike, falls in love with Lucie, but finds that the only way to make her happy is to get Charles back somehow. And hence, like so many times in his fiction, Dickens uses the principle of sacrifice to make things right--heart-wrenchingly and tearfully right.
That scene, the one where Sydney Carton, disguised as Charles Darnay, clasps the hand of a young woman also headed for the guillotine, listening to the slow heavy wheels scraping the brick street, knowing that he?s facing something horrible but ultimately the best thing he?s ever done in his life-- that scene is enough to make you want to kiss every jerk who ever cut you off in rush-hour traffic.
A second-best scene, with slightly more Hollywood flavor, is when stale Miss Pross knocks Madame Defarge unconscious. Send up a cheer!
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