Notes onA Tale of Two CitiesCharles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Born in England in ______to a lower-middle class family
Moved at age 10 to a poor area of London because of family’s financial trouble
Worked in a dirty, rat-infested shoe polish factory at age 12 after his father was imprisoned for ______
Acquired a strong sympathy for the ______which is reflected in his novels.
Hard Times in London
In the 1850’s, during the ______. England was full of social and economic inequality. The urban poor was suffering “the worst of times” while the ruling class was enjoying the “best of times”
Dickens feared that a ______such as the one that shook France could not be avoided.
During this time, Dickens wrote Bleak House (1852, 53), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorritt (1855-57), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
About the novel
Dickens called it, “The best story I have written.”
This is a stylistic change from his other novels, which feature ______characters and are set mostly in England during his own time.
Many of his characters in this novel are ______ in nature, representing ideas rather than individuals.
Allegory - ______
A Tale of Two Cities is one of his two ______novels.
Like most of his novels, it was published serially, in two-chapter monthly magazine installments, and later as a complete book.
Why might this be advantageous to an author?
A Tale of Two Citieshis ______novel of fifteen. Great Expectations was written only a year later.
Setting of A Tale of Two Cities
The action takes place over a period of eighteen years, from ______ (about ten years before the Revolution) to ______ (height of Revolution), some of which takes place as a flashback - ______
Novel is set mostly in London and Paris (the “______”).
For the historical background, Dickens relied on The French Revolution, a History (1837) written by his friend Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle wrote with passion and intensity of the events, which seemed relevant to the political turmoil that was currently occurring across Europe.
Themes to Look For:
______
______vs. ______
______
______
______and ______
Also pay attention todoubles, foils, and paradoxes.
Ex. “the best and worst of times…” “two cities”
Parallelism - ______
______
Examples:
“We came, we saw, we conquered.”
We like hiking, swimming, and biking.
Paradox- ______
______
Examples:
He hears but does not listen.
Under the surface he is very shallow.
The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.
The truth is, I lie all the time.
There is a method to his madness
“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again” ~C.S. Lewis
“What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” ~George Bernard Shaw
Antithesis - ______
Examples:
Love is an ideal thing; marriage is a real thing.
You’re easy on the eyes; hard on the heart.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Juxtaposition - ______
______
Examples:
A love song playing during violent war scenes in a movie
A sweet, high-pitched voice juxtaposed with hard, heavy metal rock music
Romeo’s death juxtaposed with Juliet’s awakening
Anaphora - ______
______
Example:
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shallfight in France, we shallfight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.” ~Winston Churchill