Charles Darnay
During Charles Darnay's trial for treason, the striving lawyer Mr. Stryver introduces this surprising evidence to undermine the prosecution's case.
What is a man who looks very similar to Darnay, which suggests he could be a victim of mistaken identity.
The opening lines of A Tale of Two Cites, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...," are an example of this type of rhetorical device, in which two contradictory ideas are presented together in a sentence.
What is antithesis?
The characters in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities reside in or move between these two cities.
What are London and Paris?
This doctor's daughter is kind and patient, and the object of at least three characters' affection.
Who is Lucie Manette?
This word is written on a wall in Paris out of spilled wine.
What is BLOOD?
In England, Charles Darnay, who has turned his back on his family's money, earns his living in this trade.
What is language teacher and translator?
In chapter 7, "The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur" is an example of this type of figurative language.
What is metaphor?
Who is Sydney Carton?
This wine-vendor is rather derisively referred to as a philosopher by Charles Darnay's aristocratic uncle, shortly before his death.
Who is Monsieur Defarge?
After Darnay informs him of his love for Lucie, Dr. Manette engages in this activity.
What is shoe-making?
Darnay's uncle offers a gold coin as compensation for this act.
What is running over a child with his carriage?
In the following quote—"It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when [de la Barre] was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in its history," Fate is represented as a Woodman, or what Americans might call a lumberjack, an example of this type of literary device, in which human traits are attributed to abstract or nonhuman things.
What is personification?
In comparing England to Tellson's Bank, which is comically old-fashioned and incommodious, Dickens makes this point about his country circa the late 1700s.
What is it was resistant to change/progress/reform?
This odd-jobber for Tellson’s Bank is for seen delivering a message to Jarvis Lorry and is much disturbed by the latter's cryptic reply, "Recalled to life."
Who is Jerry Cruncher?
A note left with the knife that kills the Marquis is signed by this nom de guerre.
What is Jacques?
When we first meet Darnay, he is on trial for this alleged crime.
What is treason?
When Dickens tells us that "Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything on in its own way," plus one "other truly nobel idea that it must all go his way — tend to his own power and pocket," he does not literally mean these ideas are noble. He is, rather, implying what he really thinks of Monseigneur and his ideas through this device.
What is irony?
Stryver has long relied on this man to do the legwork of his legal cases.
Who is Sydney Carton?
This faithful servant thinks there's no man good enough for her precious Ladybird (aka Lucie).
Who is Miss Pross?
This tragic event would, should it come to pass, "put a blot on [Monseigneur's] escutcheon."
What is only three men bringing Monseigneur his morning chocolate?
Darnay has a secret he wants to reveal to Dr. Manette, but the doctor stops him and says to tell him on this occasion.
What is on the morning of his wedding to Lucie, should they get married?
Verbal irony is when a statement means the opposite of what is said. Situational irony is when an event violates the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience. Explain what is ironic about the Marquis's statement that he "will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived."
Answer: The Marquis likely means he will die, in the natural course of his life, without changing or accepting reforms, but, while he doesn't know it, he will actually die that very night.
Abandoning the phrase as a question bit for this one: Charles Dickens, a resident of London, England, in the 1800s, writes a book set in France about 80 years in the past. He is not generally a writer of historical novels. Based on what we know of Dickens's attitudes and opinions, explain why Dickens might have decided to make his novel about both Paris and London. What might he have hoped English readers would take away from this novel?
Dickens made this a story of two cities, Paris and London, to remind readers that the French revolution wasn't necessarily an isolated event, that the right conditions--poverty, hunger, cruelty, extreme economic disparity--could create a revolution anywhere, including London.
This relative of Charles Darnay shows little love for his nephew and is likely responsible for his imprisonment.
Who is the Marquis d’Evrémonde?
Darnay says, about his family's estate, that "'To the eye it is fair enough . . . but seen in its integrity, under the sky and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering.'" While this is true of the estate, he is also clearly talking about something else. What is it!?