SparkNotes: A Tale of Two Cities: Important Quotations Explained Important Quotations Explained A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens Book the Third: The Track of a Storm Chapters 11–15 Key Facts 1. 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, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . . These famous lines, which open A Tale of Two Cities, hint at the novel’s central tension between love and family, on the one hand, and oppression and hatred, on the other. The passage makes marked use of anaphora, the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of consecutive clauses—for example, “it was the age . . . it was the age” and “it was the epoch . . . it was the epoch. . .

.” This technique, along with the passage’s steady rhythm, suggests that good and evil, wisdom and folly, and light and darkness stand equally matched in their struggle. The opposing pairs in this passage also initiate one of the novel’s most prominent motifs and structural figures—that of doubles, including London and Paris, Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, Miss Pross and Madame Defarge, and Lucie and Madame Defarge. 2. A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imagin-ings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. The narrator makes this reflection at the beginning of Book the First, Chapter 3, after Jerry Cruncher delivers a cryptic message to Jarvis Lorry in the darkened mail coach.

Lorry’s mission—to recover the long-imprisoned Doctor Manette and “recall” him to life—establishes the essential dilemma that he and other characters face: namely, that human beings constitute perpetual mysteries to one another and always remain somewhat locked away, never fully reachable by outside minds. This fundamental inscrutability proves most evident in the case of Manette, whose private sufferings force him to relapse throughout the novel into bouts of cobbling, an occupation that he first took up in prison. Throughout the novel, Manette mentally returns to his prison, bound more by his own recollections than by any attempt of the other characters to “recall” him into the present. This passage’s reference to death also evokes the deep secret revealed in Carton’s self-sacrifice at the end of the novel. The exact profundity of his love and devotion for Lucie remains obscure until he commits to dying for her; the selflessness of his death leaves the reader to wonder at the ways in which he might have manifested this great love in life. 3. The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled.

It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood. This passage, taken from Book the First, Chapter 5, describes the scramble after a wine cask breaks outside Defarge’s wine shop. This episode opens the novel’s examination of Paris and acts as a potent depiction of the peasants’ hunger. These oppressed individuals are not only physically starved—and thus willing to slurp wine from the city streets—but are also hungry for a new world order, for justice and freedom from misery. In this passage, Dickens foreshadows the lengths to which the peasants’ desperation will take them.

This scene is echoed later in the novel when the revolutionaries—now similarly smeared with red, but the red of blood—gather around the grindstone to sharpen their weapons. The emphasis here on the idea of staining, as well as the scrawling of the word blood, furthers this connection, as does the appearance of the wood-sawyer, who later scares Lucie with his mock guillotine in Book the Third, Chapter 5. Additionally, the image of the wine lapping against naked feet anticipates the final showdown between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge in Book the Third, Chapter 14: “The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining of blood, those feet had come to meet that water.” 4. Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrels carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in one realization, Guillotine.

And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. In this concise and beautiful passage, which occurs in the final chapter of the novel, Dickens summarizes his ambivalent attitude toward the French Revolution. The author stops decidedly short of justifying the violence that the peasants use to overturn the social order, personifying “La Guillotine” as a sort of drunken lord who consumes human lives—“the day’s wine.” Nevertheless, Dickens shows a thorough understanding of how such violence and bloodlust can come about. The cruel aristocracy’s oppression of the poor “sow[s] the same seed of rapacious license” in the poor and compels them to persecute the aristocracy and other enemies of the revolution with equal brutality. Dickens perceives these revolutionaries as “[c]rush[ed] . .

. out of shape” and having been “hammer[ed] . . . into . . . tortured forms.” These depictions evidence his belief that the lower classes’ fundamental goodness has been perverted by the terrible conditions under which the aristocracy has forced them to live. 5. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. . . . I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. . . . It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.

Though much debate has arisen regarding the value and meaning of Sydney Carton’s sacrifice at the end of the novel, the surest key to interpretation rests in the thoughts contained in this passage, which the narrator attributes to Carton as he awaits his sacrificial death. This passage, which occurs in the final chapter, prophesies two resurrections: one personal, the other national. In a novel that seeks to examine the nature of revolution—the overturning of one way of life for another—the struggles of France and of Sydney Carton mirror each other. Here, Dickens articulates the outcome of those struggles: just as Paris will “ris[e] from [the] abyss” of the French Revolution’s chaotic and bloody violence, so too will Carton be reborn into glory after a virtually wasted life. In the prophecy that Paris will become “a beautiful city” and that Carton’s name will be “made illustrious,” the reader sees evidence of Dickens’s faith in the essential goodness of humankind. The very last thoughts attributed to Carton, in their poetic use of repetition, register this faith as a calm and soothing certainty. More Help Forrest Wickman Forrest Wickman is Slate’s culture editor overseeing music and movies coverage.

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. Advertisement Gordon’s selection of this passage as Batman’s eulogy is quite apt. First of all, the lines in the book represent the last thoughts of the character Sydney Carton as he prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice for his loved ones and city—a sacrifice just like the one Batman makes. At the end of the novel, Carton manages to switch places with the character Charles Darnay as Darnay faces execution. As he does so, he expresses faith in his city, just like the faith Batman expresses for Gotham again and again throughout the Batman trilogy. Here’s the passage that comes just before those last lines: I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, though long to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.

Carton, like Bruce Wayne, is also an orphan, which brings us to another Dickensian thread of The Dark Knight Rises: The movie is teeming with orphans. Not only is there Bruce Wayne, but the final chapter of the trilogy introduces the new character of John Blake, an orphan who understands Batman thanks to their shared experience of losing their parents. Blake frequently checks back at the orphanage where he was raised, which is underfunded (presumably, in part, because of the movie’s greedy Dickensian capitalists, with their Dickensian names—the weaselly Stryver was likely inspired by the Tale of Two Cities character of the same name ). Some of these orphans, as they’re lured into becoming thieves and criminals, evoke another Dickens novel, Oliver Twist . And Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), though the movie never reveals her past, resembles the Artful Dodger from Twist: Both characters have been taught by an impoverished city to fend for themselves by developing the skills of a master pickpocket, and both are defined by their ability to skirt responsibility in order to save themselves: The Dodger lets Twist go on trial for the theft he committed, just as Kyle sells Batman out to Bane to repay her debts.

We seem to get a glimpse of her past when she bonds with a young orphan by giving him a pointer about how to steal an apple—she says that, like the Dodger, he should make sure to always have an escape plan. But the scenes that most boldly evoke A Tale of Two Cities—along with, of course, the novel’s basis in the history of the French Revolution—are the scenes of its vengeful populist uprising. As in A Tale of Two Cities, The Dark Knight Rises depicts a mob that thirsts for the blood of the rich who have neglected and exploited them. The poor drag the rich from their homes and put them on trial before kangaroo courts. In each revolution, the trials are decided more by the clamor of the crowd than by any due process, and there’s little hope for the defendants. Of course, as Slate’s Dana Stevens points out in her review , the trials in Nolan’s movie also have a Kafkaesque quality. This is seen in the way that Gordon and other prisoners are given only the hopeless and darkly comic decision of “exile” or “death ...

by exile.”* (Elsewhere, the movie’s references reach back even further, all the way to Robin Hood.) But in the way The Dark Knight Rises demonstrates both a desire for social justice and a fear of what that can actually look like in the hands of a mob, it owes its greatest debt to Dickens. *Correction, July 22, 2012: This article originally suggested that the passage from A Tale of Two Cities was read by Alfred; Gordon reads the passage. Additionally, this article misquoted the (false) choice Dr. Jonathan Crane gives to Gotham's prisoners as "death" or "death by exile"; Crane offers "exile" or "death ... by exile." Previously Quote Details: Charles Dickens: It is a far,... - The Quotations Page Quotation #29592 from Classic Quotes : 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.

Charles Dickens , A Tale of Two Cities English novelist (1812 - 1870) In A Tale of Two Cities, how is the famous last statement of Sydney Carton true for him?Book 3-Chapter 15 -The last words of this chapter are some... | eNotes July 11, 2015 at 3:47 PM Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, like most of his work, contains a number of complex and deeply drawn characters, including Sydney Carton. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens creates and develops a theme of regeneration. France, at least as far as the common man is concerned, is regenerated through revolution. Dr. Manette is regenerated by the love of his daughter Lucy. And Sydney Carton, at first despicable, drunken, and hopelessly narcissistic, is regenerated by own feelings and love for Lucy. The quotation in your question occurs as Carton is sacrificing his own life in place of Charles Darnay, Lucy’s husband. Carton considers himself to have been “saved,” in a manner of speaking, by Lucy because she restored his appreciation of life.

He expresses this appreciation to her a little earlier, in chapter 13: I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since he has no hope of having Lucy for his own, he expresses his love for her in the ultimate sense, by sacrificing his own life for her happiness and well being. It is this selfless act that connects A Tale of Two Cities to the great events in mankind’s history that required such devotion to move humanity forward. Sources: Quote by Charles Dickens: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I...” We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Quotes - The Quotations Page With affection beaming out of one eye, and calculation shining out of the other. Charles Dickens 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.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 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, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849 - More quotations on: [ Money ] A Tale of Two Cities (Literature) - TV Tropes A Tale of Two Cities You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share Literature / A Tale of Two Cities × WMG It is a far, far better thing...

A Tale of Two Cities is a novel written by Charles Dickens first published in 1859, dealing with the events of The French Revolution and their impact on the lives of a number of fictional characters living at the time. The two cities of the title are London and Paris: Paris as a symbol of lawlessness , while London represents Order, albeit containing problems that could, in time, lead to a situation as bad as Paris. Lucie Manette, a young Frenchwoman living in England, receives news that her father, who has been lost for sixteen years and was presumed dead, is actually alive, albeit insane, and would she please come see him to see if her presence can help restore his sanity. She later marries Charles Darnay, who, unknown to her family, is the son of a deceased Marquis in France. When he receives a letter from France calling him to go save one of his former servants, France draws him in, and attempts to execute him. At the same time, Sydney Carton, a man who looks as if he were Darnay's twin separated at birth , tries to redeem his wasted life.

The novel has one of the most famous opening lines in literature: 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, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other wayï¿½in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. The final scene includes a line that is almost as famous, (although context would be a spoiler): 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.

Dickens' novel was largely inspired by his reading of Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History, and took from it the sense of the Revolution as an elemental eruption of the human spirit when pushed too far. Thomas Carlyle's book was itself a highly romantic and melodramatic work rather than historical so the novel does suffer from Dated History to some extent despite being broadly accurate to the circumstances and events of the French Revolution. Unlike Carlyle, Dickens sympathized with the ends, though not the conduct, of the Revolution, and offers a glimpse of hope that after the extremists meet their end, France itself would rise a free and happy Republic, eventually . If you're looking for the story of Bob Trimbolie and Terry Clark, it's right over here. This book provides examples of: The Alcoholic : Sydney Carton to a T, and Mr. Stryver. While doing paperwork well into the night, Stryver becomes increasingly inebriated, while Sydney seems to become even more efficient. Anti-Hero : Syndey can't be bothered to care about anything, but he finds a cause by the end. Aristocrats Are Evil : Make no mistake, they definitely are.

Indeed Darnay is so guilty that he decides to Shed the Family Name but his family is way more evil than even he suspected and it nearly gets him killed as well. Asshole Victim : Darnay's uncle. Unsurprisingly, no one's upset when the pissed off Gaspard murders him. Most of the early victims of the Revolution are regarded as this, being corrupt nobility in the main. Madame Defarge who is utterly without pity and mercy and would gladly send a child to the Guillotine simply for being the granddaughter of her sister's rapist, and would send an elderly doctor there too simply to round out the numbers, is shot dead by Miss Pross when she threatens the Manettes. Ax-Crazy : At the beginning of the Revolution, the lower classes are described as going kill-crazy on the upper classes, massacring even those they'd already taken prisoner. This is most vividly depicted by a group who gather around a blade sharpener in preparation for another round of slaughter, all the while wearing women's clothing and having glued pubic hair beards to their faces. Babies Ever After Bang Bang BANG : Miss Pross gets permanently deafened when Madame Defarge's gun goes off during the struggle with her.

Beauty Equals Goodness : The Manettes and Darnays are all beautiful people of impeccable morals. However, the trope is inverted just before the final confrontation. Madame Defarge is said to be quite a handsome woman, while Miss Pross is wiry, unattractive and so peculiar-looking that it's hard to notice when she's been beaten up. Played with in the case of John Barsad, who is described as looking quite handsome but a bit shifty due to an aqualine nose. Turns out that he's really Miss Pross' long lost brother Solomon, who is a scoundrel of the highest order. Best Served Cold : Madame Defarge will silently knit and continue knitting as she watches the aristocrats run roughshod over the people, fully waiting for the day of reckoning when she will remorselessly and pitilessly unleash her vengeance upon them. Big Bad Slippage : Madame Defarge starts out as an ordinary woman with extremist views and eventually becomes a strong leader in the revolution. Big Fancy House : The Marquis owns a dazzling chateau, which turns out to make great firewood...

Bilingual Dialogue : Happens In-Universe when Madame Defarge barges into Lucie's house, intending to have her Revenge by Proxy , but is stopped by Miss Pross . The narrator tells us that both women spoke in their native language, but their facial expressions and body language makes their intentions perfectly clear to each other. Blue Blood : Spilt by the gallon. It is The French Revolution , after all. Brilliant, but Lazy : Subverted with Sydney Carton. He is quite skilled at his job and does it very diligently, but he allows Stryver to take all the credit for the cases they win. Not to mention, of course, that he is the only one able to save Charles Darnay and get the rest of the family out of France at the end of the book. He only pretends to be lazy, as in this exchange: Sydney: Business! Bless you, I have no business. Mr. Lorry: If you had, perhaps you would attend to it. Sydney: Lord love you, no! - I shouldn't. Bullet Holes and Revelations : During the struggle between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge over a gun, it goes off.

It takes a few lines to find out where the shot went. Butt Monkey : Sydney Carton, although he admittedly does this to himself. Buy Them Off : The Marquis tosses a coin to the father whose child his carriage runs over. He is really offended when that gold coin gets tossed back in to the carriage, rightly seeing it as an action of contempt. Chekhov's Gun : The Carton/Darnay resemblance, which Sydney uses to take the latter's place on the Guillotine. Also, Cruncher's graverobbing. It gets mentioned in one chapter, but doesn't become relevant until it turns out that Cruncher had tried to rob Cly's grave and found no corpse. Companion Cube : A somber example Played for Drama : The shoemaker's bench and tools are this for Doctor Manette. Manette refers to him as a friend and deplores its destruction. When Lorry and Miss Prost destroy the shoemakersï¿½s bench, they also treat him like something alive: On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light.

There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder — for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. Contrived Coincidence : Dickensian destiny at work: Dr. Manette's daughter marries the last heir of the Evremondes, who imprisoned him. His former serving boy Defarge marries the sister of the woman that the Evremondes raped and Manette treated. Dark and Troubled Past : Charles Darnay: Is actually a French aristocrat, Charles St. Evrémonde, whose family is infamous for its mistreatment of the poor.

He renounces his title and wealth, moves to England and attempts to live a new life. Sydney Carton: His mother died when he was young. He "followed his father to the grave," and otherwise never felt at home anywhere. He always did other people's work at university, and never took credit when it was due to him. The result is his alcoholism and self-deprecatory attitude. Dr. Manette: Is wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years by Darnay's father and uncle, causing him to write a manifesto that would later sentence his son-in-law to the Guillotine. Madame Defarge: It was her older sister who was raped and ultimately killed by Darnay's uncle. Her brother died defending her honor, and her father died of grief. Thus Defarge swore vengeance against all of the Evrémondes. Dead Guy Junior : Lucie and Charles' first son gets named for Sydney. Deadpan Snarker : Sydney Carton. Stryver: Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog. Sydney: And you are such a sensitive and poetical spirit.

Death by Irony : One of the nobles proclaimed that the starving peasants could just eat grass. The rebels make sure to stuff grass in his mouth as they drag him to his death. The Determinator : Madame Defarge will stop at nothing to have her vengeance, saying, "Ask the wind and the fire to stop, not me." The Mender of Roads meets an agent of the Revolution who is set to burn down the Evremondes' chateau and notes how implacable his expression is, even in sleep. He imagines he sees more of these types of men at work for the Republic. Disproportionate Restitution : A nobleman in a speeding carriage crushes a child and flips a coin onto the street for the grieving father. The Revolution quickly gives way to the Reign of Terror, where the most tenuous links to the aristocracy, the most minor of infractions or the slightest hint of disloyalty will earn you an appointment with the National Razor. Madame Defarge is the living embodiment of this trope and would gladly murder the entire family of Charles Darnay for what his uncle did to her family. Even the child.

The innocent seamstress girl who dies just before Sydney Carton on the Guillotine is the living embodiment of the victims of such rage and hatred. Droit du Seigneur : Cited by Dr. Manette in his Letter as to the crimes of the Evremondes towards Defarge's sister. Domestic Abuse : Cruncher's introduction reveals that he gets into violent rows with his wife, which is more or less played for comedy. It helps establish him as a dumb, working-class cockney. Dying Alone : Averted when Sydney Carton talks with a seamstress on the tumbrel, confides the truth, and encourages her in facing death. He succeeds. Similarly, see Stay with Me Until I Die . "I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid." "They will be rapid. Fear not!" Entitled to Have You : Stryver first tries to offer himself to Lucie, believing that his position is more than enough for her; he is aghast when Mr. Lorry tries to talk him out of it. Even Evil Has Standards : Even the vicious revolutionary Ernest Defarge has his qualms about executing children.

Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" : The Mender of Roads is always referred to as such, until he takes a new job and is called the Wood Sawyer. It's not even clear that the two names refer to the same person until the narration mentions that the Wood Sawyer recently mended roads. Face Death with Dignity Faking the Dead : Cly faked his own death. Cruncher, graverobber that he is, is able to use this as blackmail against his partner. Famous Last Words : The narrator provides the Final Speech that Sydney would have given had he the opportunity. Final Speech : A hypothetical one is given for Sydney. Grave Robbing : Jerry Cruncher's side job. Gun Struggle : Miss Pross vs. Madame Defarge. The Hecate Sisters : Played with in the characters of Madame Defarge and the other knitting female revolutionaries. "Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate. Heroic B.S.O.D. : Miss Pross is an Actual Pacifist , who develops hysterical deafness after accidentally killing Madame Defarge.

In addition, Dr. Manette's mind collapses after his "lost" narrative from his imprisonment, in which he denounces the Evrémondes, resurfaces as the clinching testimony against his son-in-law, Darnay. Heroic Sacrifice : Sydney Carton takes Darnay's place in prison and is executed in his stead. He Who Fights Monsters : Madame Defarge. After her death, Vengeance wonders where she is, and Dickens mockingly suggests sending messengers after her. "It is questionable whether of their own will they will go far enough to find her !" Hoist by His Own Petard : Madame Defarge is shot by her own pistol. Many of the revolutionaries were eventually killed by their own guillotine, which is Truth in Television . Honor Before Reason : Darnay rushes back to France to aid a former servant in need. Without telling anyone. During the French Revolution. Silly Charles. Turns out that the servant he was trying to rescue wasn't in as tight a spot as Darnay believed, which makes it even worse. Both Madame Defarge's older brother and sister refuse to reveal their family name to Dr.

Manette so that they can retain some honor, despite the possibility that he could have alerted authorities about the crimes committed against them. I Am Spartacus : The members of La Rï¿½sistance all refer to each other as Jacques Number (their number). Identical Grandson : Darnay looks a whole lot like his uncle the Marquis. We find out much later that Darnay's father and uncle were identical twins. Identical Stranger : Carton and Darnay. I Have This Friend... : Played with when Mr. Lorry consults Dr. Manette about the case of a friendï¿½s mental shock. The case is not about Mr. Lorry, is about Dr. Manette himself, who has experienced a Heroic B.S.O.D. and in the verge of a Sanity Slippage that only has been avoided by the use of his Companion Cube . "Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, "the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine.

Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake — and above all, for his daughter's — his daughter's, my dear Manette." "If I understand," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, "some mental shock — ?" "Yes!" "Be explicit," said the Doctor. "Spare no detail." Improbable Hairstyle : Dickens remarks that the world champion at leap-frog would refuse to jump over Cruncher. Hair that spiky would present too much of a risk. I Want My Beloved to Be Happy : Carton's obsession with Lucie motivates him to take her husband's place at the guillotine. Kangaroo Court : Carton saves Darnay from one in London, but there are plenty more in Paris, and they're even less just. Though the first trial of Darnay actually frees him thanks to excellent character witnesses. The second trial though is a textbook example. Kick the Dog : Done by both the nobles and the revolting peasants. Knight in Shining Armor : Charles Darnay. He leaves the life of luxury for moral reasons, returns to an unstable country to save a former servant, and gets the girl. What a swell guy.

Knight Templar : The Defarges. Laser-Guided Karma : As critical as Dickens is of the excessive violence of the Revolution, he argues that the French nobility fully brought this on themselves, and that any society built on this injustice will eventually face drastic consequences such as the events of the book. Living Emotional Crutch : Lucie is this for her father for most of the novel. In the beginning, without her presence, Dr. Manette is reduced to his old, solitary prison habits of making shoes. Mama Bear : Miss Pross is very protective of Lucy. Meaningful Name : Stryver is ambitious and is said to always be shouldering his way through life. Missing Mom : Lucie Manette. Charles Darnay. More Expendable Than You : Carton's self-sacrifice at the end is probably the most famous example of this trope. Names to Run Away from Really Fast : The Vengeance. Nay-Theist : Cruncher doesn't really understand religion, and as such mocks it, but he believes in God enough that he's afraid of the consequences if his wife starts praying for his death.

Ninja Maid : Miss Pross is a pacifist, but she's large, strong, and headstrong enough to come to her employer's aid. Noble Fugitive : Though his exile is self-inflicted, Charles Darnay is, in fact, an aristocrat of a different name. Noble Male, Roguish Male : Darnay is Noble, Carton is slightly more roguish while Stryver is a total cad. Off with His Head! : The guillotine is a central part of the story, due to taking place during the French Revolution. Orphan's Ordeal : This is largely the plot of Book I: Recalled to Life, in which Lucie is reunited with her thought-to-be-dead father. Other orphans include Madame Defarge and Sydney Carton, to name just a few. Pinball Protagonist : Darnay. Politically Correct History : Credit to Mr. Dickens though, he didn't make the French Revolutionaries out to be as Ax-Crazy and unjustified as most of his contemporaries did. Though like most of his contemporaries, for all kinds of understandable reasons , don't give the Revolution any credit for its positive achievements either.

The Power of Love : Not literally power, but the book outright states that Miss Pross is able to overcome Defarge through the power of love. Psycho Supporter : The Vengeance - who has no other name than that. Rebel Relaxation : Try to find a scene where Sydney isn't leaning on a wall, a window, or some other piece of furniture, often while staring at the ceiling. Reign of Terror : One of literature's most famous depictions. Though it largely conflates the Terror with the earlier September Massacres. Revenge by Proxy : Madame Defarge towards Darnay's entire family. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized : France is (in the typical British style) portrayed as being absolutely insane at the time period. Dickens actually takes a third option —neither side is justified, and there are good and bad people among the rich and the poor. However, he declares that the actions of the nobles led directly to the atrocities committed against them. Roaring Rampage of Revenge : The majority of the Revolutionaries, but particularly Madame Defarge against the Evremondes.

She is utterly obsessed with this goal, intending to destroy the entire family root and branch - even if one of them is an innocent little girl . Sins of Our Fathers : The Defarges want Revenge by Proxy for the crimes of Darnay's father and uncle. Stay with Me Until I Die : Sydney Carton promises to hold the hand of the innocent Seamstress until the end. He even talks with her during the entire ride to the guillotine, taking special care to distract her from it. "O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" "Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last." Literature.org - The Online Literature Library Charles Dickens Chapter 15 - The Footsteps Die Out For Ever ALONG THE PARIS STREETS, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine.

And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. "If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God," say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, "then remain so!

But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!" Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while, the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men.

Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand.

He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to to the girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound. On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?" when his face clears, as he looks into the third. "Which is Evremonde?" says a man behind him. "That. At the back there." "With his hand in the girl's?" "Yes." The man cries, "Down, Evremonde To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evremonde!" "Hush, hush!" the Spy entreats him, timidly. "And why not, citizen?" "He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more.

Let him be at peace." But the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evremonde!" the face of Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the foremost chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. "Therese!" she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who has seen her? Therese Defarge!" "She never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood. "No; nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly. "Therese." "Louder," the woman recommends. Ay!

Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her! "Bad Fortune!" cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, "and here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!" As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!- A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up.

Crash!- And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their work, count Two. The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. "But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven." "Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object." "I mind nothing while I hold your band. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid." "They will be rapid. Fear not!" The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone.

Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. "Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me- just a little." "Tell me what it is." "I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate- for I cannot write- and if I could, how should I tell her!

It is better as it is." "Yes, yes: better as it is." "What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:- If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old." "What then, my gentle sister?" "Do you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: "that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?" "It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there." "You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?" "Yes." She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other.

The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him- is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. "I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe- a woman- had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her.

If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: "I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. "I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement- and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.

"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." -THE END- .

Question: The line ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done’ is from which novel by Charles Dickens?
Answer: A Tale of Two Cities