“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The line is infamous in English literature as Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, to frame the motif of duality throughout the seven monthly installments of the novel to-be. My first reading of A Tale of Two Cities was involuntary and laden with reading checks and times essays during my junior year AP Language class. While I’m not the biggest fan of male white-washed literature curriculums, Dickens centers the novel around the duality of good versus evil, order versus chaos, within the settings of the late 18th century London and revolting Paris (woah, the two cities) but drives the theme of how these contrasts are deceptive. And so, I only came to appreciate the opening lines during the quite recent second read in the backdrop of academic free will and churning news headlines of contradiction. The following lines of the opening paragraph set the tone of tension — a push and pull that has to give and brings me back to themes of protest as “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, to was the epoch of belief, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Let them eat cake. It builds up to La Révolution and the reign of the guillotine as Dickens depicts the pre-French Revolution tension through rising heat, violence, and social injustice. Dickens’ descriptive language portrays a growing class conflict, impending massacre, and the aftermath of the revolution as the plot climax aligns with the height of the French revolt. Between London and Paris, the main characters Charles Darnay, an ex-french aristocrat looking to renounce his family title, and Sydney Carton, a brooding English lawyer, fall for fair Lucie Manette, a Frenchwoman dedicated to caring for her father after his 18-year-long imprisonment in Bastille. A love triangle churns amidst a hateful revolution of the people as the protagonists become collateral in the agenda of the French revolutionaries, and further dichotomies appear through character foiling and plot events that pair moments of revenge with the resolution of redemption and hope. Charles and Sydney are two men who are inverse images of each other. Despite the uncanny physical resemblance, Charles is a kind gentleman who gets the girl, and Sydney remains a self-loathing alcoholic who changes at an ultimatum of sacrifice.
While the plot is split into three sections — exposition, the chaos of the revolution, and the aftermath — the love triangle is complicated by a symmetry of foiling characters that change hands. The Defarges are introduced as a middle-aged French revolutionary couple leading the revolt. Therese Defarge is a malevolent force that perpetually knits a red scarf to fuel the revolt until the sinister string of red instills a motif of vengeance against the French aristocracy. Madame Defarge represents a direct foil to Lucie’s loving nature and supports a struggle of good versus evil, villain, and damsel, until the opposing roles dissipate during the resolution. Duality dominates the character exposition as Dickens paints a lineup of characters with their inverse selves, consistent with the opening lines of contradiction as the motivations and themes of the novel flip between each paired main character.
Obviously, my second reading was the bigger picture, without the dread of a reading check, and I have a newfound awe for character symmetry and an intense plot arc that captures passions of rebellion with underlying sadness for opposing realities. While the love triangle represents the plot catalyst, the prevailing theme, to me, was a sacrifice as a labor of love and/or a quelling of pain that emphasizes the complexity of protest. Duality exists in every narrative, but Dickens’ direct comparison of opposing truths resonates with student activism and the symmetry of hope and despair.
