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It is the year 1775. Dickens begins the novel by describing this year with one of the most famous sentences in literature: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" In short, despite the rapturous joy or painful suffering that everyone seems to feel, the time is really no less different than our own. It is filled with people who think "in the superlative degree of comparison only, " and who believe that the world is not going to change. The narrator describes the goings-on in England and France. In England, ghost sightings and prophets holding seances are common.
Highwaymen by night live as honest tradesmen by day, and thieves run rampant. In France, people are tortured for not paying homage to monks walking fifty yards away, and already there are rumblings of the terrible time that is to come. In short, the kings and queens of both countries rule, while the world of the commoners continues beneath them. On a misty Friday night in November, a mail-coach lumbers up a hill on the road to Dover. Three passengers trudge in the mud behind it, with one passenger flinching each time the coach rattles. The guard and coachman both complain that it is late, and the coach cannot go any faster.
Suddenly they hear a horse coming at full gallop. Everyone is frightened as the guard calls out to the mystery man. In a hoarse voice, the horseman asks for Mr. Jarvis Lorry.
Lorry identifies the voice as Jerry. When the guard shows some apprehension, Mr. Lorry states that he is from Tellson's Bank in London, and there is nothing to fear. Jerry gives Lorry the message "Wait at Dover for Mam " selle. " Lorry gives the reply, "Recalled to life, " and sends Jerry on his way.
After a few moments, the guard and coachman wonder what the conversation means. Meanwhile, Jerry rides back, hoping that "recalling to life" doesn't become fashionable. The narrator begins with some musings on how human hearts have secrets buried within, and we can never see anyone else's except our own. From there, he moves to the passengers, who are all suspicious of each other. Next he gives us a description of the shaggy-haired Jerry, who rides into town, murmuring that recalling to life will ruin his profession. Back in the mail-coach, Lorry tries to keep his mind on his job at the Bank.
His mind keeps slipping back to his present situation, however: he is going to "dig someone out of a grave. " He dreams of a conversation with an old man, whom he asks if he would like to be recalled to life. The response is always, "I can't say. " Lorry keeps concentrating on digging this person out, but keeps returning to the mist of the night. The cycle of thought continues until the morning. As he watches the sunrise, he says, "To be buried alive for eighteen years!" Mr. Lorry finally arrives in Dover the next morning. He arrives at the Royal George Hotel and makes his way to breakfast.
He orders and falls asleep, but when his breakfast arrives, he awakens and tells the servant that he his expecting someone. The waiter asks about Tellson's, and Lorry reveals that there is a branch in Paris as well as London worked there fifteen years ago. In the late evening, Miss Manette, Lorry's visitor, arrives. Lorry is led to her apartment. He reaches the rooms to discover a pretty, golden-haired young lady. Miss Manette politely welcomes him, and asks him if he will escort her to Paris for the business that Tellson's has for her there.
Lorry stammers as he tries to tell her what she must do. Miss Manette wonders if she knows the gentleman, but Lorry says nothing. Instead, he tells her the story of one customer. This customer was a French doctor from Beauvais in France. He married an English lady and put his affairs into Tellson's hands. Miss Manette stops Lorry, realizing that this is like her father's story and that Lorry must be the man who brought her to England.
Lorry continues, saying that this story ends differently than her father's story. This doctor's wife must have suffered so deeply from her husband's actual location that she decided to tell her child daughter that her father was dead. Miss Manette drops to her knees and begs Lorry for the truth. Lorry tells her that this was her family's story. While no more possessions of her father's have been found, her father has been found alive and in a terrible condition. Lorry will take her to Paris so she may retrieve him.
After a moment, Miss Manette falls into a faint. Lorry calls for help, and immediately a wild, red women flies into the room in a rage. She orders the servants to get smelling salts, then begins scolding Lorry as she frets over Miss Manette. Lorry learns, much to his chagrin, that the wild woman will accompany them to France.
In the St. Antoine district, an impoverished section of Paris, everyone comes into the street because a cask of wine has been dropped and broken. Men, women, children all push and shove to get even a small drop of the red wine. Afterwards, everyone returns to their hard labors of chopping wood and caring for children with smears of red covering their faces and clothes.
One man named Gaspard writes "Blood" on the wall, using the last of the spilled wine. Nearby, the owner of a wineshop watches the squabble. He chastises Gaspard for writing on the wall in the public space, then wipes it away and returns to the wine shop. When he returns, his wife, Madame Defarge, knits and coughs. Monsieur Defarge notices the old man and young woman sitting at a table. He ignores them and has a short conversation with three men, all of whom have the name Jacques.
He directs them toward a chamber on the fifth floor. Suddenly the old man has a quick conversation with Defarge. Defarge takes the gentleman and lady to a dark room high in the wine-shop. Apparently Dr. Manette must be kept in a room like a prison, because to do otherwise would drive him mad. Defarge says he shows Dr.
Manette to a chosen few, because their name is Jacques. Lucie feels nothing but fear. When the door is unlocked, the company sees a little old man making shoes. The little old shoemaker speaks as a man who has been buried alive, and dresses in dirty and yellowing clothes. When he is asked his name, he says, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower " his cell room and location. Lorry tries to make Manette remember him, but Manette's eyes fall on Lucie, and he seems to remember her.
When Lucie goes to him, he believes that she is the jailer's daughter. Seeing her beautiful blonde hair, though, upsets him. He is confusing her with his own wife. Lucie comforts him, and says that she will take him home to England. Defarge agrees, and he and Lorry get the carriage and travelling-papers in order while Lucie stays with Dr. Manette.
When they depart, Manette seems very agitated. Lorry thinks of men being buried alive as they head back to England. The year is 1780, and five years have passed since Dr. Manette's arrival in England. At Tellson's, business is bustling, even though the shop and all one's papers seem to be in a permanent state of decay. Everything, that is, except Jerry Cruncher, Tellson's faithful messenger.
At home, Jerry beats his wife for "flopping" (his word for praying). His son, Young Jerry, helps his father by telling him that his mother is going to pray again. Eventually father and son go off to work. A Tellson's man calls for a messenger. While Jerry goes out on his errand, young Jerry wonders why his father's fingers are always so rusty.
The Tellson's clerk orders Jerry to the Bailey courts. Jerry is to wait there for Lorry until Lorry gives him a message to bring back. Lorry is at a treason trial, as Jerry learns from the clerk and from a man who delights in describing the punishment. The judge enters, and Jerry sees the man being tried. He is a young, dark-haired man named Charles Darnay.
As the Attorney-General gives a long-winded speech, Darnay looks calm, while the crowd watches eagerly. Two of the witnesses will be Dr. Manette and Lucie! The first witness is called: Mr.
John Based. He had never been a spy, or a criminal of any sort. He says he saw Darnay with some papers that had lists on them. Another man, Roger Cly, says the same. Soon Lorry is called. Darnay traded these papers on the same ship that the Manette's and Lorry took in returning to England.
Lucie is called, and she shows reluctance in saying anything against the prisoner. Dr. Manette is called, but he says he knows very little, as his mind was not fully present. C. J.
Stryver, Darnay's lawyer, doesn't know what to do. Things look bad for Darnay until his lawyer's clerk, Sydney Carton, writes quickly and gives it to Stryver. Stryver points out to Cly that the man they could have seen was probably not Darnay. After all, his clerk looks like Darnay!
The whole crowd notices the similarities between Carton and Darnay, and gasps. The jury goes out, but the outcome is not in doubt. Darnay is acquitted of treason. In the push of the celebrating crowd, Carton notices that Lucie is fainting, and calls for help. Jerry takes the verdict back to Tellson's. Darnay, Carton, Stryver, Lorry, and the Manette's linger to celebrate Darnay's acquittal.
Dr. Manette looks gloomy, but Lucie comforts him. Darnay kisses Lucie's hand and thanks his lawyers. Carton, looking unkempt, speaks rudely to Lorry and Darnay, but then he invites Darnay to dinner.
At the bar, Carton is bitter, and says they are not alike at all. Darnay is confused, but tries to act cheerfully. Carton acts jealous of Lucie's attention to Darnay, and says that he doesn't like Darnay at all. Darnay continues to be kind, and says that Carton should put his talents to better uses. After Darnay leaves, Carton looks at himself in a mirror.
He confesses that Darnay is a vision of what he could have been, and that explains his hatred for him. Carton falls to the table and has some more wine. Stryver and Carton's history together is recounted first. Stryver was a great lawyer, but he could never glean the right information from the wealth of legal documents.
Somehow he gained the ability, and although he drank with Carton, he always had his briefs ready by the morning. Carton is awakened by the tavern owner at ten o'clock. After a few moments, he heads for Stryver's office. As Carton goes to work on the briefs, Stryver sits nearby, drinking and taunting Carton about his luck.
Soon Carton finishes, and the two men discuss the events of the day. We learn about Carton's past was always the boy who did the work for his classmates. When he met Stryver, Stryver was the successful one, while Carton was the wastrel. Carton orders Stryver to changes the subject, so Stryver begins talking about Lucie Manette.
Carton calls her "a golden-haired doll, " and heads home. The air is gloomy, and Carton throws himself on his bed and weeps for the life he has wasted. On a Sunday afternoon, Lorry decides to call on the Manette's. The Manette's live in a quiet and beautiful area. The house holds the doctor's practice also. When Lorry arrives, no one is home, so he makes himself at home.
As he walks, he sees the old shoemaker's bench, and wonders why Dr. Manette keeps it. Miss Press comes in and acts characteristically angry with Lorry. She is upset because "hundreds of people" come to see Lucie every day.
She wishes that her brother Solomon, who has abandoned her, would come to court Lucie, since he is the only worthy one. Yet Miss Press notices that Dr. Manette never talks about his imprisonment. Soon Darnay comes to visit Lucie, to the consternation of Miss Press.
Darnay tells a story of a discovery in the Tower. Some prisoner had buried something in the walls long ago something that the poor person had hidden in the walls. At this story, Dr. Manette looks stricken, but he says it is only because of the rain. They go inside, where Carton meets them.
All sorts of people are running for cover in the rain. Lucie is frightened, and Darnay tries to comfort her. Lucie says she thinks of the footsteps coming into their lives. Carton says the rainfall sounds like those horrible footsteps. In France, a great nobleman called Monseigneur holds court in his Paris apartments. His four servants serve him a cup of chocolate that is their sole duty.
He couldn't be bothered with affairs of state because he spent the night at the Opera. He also has powerful friends, including the common-born but very rich Farmer-General to whom he forced his sister in marriage. Doctors, businessmen, even soldiers all bow to Monseigneur's wishes, and everyone dresses in the latest fashion to please him. As he leaves his chamber, he ignores one of the noblemen, a Marquis. The Marquis is so angry that he forces his coachman to drive away at breakneck speed. His carriage rushes through the Saint Antoine district.
A child is caught under the wheels and killed. A man wails over the body, and to placate the man the Marquis tosses some money at him. Defarge says that the child is better off dead than suffering alive, and the Marquis throws money at him too. Defarge throws it back, and the Marquis drives off in a huff as Madame Defarge watches the scene, knitting.
The Marquis rides to his country castle. As he stops in a village, a mender of roads tells him that he saw a man under the carriage. After much searching, the Marquis orders the man to be put off by his servant, Gabelle. The coach rides on, past a graveyard. A woman stops the carriage and begs the Marquis for some money for a gravestone for her husband. Gabelle removes her too, and the coach rides on.
When he gets to his chateau, the Marquis asks if Monsieur Charles has arrived from England and gets a negative response. The Marquis strides through his home, passing through the torture rooms and the luxurious rooms. As he eats dinner, he has the servants checking for anything suspicious. Halfway through his meal, his nephew arr...
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Research essay sample on Madame Defarge Buried Alive
