“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 starts to his one of the two historical fictions A Tale of Two Cities with such a strong narrate. He published in weekly serial form between April 20, 1859 and November 26, 1859. He edited his story on one of the most famous and controversial dilemmas of history, whether the French Revolution was bright and shining milestone of civilization or bloody milestone that should be kept in darkness. He both criticises the sovereignty of Aristocracy and the terror age that people destroyed Aristocracy. As he mentions in his preface to novel, he does not aim to inform about historical events since Thomas Carlye had done it by his famous book The French Revolution: A History successfully according to Charles Dickens.
She is not the one of main characters of novel; however Madame Defarge had mostly horrified and attracted me. Though Dickens attaches her to story as a dull and quiet character that is just knitting all of the day, Madame Defarge character is raising page by page with her passion of revenge and her thirst to blood. On a metaphoric level, the knitting constitutes a symbol in itself, representing the stealthy, cold-blooded vengefulness of the revolutionaries. As Madame Defarge sits quietly knitting, she appears harmless and quaint. In fact, however, she sentences her victims to death. Similarly, the French peasants may appear simple and humble figures, but they eventually rise up to massacre their oppressors.
Another attractive theme of the novel is resurrection that you can easily see at several parts of it. For example at the beginning of the story Mr. Lorry replies to the message carried by Jerry Cruncher with the words "Recalled to Life". However, since it is not proper to give spoilers here, the other examples of this theme should be found by you. Especially the biggest and the most important one Sydney Carton's sacrifice.
A tale of two Cities is considered as one of the best 10 books of Charles Dickens, even it stands at top 5 according to some lists. It was adapted to movie 6 times while 4 of them silent films. The most successful adaptation was published in 1938 with 2 oscar nominations.
