A Tale of Humanity. Review on A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

ABOUT THE BOOK

Being a Dickens fan, I liked all his books that I have read.But A TALE OF TWO CITIES is one of my most favoured one.The book has every thing in it.The story starts before the french revolution started and continues to follow up to the time it started.The times are described wonderfully,the cruelty of the rulers and nobels,the reaction of the common people.It has valuable instances of self-sacrife for the sake of people you love.

THE SUMMARY

The story begins with the reunion of a father and daughter(the Manettes),who have never seen each other,with the help of the father's banker or agent.The father,after being released from prison(Bastille),is taken care of by faithful servants, who now run a wine shop and later play an important role in the Revolution.The father after many years of hardships and pains is mentally unstable but the daughter,Lucy,with all her love and patience cures him.

Then the scene shifts to a court room where a man Charles Darnayis saved by his look-alike lawyer(a drunkard and much misunderstood man)Sydney Carton,who can be called the tragic hero of this novel.Well now the Manettes were acquainted with Charles.And Charles and Lucy in love with each other.But the turning comes when Lucy comes to know that Sydney Carton also loves her.He tells her that he knows Lucy doesn't love him and that he wants nothing in return for his love. Lucy respects him for that but she marries Charles.

But her father who has recovered after five years' patient care, gets a big shock when he comes to know that Charles Darnay actually belongs to the French family of nobels for whom Doctor Manette had suffered much.and he again goes back to mental instability,but also recovers soon again.In the meanwhile Charles Darnay ,who though of the french nobility has nothing to do with, it goes back to France in the time of the French revolution and gets arrested by the common people,who were mad with rage and arrested everyone who had anything to do with the ruling class.Consequently,Lucy ,a mother now ,her daughter,father,the agent now a family friend comes to France.Sydney Carton also follows to try ways to help them.But after many attempts made by friends to save Charles,he gets a death sentence,which completely shatters Lucy.Sydney Carton unable to see Lucy in such a state takes Charles' place in prison and gets the Manettes out of Paris with Charles, and sacrifices his life for Lucy's happiness.he recieves death smiling and happy that in his life he has done something good and memorable.this is how the story ends.

Dickens has used beautiful words to describe everything,the plot is excellent,inspiring and full of life.One of the best novels that ever existed.and a must -read for every one according to me.

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.

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.

I see Basard, Cly ,Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge,long ranks of new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old. perishing by this retrubutive 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 ......................,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 am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever so liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

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.