A Tale of Two Cities
By Charles Dickens
Genre: Social criticism, Fiction, Novel, Historical novel
Number of pages read: 42/321
Summary: In chapter 5, Dickens describes a poor, working suburb of Paris, the Saint Antoine suburb. Hunger is everywhere, no store works has many customers, people are dressed in old, dirty clothes. A group of people was transporting wine to the wine shop. They accidentally dropped a barrel of wine and wine spilled all over the streets. People left their jobs or whatever they were doing and rushed to the wine shop, so they could drink the wine from the floor and feed their wives and kids. They were all celebrating, dancing and drinking. The owner of the wine shop went in and saw three revolutionaries and his wife knitting behind the counter. Lorry and Lucie were also there. The owner talked to the revolutionaries and directed them to the fifth floor. Then he talked to Lorry. They were whispering to each other, so Lucie can't hear. The owner's name was Monsieur Defarge. After the conversation was over, they went to the fifth floor and saw the tree men looking through some cracks in a wall of a chamber. Monsieur Defarge opened the door of the chamber. There was an old man sitting inside making shoes. Defarge said that the man's name is Doctor Manette, but when Lucie asked him what his name was, the man responded: "One Hundred and Five, North Tower". Then, Doctor Manette said that Lucie has the same hair color as his wife. He said that ever since he was imprisoned, he kept a small box with a few of his wife's hairs tied around his neck. Lucie began persuading him that she is his daughter and asking him questions that made provoked his emotions. Overflown with feelings for his daughter, Doctor Manette collapsed. Lucie was eager to go back to England with his father. Lorry was assuring her that the trip will not do good to her fathers health, but Defarge was on Lucie's side, so they made the arrangements for the trip.
Reflection: I enjoyed reading this part of the book because of the mysterious events that take place. I was puzzled when I read that Doctor Manette was making shoes for 18 years, for it is a very strange penalty. For now, the book has fulfilled my expectations. I don't have a clue about what's going to happen next in the book, for nothing in the book gave me an idea about what to expect next.
Passage: "As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope- so exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her." (page 36)
I chose this passage because it gave an excellent description of when Doctor Manette met his daughter and Lorry and Defarge. It gives a lot of detail and vividly illustrates the situation.
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