Tale of Two Cities Lecture Notes

- Influenced by the French Revolution

- Dickens wrote the play "The Frozen Deep" in 1857

- Dickens acts as hero who sacrifices himself for others.

- Parallelism between Dick Carton and Charles Darnay

- Separated from his wife May 1858; separated from his publishers and ended his journal Nov. 1858

- Published a new journal 1859; chapters 1-3 of A Tale of Two Cities was published.

- He moved to London; described his experience as "extensive and peculiar knowledge at the city"

- He called it a "vile place" but he was able to be creative and find an inspiration in the "magical land."

- He was organized at an early age 

- His first impression of Paris was that it was the most extraordinary place, but lacked uncontrolled nature of London

- The end of Two Cities is remembrance of this change 

- Died in 1879

- He was attracted to the darkness of the city

- Dickens said his worlds of London and Paris were similar

- Dickens used the historical facts of the period as background

- The story is from 1757 to 1794 and contains violence

- The book came out in weekly parts 

- It was popular in the US 

- Dickens left cliffhanger endings so that people would buy the next issue

- Dickens used a book on the French Revolution to write the French portion of the plot of The Tale of Two Cities.

- The book includes personal experiences (ex- passage about mystery in Ch. 3)

- Life on no account; ready to sacrifice; the attack started

- Dickens handled criticism well 

- Theme: the creation of a world back in the 1770s-1780s

- Characters were mysteries to others