Tale of Two Cites Lecture Notes

• Manchester is involved
• Dickens conceived this novel while acting with his children
• Proves to be a very personal work for Dickens
• In 1857, Dickens's helped write The Frozen Deep, and stared in it 
• It was about two men who liked the same women, and had self sacrifice because it was based on cannibalism in a arctic expedition
• In this, he met his Lucy, and left his wife for him
• Dickens likes Carton, and almost originally named him Richard (Dick, again copying the play) 
• In 1858, he started public readings for profit, which established him as a popular reader
• 1858 was a time of changing ties for him
• When Dickens was 10, he first went to London, and he did not like it, yet was fascinated by it, as he saw all the poor and suffering there.  
• He always writes about London, as all of the bad in the world was there, and it inspired him
• Dickens first visited Paris in 1844
• Dickens truly loved Paris, as it was completely alien to him
• Paris fascinated Paris in the exact opposite way that London did
• Because of the French problems, Paris was much more organized than London, as it was destroyed many times.  This made it a much more palatable for Dickens
• Another reason that Dickens liked Paris, was that it was constantly being upgraded, again, because of the revolutions
• Dickens still liked the dark sides of Paris.
• Many wine houses in Paris, which caused him to write some of Tale of Two Cities in a wine house
• Before Dickens wrote his book, two books, one about London’s locations, and one on Paris’s, influenced Dickens in writing, and provided many of the locations of the novel
• These books alluded to much of the history used in Tale of Two Cities
• In the opening, Dickens alludes to his bi-polar views of the cities, and the rich/poor class divide which he hated so
• Victorian England was haunted by the First French revolution, and its reign of terror
• This revolution terrified England, due to the fact that Victorian England, with its industrial revolution, was going much the same way that France was before the French Revolution
• Therefore, Tale of Two Cities was a warning to England
• The book was released in monthly parts in England and America
• Written with cliff hangars to make the audience return
• He wrote each part each month to see how his audience reacted
• Dickens wanted Tale of Two Cities to be his greatest work, and wanted it dramatized for the French
• Many dramatizations focused on Sydney Carton, and the same man played Carton in many of the adaptations, including the silent film, as an older man
• Even though he writes about history, Dickens is still able to build suspense with all of the little things he writes about in his work
• Dickens became good friends with Carlyle, who became a bit like a younger family member to Dickens, a man who wrote about the French Revolution
• Therefore, Dickens got historical help on his work from Carlyle
• Carlyle was one of a select few to read the book early
• The storming of the Bastille section was drawn directly from history with the help of Carlyle, yet was still suspenseful in Dickens novel
• To demonstrate this, Dr. Williams spends 7 minutes reading this passage
• The historical storyline is just as important as the multiple personal story lines
• Lucy is about the same age as Dickens's Lucy
• Finishes with Carton’s Death scene