December's Selection: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
by Marilyn Green Faulkner

It's hard to imagine, but A Tale of Two Cities was originally conceived as a Christmas book!

In 1846 Dickens wrote in his journal: "I have been thinking this last day or two that good Christmas characters might be grown out of the idea of a man imprisoned for ten or fifteen years..." Instead the idea reappeared later when Thomas Carlyle's lengthy history of the French revolution enjoyed a wide readership in England, and the story of the man "buried alive" was placed in the setting of the revolution.

For Dickens, history takes second place to the personal stories of the characters, and this may make the impact of the revolution even greater. I read recently that though Lincoln orchestrated the emancipation of the slaves, it was Harriet Beecher Stowe's little book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that made whites see blacks as human for the first time. In the same way a historical narrative, no matter how well researched, cannot bring the events of history into focus as clearly as the same story told through the eyes of a family. This novel will remind you, perhaps, of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, with its unusually close father and daughter, a suitor who breaks up their comfortable life, and the roiling events of French history around them. Les Miserables was written a dozen years later than A Tale of Two Cities, and Hugo and Dickens traded influence back and forth.

Certain types of characters turn up over and over in Dickens. There is the "man of business," in this case, Jarvis Lorry. He purports to be all business but is, of course, a deeply compassionate individual who spends much of his time going the extra mile for others. Sydney Carton is the good-for-nothing debauched type who is actually brilliant and is responsible for the success of the blowhard Stryver. Dickens was employed as a court reporter and he knows every detail of court proceedings. I can't think of a Dickens novel that does not end up in court one way or another, and the scenes are always among his best. Jerry Cruncher and Miss Pross are the comic servants, a device used by both Shakespeare and Dickens to wonderful effect. We should talk about spousal abuse in Dickens, every novel seems to have a violent couple, often presented as comic relief, but is it funny?

Lucy Mannette is perfect, as Dickens's young heroines always are. She has no dark side, her heart is pure, her behavior is exceptional, and her devotion to her father is unfailing. Try not to let her get you down! Dickens had a very unhappy marriage, and he had just separated from his wife before this book was written. If you are a famous author you can create a perfect woman, I suppose, but we might wish that Dickens would add the interesting layers to his heroines that always exist in his heros.

You may find the long discussions of executions rather disturbing. Here Dickens is referring to a reality that has faded away for us, the "cruel and unusual punishment" that criminals routinely received. Michel Foucault, in his book Discipline and Punish, quotes the records of the execution of a man called Damiens in 1757 in Paris. Dickens has the four Jacques discuss this case, which is horrifying, yet historically exact in its detail of a man drawn and quartered. Executions were held often in both countries, and they were popular public spectacles. Dickens was both fascinated and horrified by these events, and his journals show that he attended many himself. Lest this seem so inhuman that we cannot relate to it, we should review the recent articles on lynchings in the South, where thousands of black Americans were mutilated and lynched in public spectacles (documented in souvenir postcards) that extended into the 1900's. Though we hide our executions from view today, there is a fascination with the suffering of another that is a frightening part of the human psyche, and it comes into play over and over in this novel.

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A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens