Dear Decathletes:
Please take some time and closely read Chapter 10, The Substance of the Shadows, 323-338. The climax of A Tale of Two Cities occurs in this chapter. The outcome of Charles Darnay is decided in these pages.
It all goes back to Dr. Manette and his 18 year confinement in the Bastille. Seems he left an incriminating note in his cell- a note that was later retrieved by Monsieur Defarge when the Bastille was stormed. The note incriminates his son-in-law Charles Darnay.
Remember from one of my more recent entries, this event is foreshadowed earlier in the book when Darnay, Dr. Manette and Lucy discuss how they found a note from a former prisoner in the Tower of London.
There is definitely quite a bit of foreshadowing in this book!
Different subject: Isn't it ironic that Gabelle writes to Darnay to help him get out of prison, and when Darnay goes to Paris to help him he himself gets thrown into prison?
How about this irony? Dr. Manette makes shoes in prison, and continues to make them after release, still imprisoned in his mind...and then Dickens uses the motif of footsteps to represent the mobs of the French Revolution? Get it? Shoemaker? Footsteps?
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