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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . Dickens begins A Tale of Two Cities
with this famous sentence. It describes the spirit of the era in which this
novel takes place. This era is the latter part of the 1700s - a time when
relations between Britain and France were strained, America declared its
independence, and the peasants of France began one of the bloodiest revolutions
in history. In short, it was a time of liberation and a time of terrible
violence. Dickens describes the two cities at the center of the novel: Paris, a
city of extravagance, aristocratic abuses, and other evils that lead to
revolution and London, a city rife with crime, capital punishment, and disorder.
In both cities, the capabilities of an angry mob were a dangerous thing, to be
feared by all. The tale begins on a road between London and Dover (in southern
England) in 1775.
Three strangers in a carriage are traveling along this
dangerous road. The carriage encounters a messenger on a horse who asks for one
of the passengers, Jarvis Lorry of Tellson's Bank. They are wary, because the
messenger could be a highwayman, robber, or other undesirable. However, Mr.
Lorry ventures out into the rain to receive the message. He recognizes the
messenger as a man named Jerry, who works for Tellson's Bank, as well. Jerry
tells him to wait at Dover for the young lady. Lorry tells Jerry to relay to the
people at the Bank this message: Recalled to Life. Jerry has no idea what it
means and rides off into the rain. Dickens then ponders how the heart of a
person is a true mystery. Lorry can tell who or at least of what class the two
other passengers are. Traveling on, Lorry dozes in and out of dreams. His dreams
reveal to the reader that his mission is to metaphorically dig a man out of the
grave. He dreams of imaginary conversations with this man he is to recall to
life. Buried how long? Lorry always asks. Almost eighteen years, replies the
man. Lorry brings the man in his dreams to see a woman (the young woman of which
Jerry the messenger spoke). But the man does not know if he still wishes to live
or if he can bear to see the young lady after having been buried for eighteen
long years. Upon arriving at an inn in Dover, Lorry waits for the young lady.
Here the reader learns that the sixty-year-old Lorry is a well-dressed
businessman who works for Tellson's Bank. Tellson's has an office in London, and
an office in Paris.
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