English II H - AToTC: Book 2 Chapters 17-20 Analysis - TWHS

Summary

In this captivating analysis, RJ Feudo takes us through key events and themes in Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," specifically exploring Book 2, Chapters 17-20. The discussion begins with a comparative analysis of the alternating settings of England and France, highlighting the narrative's structural rhythm. The unfolding plot lines delve into Lucie and Darnay's upcoming nuptials and the profound love and sacrifices between Lucie and Dr. Manette. The analysis also explores the pivotal transformation in Dr. Manette's character following a revelation from Darnay, leading to a significant relapse. Through discussions of themes like redemption, sacrifice, and the haunting grip of the past, we gain insight into Dickens' rich storytelling and character development, setting the stage for further events in the narrative.

Highlights

• Dr. Manette's relapse signals a powerful depiction of trauma, pushing narrative tensions to new heights 😱.
• Lucie's role as the 'golden thread' weaving love and redemption into the tale creates a poignant theme of hope 🌟.
• Sydney Carton's self-loathing and potential for redemption add layers of complexity to his character arc 🤔.
• Feudo's narrative perspectives invite a closer examination of how personal history shapes present identities 🧩.
• The back-and-forth setting between England and France underlines the duality at the heart of the novel 🇬🇧🇫🇷.

Key Takeaways

• Lucie and Charles Darnay's wedding sets the stage for examining themes of love and sacrifice 🎩.
• Dr. Manette's relapse showcases Dickens' exploration of trauma and redemption 🔄.
• Narrative returns to England, highlighting the novel's structural rhythm between England and France 🇬🇧🇫🇷.
• Transformation of characters like Dr. Manette and Sydney Carton enhances the novel's depth 🌀.
• RJ Feudo's analysis illuminates Dickens' themes of identity, secrecy, and personal growth 📚.

Overview

Charles Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities' continues to unfold with RJ Feudo guiding us through the twists and turns of Book 2, Chapters 17-20. As the scene shifts back to England, we witness the intimate moments before Lucie and Charles Darnay's wedding, with the dual settings of England and France providing a fascinating structural rhythm.

The analysis delves deeply into the relationship between Lucie Manette and her father, Dr. Manette. Their profound connection and the sacrifices they make for each other are a testament to Dickens' exploration of genuine love and redemption. The inquiry also highlights the haunting remnants of Dr. Manette's past, leading to a dramatic relapse that shakes the narrative's foundation.

The exploration extends to Sydney Carton's intriguing character, an enigma of self-loathing and redemption. His narrative serves as a mirror to Darnay's, emphasizing themes of duality and complexity. Through an engaging discourse, Feudo brings to life the intricate dance of identity and transformation in Dickens' storied world.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Chapter 17: The Night Before the Wedding In Chapter 17 of the novel, titled 'The Night Before the Wedding,' Dickens provides a reprieve from the intense darkness, anger, and desire for vengeance that characterized the previous chapters. The narrative shifts back to England, though it is noted that the subsequent chapters (18 and 19) will return to heavier themes. This chapter serves as a part of the overall pacing of the novel, offering moments of respite amidst the tension.
• 05:00 - 10:00: Chapter 18: Darnay's Revelation and Manette's Relapse The chapter highlights a key structural aspect of the narrative: the distinct separation of the story between England and France. This narrative device has been consistent since the beginning, where each chapter location alternates between the two nations or focuses on one for a series of chapters. In this section, the story transitioned from England (Chapters 1-6) to France (Chapters 7-9). This alternation emphasizes the dual setting and prepares readers for the unfolding events that are tied to both countries.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Chapter 19: Reflection and Destruction of the Shoemaker's Bench The chapter takes place in England, focusing on the events leading up to the wedding of Lucy and Darnay. The narrative reflects on Darnay's intentions and his respectful approach to pursuing marriage with Lucy. He patiently waits for Lucy to express her interest in him to her father, ensuring that the union is based on her desire.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Chapter 20: Carton's Self-Perception and Lucie's Insight In Chapter 20, the narrative dives into Sydney Carton's internal struggles and perceptions of himself. The chapter intricately details Carton's feelings of inadequacy and his complex love for Lucie, revealing his deep-seated sense of worthlessness and despair. Additionally, the chapter shifts focus on Lucie's unique understanding and insight into Carton's character, showcasing her compassionate nature and her ability to see beyond his troubled exterior. Lucie's connection with her father, Dr. Manette, reaffirms their close relationship, setting the stage for significant developments in the subsequent chapters.
• 20:00 - 23:00: Conclusion and Foreshadowing Chapter 21 In Chapter 21, the theme of interconnected happiness is highlighted, with a character expressing that their happiness cannot be complete unless the other person's happiness is also fulfilled. This showcases the interconnectedness and shared responsibility for the emotional well-being of loved ones. Additionally, the profound influence of Lucy over Dr. Annette is emphasized, demonstrating a recurring theme from earlier in the narrative, where Lucy's actions were able to bring renewal and hope to Dr. Annette's life, symbolized by the phrase 'recall him to life.' The chapter underscores the self-sacrificing love both characters exhibit towards each other.

English II H - AToTC: Book 2 Chapters 17-20 Analysis - TWHS Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey sophomores so now having spent all of that time with the defarges and in that darkness and that anger and that vengeance and that spirit of retribution uh dickens gives us a bit of a break for a little bit at least for a chapter not this entire four chapter section but at least for chapter 17 uh kind of giving us these peaks and valleys so everything's not heavy although things certainly do get heavy here in chapters 18 and 19 as we'll discuss in just a moment uh but chapter 17 through 20 take us back to england
• 00:30 - 01:00 and before we get to 21 i think it's really important to notice that since chapter one of book the first we are never in both countries right chapter one of book the first just sets up the scene so we're not in the narrative yet it talks about both england and france but starting with chapter two of book the first we are either in england or france for each chapter and usually for a chunk of chapters at a time and indeed that's been the case here in this section we were in england for chapters one through six then we were in france for chapters seven through nine
• 01:00 - 01:30 back to england for ten through fourteen uh france again for fifteen and sixteen and now here we are back in england for seventeen through twenty and of course chapter seventeen is the night before lucy and darnay's wedding remember we knew way back in chapter 10 of book the second that that was darnay's intention but as we discussed back then he wants it to be because lucy wants it so he doesn't actually pursue the marriage he waits for lucy to voice her interest in him to her father and only then pursues
• 01:30 - 02:00 we then learned from john barcad of all people in that last france section uh that this marriage is gonna happen so chapter 17 is the night before the wedding it is this one night and this chapter is oh so brief right it is a grand total of about five five and a half pages but it reminds us of some key things that set us up for what then comes in chapters 18 and 19. the first is the closeness of lucy and dr vanette's relationship um you know they say things like
• 02:00 - 02:30 um how could my happiness be perfect while yours was incomplete like that's what he says sir how could my happiness um be perfect while yours was incomplete so he's even saying i can't be fully happy unless you're happy and understand the second bullet point there is that lucy also has this profound influence over dr annette she's able to as we saw all the way back from book the first recall him to life and both of them exercised this self-sacrificing love
• 02:30 - 03:00 and in our discussion of chapters 10 through 13 we talked about the way that dickens presents authentic love as self-sacrificing well okay we see it in both of these characters at that point we discuss the fact that dr bennett sacrifices his own peace sacrifices his own um ability to not be reminded of his time in the bastille for whatever reason the darnay reminds him of that um in order for lucy to be happy he's willing to sacrifice that element of himself so that she can be happy and of course as he says here he can't be happy unless
• 03:00 - 03:30 she's happy so there's this symbiosis at work here and then of course with lucy we haven't discussed this and the book doesn't really discuss it but think about how much she has sacrificed because of her love for her father remember when we first met them back in book the first she didn't even know she had a living father she's 17 years old and on the spot at the drop of a hat without giving it a second thought she goes to france with jarvis lori rescues her father and then spends five years nursing him back to health
• 03:30 - 04:00 and you'll notice that when john barcode was talking with the defarges when he was in france there in the wine shop he even mentions uh you know the fact that you know it's kind of kind of late for her you would have expected that she'd be married by now so she gave up some critical years of her youth right because by the point that by the time we get to 1781 she's in her mid-20s and she's given up all of this time out of love for her father and so really what we see throughout this is this portrait of the love between them but there's also of course the reminder
• 04:00 - 04:30 of dar of dr mannette's time in prison his time in the bastille and we do get a few new details here right this idea that in his mind he watched his pregnant wife outside of the prison uh and he even says i have looked at her speculating thousands of times upon the unborn child from whom i had been rent whether is alive whether it had been born alive or the poor mother shock had killed it whether it was a son who would someday avenge his father there was a time in my imprisonment when
• 04:30 - 05:00 my desire for vengeance was unbearable right now remember this follows chapter 16 where madame de far says and let me read you the direct quote um vengeance and retribution require a long time it is the rule she wants vengeance she wants retribution well he wanted vengeance and rep retribution but eventually he didn't anymore and a lot of that can be chalked up perhaps to his strength or to his innate
• 05:00 - 05:30 goodness and his strength is reinforced by the quote that i put on the screen right there into his handsome face the bitter waters of captivity had worn but he covered up their track to the determination so strong that he held mastery of them even in his sleep now look at the imagery here right um and look at the metaphor the bitter waves of captivity had worn think about this water wears down stone and wears down other materials but he's saying but we're saying in this metaphor captivity was that water it was that destructive eroding force
• 05:30 - 06:00 but he's still strong so strong that he holds a mastery over this in his sleep and it's so important to understand that he has this strength at this point in 17 in the early 1780s because think about what happens in chapter 18. we're going to go from this level of strength this level of composure this level of progress to what happens in chapter 18 after he has his long awaited conversation with
• 06:00 - 06:30 darnay about darnay's true identity and then we have this striking change in him and so we go from this description in chapter 17 to this paragraph that we see in chapter 18. he was so deadly pale which had not been the case when they went in together that no vestige of color was to be seen in his face but in the composure of his manner he was unaltered except to the shrewd glance of mr laurie it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him
• 06:30 - 07:00 remember he could keep it under control even in his sleeve but now he's so deadly pale there's no color he's still composing himself but mr laurie sees through it and then it goes on to say that lori observed a great change to have come over the doctor as if the golden arm uplifted there had struck him a poisoned blow right so he's in a situation where it looks like he has been shot by something laden with poison and it says it was the old scared lost look that troubled mr laurie the scared lost look that was the look
• 07:00 - 07:30 that was on his face when he was in that room above the wine shop on the fifth floor where they found him in chapter six of book the first he is in a sense visually looking like that again as a result of whatever it is that darnay told him about his true name the morning of the wedding and then we see that all of the progress has been erased when mr laurie returns to the house and miss pross gives this devastating statement he doesn't know me and is making shoes and that begins this
• 07:30 - 08:00 perilous nine-day period in which in which men it has this incredible relapse and obviously we don't know what happened between 1775 and 1780 because we skipped those five years but we do know that since 1780 although there have been a couple of times where he had a little relapse and made some shoes it was nothing like this and he was quickly recalled but remember in the past time something goes wrong lucy is always with him
• 08:00 - 08:30 lucy can always recall him and the problem is lucy is now not here and so lori and prospero swing into action and this is a really really great moment for both of these characters because we see so much of their agency we see much so much of their determination we see so much of their care for these people right they are not blood members of this family but they certainly behave as if they are members of this family which makes sense for miss frost remember she was characterized from the beginning as protective as determined um
• 08:30 - 09:00 and as kind of like you know like single-minded she's gonna do what she sets her mind to but with mr laurie this is huge this is growth because remember it was always secondhand cares like secondhand clothes they can come on and off this is not a secondhand care for this man right so they have two priorities keep the relapses secret from lucy and keep the relapse a secret from everyone else that they know and kind of keep themselves under composure because things just get worse and worse and worse and it even
• 09:00 - 09:30 says there towards the end of the chapter mr laurie could not fail to observe that the shoemaker whose hand had been a little out at first was growing dreadfully skillful and here's the key and that he had never been so intent on his work and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert as in the dusk of the ninth evening y'all whatever the truth of charles darnay's name is it is so closely associated in dr mannette's mind with the bastille and with his torture and with his agony and with his death in life
• 09:30 - 10:00 that not only does he have this full relapse but he come becomes better at shoemaking than he had ever been before think of the power that that indicates but then all of a sudden on the night after the ninth night he comes out of the relapse and there's this wonderful exchange between jarvis lori and dr manette in chapter 19 which is called an opinion the opinion of course being the opinion of dr amended about his own situation because the cool thing about dr mannett
• 10:00 - 10:30 at this point is that when he hasn't relapsed you know the book has told us again and again and again he has recovered so much that he is a fully practicing doctor again and a respected one at that and so jarvis laurie being as brilliant as he is presents the case to dr banette like it's an anonymous patient and look at mannett's diagnosis and understand magnet as we see figures out that it's himself
• 10:30 - 11:00 but he diagnoses himself as an outside third party you know sometimes we have to step outside of ourselves and look at ourselves from an outside perspective to make sense of what's happening to us and he says there was a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought or remembrance that was the first cause of the malady so there was something that revived his bastille experience because that was the first cause of the malady the malady being the shoemaking now look at this it is probable that there had long been a dread lurking in his mind that those
• 11:00 - 11:30 associations would be recalled under certain circumstances on a particular occasion he tried to prepare himself in vain and perhaps that effort made him less able to bear it this explains everything he's done and everything that he has been through since charles darnay said i have a secret to tell you about my real name and he goes on to say it may be the character of his mind to be always in singular need of occupation that may be impart natural to it in part
• 11:30 - 12:00 the result of affliction the less it was occupied with healthy things the more it would be in danger of turning to the unhealthy direction now there is this old saying that you have probably heard and that is idle hands are the devil's play thing and it's the general idea behind that statement that nanette communicates here that his mind needs something to keep it busy and in the absence of something positive to keep it busy it's going to fall back into this habit if his mind becomes disturbed and is not focused on the positive then the shoemaking comes in and he goes
• 12:00 - 12:30 on to say he wants jiren so frightfully for that occupation the shoemaking and it was so welcome when it came no doubt it relieves his pain so much by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain and the ingenuity of the hands for the ingenuity of mental torture but look at this even now when i believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence the idea that he might need that old employment and not find it
• 12:30 - 13:00 gives him a sudden sense of terror like that which one may fancy strikes the heart of a lost child he compares himself to a child and think about the ramifications to that comparison you know coping mechanisms especially the kind that we just keep with us like physical things we keep with us those are the sorts of things we more often associate with a child now as teenagers and in adulthood we have other coping mechanisms but it's very rare that you see an adult you know walking around with a stuffed animal or a blankie or or something else something physical
• 13:00 - 13:30 something physical and tangible like children have right children have the stuffed animal or they have the blankie or they have whatever it is that's going to help them cope that's essentially what this is for him which is why he compares himself to this child meaning he's kind of in the state of arrested development he can't move forward in his development as a human being because he's still got this thing that is almost like a child and so he advises them to destroy it and to destroy it while he is absent
• 13:30 - 14:00 which is which makes sense but i'd like you to look very very carefully at the very end of this chapter after dr manette goes to join charles darnay and lucy on their honeymoon it says on the night of the day on which he left the house mr laurie went into his room with a chopper saw chisel and hammer attended by miss pross carrying a light there with closed doors and in a mysterious and guilty manner mr laurie hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces while miss pross held the candle as issue resisting at a murder
• 14:00 - 14:30 for which indeed in her grimness she was no unsuitable figure the burning of the body was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire and the tools shoes and leather were buried in the garden so wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds that mr laurie and miss pross while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces almost felt and almost looked like accomplices and a horrible crime wow there is a lot to unpack there
• 14:30 - 15:00 first of all let's look at the extended metaphor the destruction of the shoemaker's bench which remember dr minette advised that they do they are doing for him they are doing knowing that he wants them to do it they are doing for his benefit for his good for his ability to escape this area of arrested development and become more secure but the extended metaphor here is of a crime that they're committing a crime and very specifically a murderer the hacking to pieces she's assisting in a murderer the burning of
• 15:00 - 15:30 the body because think about it you guys in chapter six of book the first dr minette did not introduce himself as dr minette the doctor of bavai he was 105 north tower the shoemaker symbolically here they are killing the shoemaker 105 north tower this is symbolically a murder they are killing this part of him but they are killing this part of it because he wants them to and so the question is well then why why would it feel like such a crime to them
• 15:30 - 16:00 and the key is in that last sentence they are honest deeply honest people and the fact that they're having to destroy something and do so secretly it makes it feel like a crime to them not because it is a crime but because they are so honest and pure of heart that to do something under cloak and dagger like this feels like it is a cry and we move on from that from carton coming to give his congratulations there in chapter 20. uh and in that section we see again as
• 16:00 - 16:30 always he is fundamentally the same he says you know i'm incapable of all the higher and better flights of man that's what he says to darnay at any rate you know me as a dissolute dog who has never done any good nor ever will look at that y'all he says he's never gonna do any good and he never has done any good i think it's the irony of that right he's saying this to the person whose life he saved charles sardone would have been drawn and quartered if not for sydney carton but he is so wrapped up in his own self-loathing and his
• 16:30 - 17:00 own narrative that he's told himself that he is worthless and incapable of goodness he's so incapable of letting that light that dickens keeps telling us is inside him pierce that outer darkness that he can't see any of it and i'd like you to look at lucy's commentary on carton here when she's talking to her husband at the end of the chapter after carton has requested to be friends uh and to have the privilege of stopping by and visiting them from time to time she says to darnay i would ask you dearest to be very generous with him
• 17:00 - 17:30 always and very lenient on his faults he has a heart he very very seldom reveals and there are deep wounds in it my dear i have seen it bleeding and she goes on to say and this is so sad i fear he is not to be reclaimed there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now but i'm sure that he's capable of good things gentle things even magnanimous things now remember lucy is the golden thread that's the title of book the second and
• 17:30 - 18:00 we've seen over and over and over again her ability to see the good in people and to draw people and to revive people and to recall people and so if lucy is the one looking at carton and saying i'm telling you he's capable of good things he's capable of gentleness he's capable of magnanimous things but then she's saying but i don't think it's ever going to happen i mean the situation seems really hopeless for carton and she reinforces it by saying oh my dearest love remember how strong we are in our happiness and how
• 18:00 - 18:30 weak he is in his misery and that's kind of a thematic idea here too if you can find happiness from that you can get strength but if you are miserable from misery comes weakness and that's why it makes sense that carton and darnay who are our doubles we see a strength in darnay because darnay has happiness but we see weakness in carton because carton is miserable and so uh in chapter 21 we're going to jump ahead quite a bit and you'll see that we're going to be in england for a bit but chapter one chapter 21 has
• 18:30 - 19:00 a bit of a structural difference and we'll talk about that when we get there see in the next one folks