English II H - AToTC: Book 2 Chapters 21-24 Analysis - TWHS

Summary

In these chapters of 'A Tale of Two Cities,' Dickens masterfully weaves motifs, characters, and historical context to depict the onset of the French Revolution. As events spiral towards chaos, the juxtaposition between peace in England and turmoil in France becomes starkly evident. Notably, Madame Defarge emerges as a formidable revolutionary force, with her knitting symbolizing meticulous planning that shifts to violent action. Dickens explores the destructive nature of revolution through vivid imagery, setting the stage for significant changes and highlighting the perilous path Charles Darnay embarks upon as he returns to France amid the Revolution’s upheaval.

Highlights

• The storming of the Bastille is depicted through intense imagery, symbolizing the revolution's violent birth. 🌩️
• Madame Defarge's knitting ceases as she picks up weapons, marking a shift from planning to action. 🗡️
• Charles Darnay receives a letter summoning him to France, highlighting the danger lurking as he is seen as a noble. 📜
• The role of women, particularly through Madame Defarge, is emphasized as instrumental and formidable in the revolutionary movement. 👩‍✒️
• The burning of the Chateau by revolutionaries highlights their resolve to erase the nobility's legacy. 🔥
• Dickens' juxtaposition of peaceful, orderly England and chaotic, revolutionary France enriches the novel's conflict. 🇬🇧 vs 🇫🇷

Key Takeaways

• ⚡ Dickens uses motifs like echoes, footsteps, and the sea to enrich the narrative, adding depth to the revolutionary fervor in France.
• 👩‍🔧 Madame Defarge transitions from a symbol of planning to action, epitomizing the revolutionary spirit.
• 🌊 The dual imagery of peace in England and chaos in France underscores the novel's themes of duality and conflict.
• 🧶 Knitting in these chapters signifies more than domesticity; it represents meticulous planning and ominous intentions.
• 🏰 The chapters describe the violent storming of the Bastille and the symbolic burning of the Chateau, highlighting the revolution's destructive force.
• 📜 Letters and motifs foreshadow the impending peril faced by Charles Darnay as he returns to France.

Overview

As we delve deeper into Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' chapters 21 to 24 bring us to the heart of the French Revolution, a pivotal moment Dickens foreshadowed from the very beginning. Through motifs such as echoes, footsteps, and the sea, Dickens sets the stage for unrest, embodying the revolutionary spirit that grows to a fever pitch. Madame Defarge, with her defiantly abandoned knitting, transitions into a ruthless symbol of revolutionary fervor, wielding her weapons with purpose.

The stark contrast between the serene, progressive life of Dickens' English characters and the tumult and urgency in France paints a vivid picture of dual realities. While peace and continuity mark the fate of characters like Lucie Manette and her family, France sees turmoil and upheaval, sharpened by the vibrant imagery of rising seas and burning chateaus. Dickens' use of duality in contrasting England and France portrays the complex emotions of love, suffering, and revenge.

In these chapters, Dickens emphasizes essential themes through powerful symbolism and character development. The knitting women become a metaphor for meticulous revolutionary planning, morphing into action as Madame Defarge exchanges her yarn for an axe. This transformation marks a lethal phase in the Revolution, as letters and ominous warns enlighten us to future dangers, particularly for Charles Darnay, whose noble heritage becomes a lodestone drawing him into perilous affray.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 06:00: Echoing Footsteps The chapter 'Echoing Footsteps' marks the long-foreshadowed start of the French Revolution in 'A Tale of Two Cities.' From the novel's first page, Dickens indicates the inevitability of these events, with 1775 conditions already setting the stage for the revolt. This momentous shift has been anticipated throughout the narrative, symbolized by references to the guillotine and tumbles. As such, this chapter represents a critical culmination of previous plot developments, bringing the narrative to a key historical turning point.
• 06:00 - 21:00: The Sea Still Rises In this chapter titled 'The Sea Still Rises,' the narrative delves into the powerful analogy of the revolution as a natural, destructive force. Building upon the idea introduced earlier by Madame Defarge, that the revolution is akin to lightning or an earthquake, the chapter dramatically depicts the storming of the Bastille. This event marks a significant and forceful moment in the storyline, reflecting the tumultuous and violent essence of the revolutionary forces, akin to those natural disasters - both inevitable and immensely impactful.
• 21:00 - 30:00: Fire Rises The chapter titled 'Fire Rises' is part of a section that deals with the beginnings of the French Revolution, marked officially on July 14, 1789. The sequence of chapter titles in this section paints a thematic picture: 'Echoing Footsteps,' 'This Tea Still Rises,' 'Fire Rises,' and 'Drawn to the Lodestone Rock.' The linkage in titles, especially Chapters 22 ('This Tea Still Rises') and 23 ('Fire Rises'), highlights the theme of rising tension and revolutionary sentiment. This chapter, 'Fire Rises,' focuses on the escalating revolutionary fervor and the uprising of the people.
• 30:00 - 37:00: Drawn to the Lodestone Rock In the chapter titled 'Drawn to the Lodestone Rock,' the narrative begins to closely intertwine various motifs introduced earlier in the novel. These motifs, such as echoes, footsteps, the sea, and fire, are becoming central to the story's progression. This chapter marks a point where all these thematic elements are being drawn together, wherein motifs like the 'golden thread' continue to play a crucial role in threading the narrative cohesively.

English II H - AToTC: Book 2 Chapters 21-24 Analysis - TWHS Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey sophomores all right so after getting more than halfway through the novel we are finally here we are at the onset of the french revolution that dickens told us from the very first page of the novel was coming remember as early as 1775 he said that the farmer death and the woodman fate were already hard at work they had already picked the trees that would become the guillotine they had already picked the carts that would become the tumbles by 1775 the conditions are such that the revolution is inevitable and we have built to it all of this time now it has been a long time
• 00:30 - 01:00 coming in this novel like i said we're more than halfway through but remember what madame de far said to monsieur de fars back in chapter 16 of book the second that the revolution is like lightning or it's like an earthquake it is this massive destructive elemental natural force that takes a long time to build up but when its moment comes it is dramatic it is forceful and it is destructive and that is very much what we see here in chapter 21 which recounts the storming of the bastille that iconic opening event
• 01:00 - 01:30 officially of the french revolution on july 14 1789. now as we've been doing want to take a moment to look at the chapter titles in this section of reading chapter 21 being echoing footsteps chapter 22 this tea still rises chapter 23 fire rises and chapter 24 drawn to the lodestone rock now notice that chapters 22 and 23 have a commonality they're linked together they're both about rising right so we're at the beginnings of the revolution all the sentiment is coming up the other
• 01:30 - 02:00 thing to notice however is that we're starting to see the motifs really reflected in the chapter titles themselves echoes and footsteps came to us from chapter six of book the second the c has been with us from the beginning of the novel uh and fire is going to become a more and more prominent motif as we progress as well so really we are reaching a point in the novel where all of the motifs are coming together so as i already said we have echoes and footsteps and we have the c we're also continuing the motif of the golden thread which kind of goes
• 02:00 - 02:30 in with the motif of knitting so don't overlook the fact that madame de farge and lucy manet are both somehow somehow associated with like thread or creation some sort of textile sort of creation knitting sewing something like that and of course the storm is something that becomes particularly prevalent as we move through but the first thing that happens in chapter 21 is that the motifs are used to fast forward us eight years in time so we left off in the early 1780s we are now in 1789.
• 02:30 - 03:00 and the chapter begins a wonderful corner for echoes it has been remarked so it reminds us of what we were told back in chapter six that hundreds of people chapter that where they live in soho it's this great kind of perfectly suited corner for echoes and specifically echoes of all of those footsteps but look at how dickens uses the motifs in order to communicate critical information the second paragraph of the chapter reads at first there were times though she was a perfectly happy young wife when her work would slowly fall from her
• 03:00 - 03:30 hands and her eyes would be dipped for there was something coming in the echoes now that's not new we know that we know from before she thought she heard things coming in the echoes something light a far off and scarcely audible yet that stirred her heart too much fluttering hopes and doubts hope of a love is yet unknown to her doubts of her remaining upon earth to enjoy that new delight divided her breast among the echoes then there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave and thoughts of the husband
• 03:30 - 04:00 who would be left so desolate all right so one of the echoes that she hears over the course of these years are these kind of like prophetic premonitions that she is going to die young and charles darnay is going to be left to be is going to be left bereaved to grieve her right and that's one of the first things that dickens tells us has been going on these years that sometimes in the echoes where she thinks she hears basically the future that she hears of a really negative future for herself but it says that time passes and her
• 04:00 - 04:30 little lucy lay on her bosom then among the advancing echoes there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words so now we're using that motif of echoes to talk about the fact that she has a daughter a daughter named little lucy um then it goes on to say ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives and making it predominant nowhere lucy heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds so even though kind of in her mind she's
• 04:30 - 05:00 thinking that the future may be dire for her over the course of these years everything she's experiencing is positive right it's these friendly sounds um that she hears in the echoes in other words it's friendly calm peaceful experiences she has over these intervening years between chapter 20 and chapter 21. and don't miss that it also reminds us of the golden thread motif and says that she is the golden thread that binds all these people together miss pross mr laurie sydney carton charles darnay
• 05:00 - 05:30 her father little lucy all of them right even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest they were not harsh nor cruel even when golden hair like her own laying in a halo on a pillow around the worn face of a little boy oh so they have a little boy and then he dies and it says thus the rustling of an angel's wings got blended in with the other echoes and they were not holy of earth uh the echoes also bring up sydney carton's
• 05:30 - 06:00 relationship to them it says the echoes rarely answer to the actual trend of sydney carton some half dozen times a year at most he claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited and would sit among them so he's still around but he doesn't come around frequently it's maybe six times a year uh but it also points out that he continued to love her and although obviously she doesn't love him back that way her children it says seem to take a special uh a special liking to him uh it says carton was the first stranger to whom little lucy held
• 06:00 - 06:30 out her chubby arms um and the little boy had spoken of him almost at the last poor carton kiss him for me and through all of this as it's already been remarked um she is at the center of all of it to the point that turning even says to her what is the magic secret my darling of your being everything to allah all of us as if there were only one of us yet never seeming to be hurried or to have too much to do in other words
• 06:30 - 07:00 it seems like you know lucy has just got it all together and she can do anything and she can do everything for everyone around her she is very much kind of this stereotype of the idealized victorian woman and so all in all what dickens shows us in the first half of chapter 21 is this sense of peace and harmony and progress for all of the characters on the english side of the channel right but don't overlook the fact that structurally chapter 21 is different from any other chapter in the narrative
• 07:00 - 07:30 so far yes chapter one of book the first dealt with both england and france but it wasn't part of the narrative it was just some setup the narrative didn't actually begin until chapter two of book the first this is the first chapter in the novel in which we are both in england and in france and really this is the only chapter in the novel where that's the case and take a look at the juxtaposition you have this piece this progress this life this growth among the characters in england and meanwhile in france as we're talking about the echoes and the
• 07:30 - 08:00 footsteps in england these are the echoes and footsteps that we see there headlong mad and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody's life footsteps not easily made clean again if once stead stained red hint the wine back in chapter five of book the first the footsteps raging in saint antoine far off as the little circle sat in the dark london window so that first paragraph of the paris section dickens even points out what's happening in paris is the polar opposite of what we see with the
• 08:00 - 08:30 characters in england the characters who you will recall mostly are actually french but we'll get to that later look at the second paragraph though that describes the area around the wine shop saint antoine had been that morning a vast dusky mask of scarecrows heaving to and fro now pause there back in chapter five of book the first the third estate they were described as scarecrows it said for the time was to come when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter in
• 08:30 - 09:00 their idleness and hunger so long as to conceive the idea of improving on his method and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys well he's reminding us these are those scarecrows that i said 150 pages ago were eventually going to hang people as a result of this of the circumstances in which they had lived for all of these years so it says these scarecrows these peasants these workers these people of the third estate are heating to and fro with frequent gleams of light above the billy heads where steel blades and
• 09:00 - 09:30 bayonets shown in the sun now remember that relates back to the foreshadowing we saw back in book the first chapter five as well where he said nothing was represented in gleaming condition except the knives the axes the weapons a tremendous roar arose from the throat of saint antoine look at the metaphor there y'all we're talking about the community as an animal or a monster uh that that is able to roar right it's a living thing it has a throat and a forest of naked arms oh and the
• 09:30 - 10:00 metaphor of the forest there right it's just like trees upon trees upon trees the forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shriveled branches of trees in a winter wind note the contrast there so there are so many of them that they're like a forest but remember they're starving they're destitute they don't have anything so their arms are like shriveled branches not like strong branches the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below
• 10:00 - 10:30 so these are people who are ready to fight they're ready for violence they're engaged they're on it and yet they are still death i mean desperate right this is a portrait of desperation uh and it goes on to say every living creature they are held of life as of no account and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it right these are a people who are ready to do anything that they have to in order in order to act out for what they've been facing and it goes on to say with a roar that
• 10:30 - 11:00 sounded as if all the breath in france there's a roar again right as if all the breath in france had been shaped into the detested word the living sea rose wave on wave depth on depth and overflowed the city to that point alarm bells ringing drums beating the sea raging right look at how this metaphor fits into the motif the revolutionaries the massive people is being compared to the sea remember what we know about the sea from book the first chapter four the sea did what it liked and what it
• 11:00 - 11:30 liked was destruction so from the moment that the revolutionaries are introduced to us in their full form on the day that the revolution begins we immediately associate them with destruction because that's what dickens set up back in book the first chapter four uh and he develops this in a number of ways this is a very extended metaphor so they're a sea that's rising there are waves of them and it's deep so there is substance to this sea right and they are raging and thundering on its new beach right and if
• 11:30 - 12:00 we look back to the description of the beach that jarvis lori walked on and booked the first chapter for it had been made into a desert basically so think about what that foreshadows about this revolution that this is going to make this place and this time into a desert of sorts and of course as we know at the center of all of this we find the defarges and the simile that dickens presents to us is the simile of the whirlpool it says as a whirlpool of boiling waters has a center point so all this raging circled round to
• 12:00 - 12:30 farge's wine shop and every human drop in the cauldron had a tendency to be sucked toward the vortex where defarge himself already begrudged with gunpowder and sweat issued orders issued arms thrust this men back dragged this man forward disarmed all right so in other words all of these forces are spiraling around the wine shop this is the center point that's drawing everything together and causing this motion and causing this activity we knew that but we now see it coming to
• 12:30 - 13:00 fruition and what and what perhaps is one of the most frightening images and frightening kind of symbols of this entire chapter is what you see in the second bullet point there well here you see me said madame composed as ever but not knitting today madame's resolute right hand was occupied with an axe in place of the usual softer implements and then her girdle or a pistol and a cool knife in other words you guys this entire novel she's been knitting knitting knitting there were chapters devoted to her
• 13:00 - 13:30 anything right chapter 15 of book the second was called knitting chapter 16 is called still knitting so as long as she is knitting as long as that is going in her hands she's planning the fact that there is no knitting in her hands today symbolizes the fact that the planning is done the time for action is now and look at this she still doesn't have empty hands if she's not doing the planning she's doing the killing down or the knitting needles but up up is an axe and not only does she have the ax but she has a pistol
• 13:30 - 14:00 and a knife in her girdle this is a woman who is ready to take what she has planned and put it into violent action now the attack oh you guys the attack on the bastille don't overlook the syntax and all of the rhetorical devices that dickens uses an order to depict this attack and this storming of this political prison and remember the bastille is a political prison it's where they held political prisoners as i said this is just one section one place where you see the use of the
• 14:00 - 14:30 syntax and the use of the rhetorical devices because look at the parallel structure here right in the first paragraph it's deep ditches and the second it's deep ditch and the first it's double drawbridge then single drawbridge and so what happens here is that through the structure the parallel structure dickens emphasizes the progress they're making because we go from multiple ditches to one ditch from two drawbridges to one drawbridge the syntax shows us they're getting closer and closer and closer but the syntax here is hard it's arduous
• 14:30 - 15:00 it's lengthy it's messy it mimics the exact thing that's happening to them there so be sure you look at that find the other devices find the other syntactical things he's doing and be sure you annotate that in your text now we already talked about the fact that they're um that they're compared to the sea that the revolutionaries fit into the c motif and this keeps happening as they progress through the breaking into and the storming of the bastille right that they're the they have this furious sound they're a living ocean they're rising
• 15:00 - 15:30 higher and higher and higher there's the roar of the sea but look at that last one the sea of black and threatening waters now we're associating the color archetype black with this c and of course black is the color of the unknown the color of darkness the color of death and it says on top of that that they are remorseless they are turbulent they have voices of vengeance their faces are hardened uh and they've been hearted in the furnaces of suffering right think about that metaphor furnaces of suffering
• 15:30 - 16:00 a furnace burns you it charge things it destroys things that is what the suffering has done to them and that's why they're in the position that they are in okay and all of this leads ultimately to the killing of the governor of the bastille now of course this is not the only thing that happens in the bastille because you'll remember they make for 105 north tower and we know 105 north tower because 105 north tower was the name that dr mannette gave himself or at
• 16:00 - 16:30 least identified himself by when first we met him back in book the first chapter 6. that's all he knows that's all he's got at that time and so one of the first things the revolutionaries do when they reach the bastille is go straight to his old cell for whatever reason and once they've gotten it of course they head on um they head on to to kill the governor and i want you to look at the syntax here as it pertains to madame de farge and
• 16:30 - 17:00 we're going to look at this whole section it says in the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer the governor of the bastille conspicuous in his gray code in red direction decoration there was but one quite steady figure and that was a woman's see there is my husband she cried pointing him out see defarge now remember anytime we see madame de faris just standing there steady that is a very bad sign for whoever's under attack or whoever's facing something
• 17:00 - 17:30 and look at the look at the parallelism here she stood immovable close to the gremled officer and remained immovable close to him remained immovable close to him through the streets as dafarge and the rest before him along remained immovable close to him uh when he was got near his destination and began to be struck at from behind remained immovable close to him when the long gathering rain of steps and blows fell heavy pause the anaphora here leads off with remained immovable and the thing is look at her in contrast to him with him there's constant motion
• 17:30 - 18:00 right at the end of each of those phrases after that anaphora he's moving he's a different place but she stays steady the entire time she is in power she is controlled she is steady even when everything else is in chaos but look at this she's steady steady steady and movable immovable immovable was so close to him when he dropped it under it that suddenly animated she put her foot upon his neck and with her cruel knife long ready just like she said in chapter 16 hewed off his head so she's perfectly
• 18:00 - 18:30 still perfectly still perfectly still as all this chaos reigns around her and she lets all these people do the dirty work for her but then what happens she hewed off his head and she takes the prize now i want you to remember something way back from when we first met miss lucy manette when jarvis laurie saw her he noticed that on the on the frame of the window behind her that there was a hospital possession of cupid's several headless offering baskets of dead sea fruit to
• 18:30 - 19:00 divinities of the feminine gender well who's in control of all of this y'all it's madame de farge who's doing all the dirty work who actually killed him all of these other people but what did she do she took the head that's the prize that's the spoils and in essence that's how we end off this violent horrific chapter we're going to start taking heads and the the the
• 19:00 - 19:30 paragraph closes by saying seven prisoners released seven gory heads on pikes the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time long dead of broken hearts such and such like the loud echoing footsteps of saint antoine escorted the paris streeps in mid-july 1789. now heaven defeat the fancy of lucy darnay remember that's the fancy that we were told about at the beginning of this chapter and back in chapter six and keep these feet far out of her life
• 19:30 - 20:00 for they are headlong mad and dangerous those are the very words we started this section off with and in the years so long after the breaking of the casket defarge's wine shop door they are not easily purified once stained red so what he foreshadowed in chapter five has now come to fruition it's here and now we're at the sea still rising one week later as we've said again and again the sea does what it likes and what it likes is destruction and change has come swiftly
• 20:00 - 20:30 so july 14 1789 that was chapter 21. we're now at july roughly 21st 1789 and there's already swift change look at what it says you know we know from before that madame dafar has used the rose in her hair as a spy alarm for people in the shop but now it says madame de farris wore no rose in her head for the great brotherhood of spies had become extremely caring of trusting themselves to the saints mercies it's so big and so massive already that even the spies won't come there because they know what danger they're in and the fact that she's not wearing the rose
• 20:30 - 21:00 means symbolically they've taken care of this issue there's not a need for it anymore and it says that there were several knots of loungers squalid and miserable but now with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress but look at that they are still in distress they are still squalid they are still miserable the only difference is that now they feel powerful but think about the danger in that for anyone if in your misery and in your
• 21:00 - 21:30 distress you feel power that power is not coming from a place of positivity that power is not coming from a place of security the power is coming from this now one of the big issues that we focus on in chapter 22 is the role of women in the revolution and you'll notice there's not just submitting a woman and of course there were people knitting before but the knitting here is much more along the lines of madame de far's style knitting and it says the fingers of the knitting women were
• 21:30 - 22:00 vicious with the experience that they could tear and it says madame de farge sat observing it with such suppressed approval as was to be desired and the leader of the saint antoine women and of course she still got that knife in her girdle just like she had back in chapter 21 right so all of these women are now involved in the planning meaning the bastille wasn't it that's not done there are others to kill there are others to take out and i mean we knew that because she has been knitting her register well we first saw her knitting 14 years
• 22:00 - 22:30 ago now and remember messier defier said extermination was the goal so they've apparently got a lot of people to exterminate if all of these people are knitting and among these women we meet a uh a rather memorable figure who's gonna be with us from the rest of the novel and we're not given her actual birth name she is gone she goes by this and this name alone the vengeance so this is madame de farga's lieutenant this is her second in command and look at the early description we get
• 22:30 - 23:00 of her the vengeance uttering terrified streaks and flinging her arms about her head like all the 40 furies at once i mean this woman is basically the embodiment of revenge and the embodiment of violence and the embodiment of all of this terror that these women really do bring to the table and it says that the men were terrible in the blunty-minded anger with which they looked from windows caught up with arms they had and came pouring down into the streets but the women were a sight to chill the boldest
• 23:00 - 23:30 from such household occupations as their bear poverty yielded from their children from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famishing naked they ran out with streaming hair urging one another and themselves to madness with the wildest cries and action um you know there's there are a number of different sorts of organizations um that at times aim to change societies or shift mi or shift mindsets and things like that and but for many of those organizations
• 23:30 - 24:00 what they will say is that if you're trying to shift to society if you're trying to change an outlook you don't go to the men first you go to the women the women shape the outlook the women shape the viewpoints and if that is in fact the case and we've seen that we've got madame de farge as our leader and everybody knitting and the vengeance and as her second in command and the women running out looking like this when they're going to kill odd fallon this isn't shaping up promisingly for
• 24:00 - 24:30 the nobles and anybody else who might fall under their ire now full on is kind of the central focus of chapter 22. um he faked his death like a little somebody that we know right like roger clyde back in chapter 14. uh but i want you to look at what they say about him and why they treat him the way they do it says follow who told the starving people they might eat grass who told my old father that he might eat grass when i had no bread to give him who told my baby it might suck grass when these breasts were dry with
• 24:30 - 25:00 want y'all this is very much like the whole let them eat cake thing now remember marie antoinette did not historically say let them eat cake although that's the thing we associate with her and the reason that we associated with her and the reason it's become kind of this thing is that the whole story the old story is that they came to the versailles and said you know there's no bread to eat and she's like let them eat cake meaning she's totally out of touch with reality because cake is not a substitute for basic substance uh and also she doesn't really care and
• 25:00 - 25:30 that's what's happening with this guy if they're out of food he's like well let them eat grass that means he doesn't care and he's cool with all of them just being destitute and desperate well look at the way that they kill him and i'm not going to read this entire thing although you can see that it does very much relate to what was foreshadowed back in chapter five of book the second sorry book the first the passage i read before about what the scarecrows were going to do but look at what they do to him when they hang him
• 25:30 - 26:00 but obdafarge let him go as a kite might have done to a mouse like she's toying with him you guys she's having fun with this that's this is not just a revenge killing this is a murder for pleasure and she silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready and while he besought her the women passionately screeching at him all the time and the men certainly calling to have him killed with grass in his mouth and his head was soon upon a pike with grass in his mouth so symbolically they're very much going
• 26:00 - 26:30 eye for an eye you let us suffer by telling us we should eat grass well then we're going to kill you and stuff your mouth with grass uh this is a vision of justice that is very old testament in style this is not a turn the other cheek sort of thing this is an eye for an eye what you say and what you do comes directly back to you either in the exact same form in which you put it out there or in something clearly akin to it but take a look at the irony of this right they take so much pleasure and so
• 26:30 - 27:00 much joy in murdering this man but look at what happens towards the end of the chapter not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children wailing and breadless then the miserable baker's shops were beset by long files of them patiently waiting to buy bad bread and while they waited with stomachs faint and empty they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs of the day and achieving them again in gossip y'all so much to unpack here number one the
• 27:00 - 27:30 irony the fact that they're doing this the whole point of this revolution like should be to fix things but clearly it's not and we know that because of the people in this novel who are behind it the defargis who flat out and said you know madame de far said it's a vengeance and it's retribution vengeance and retribution don't actually fix anything at least that's what dickens seems to be showing us here because the irony is they've done this thing they're taking out they took out the guy who said they should eat grass and what's happening nothing changes
• 27:30 - 28:00 they are still waiting in lines for next to nothing the bread they're getting is still bad they're still hungry their stomachs are still empty their children are still suffering they're still suffering but it's like the triumphs that is the food in the absence of food it's these attacks it's these triumphs that are sustaining them this is what's nourishing them and that's a terrifying thought to consider and it continues in chapter 23 reminding us that nothing is getting
• 28:00 - 28:30 better right we are still in a totally destitute state and we're reminded it is because of the nobles but nothing they're doing against the nobles is changing anything now here in chapter 23 we get back to the mender of rhodes who we haven't seen since chapter 15. and remember his cap has always been blue but now it's red now remember the color blue that's the archetypal color of uh sometimes a religious feeling but honesty truth things like that
• 28:30 - 29:00 there's a certain purity blue is a highly positive color but what's he wearing now the color of violence and violet passion and anarchy and if he is symbolic of the kind of people that the defarges have recruited to the revolution the hat the thing he's wearing on his head tell us about his motivations and how they have shifted from when first he joined the revolutionary movement seven or eight years ago to present and of course that's what brings us to the burning of the chateau which is the rising fire
• 29:00 - 29:30 that is discussed by the chapter's title and the thing is you'll notice there is a great deal of personification of the chateau right the chateau is symbolic not just of mosquito the marquee darnay's family but of the nobility in general they want to burn it to the ground they want to annihilate they want to take out again the chateau and all the race and that's part of why that's part of why it's like you know personified because it's not just a building it's a representation of
• 29:30 - 30:00 all of these people and all of these things um and you'll note that lots of people burn it and there's just i don't want to go into anything because this is the passage that i really think you should unpack and it's the last two and a half pages of chapter 23. there's a lot to see here consider the symbolic implications consider who's involved and consider how it goes uh and so then we fast forward three years lots of time jumping in this
• 30:00 - 30:30 section of the novel so now it's 1792 the motifs are with us again uh but that means that this revolution has been going for over three years because it's august of 1792 and chapter 24 sets us up for everything that's coming in book the third the letter from gabel and let's just go ahead and go through that letter really quickly talk about what it says it says uh monsieur heretofore the marquee don't overlook the fact that darnay is now the marquee he is the master of the marquee since his uncle is dead he has now ascended to
• 30:30 - 31:00 that rank even though he doesn't want it after having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village i have been seized with great violence and indignity and brought a long journey on foot to paris on the road i have suffered a great deal nor is that all my house has been destroyed raised to the ground the crime for which i imprisoned monsieur heretofore the marquee and for which i shall be summoned before the tribunal and shall lose my life without your so generous help is they tell me treason against the majesty of the people and that i have
• 31:00 - 31:30 acted against them for an immigrant it is in vain i represent that i have acted for them and not against according to your commands it is in vain i represent that before the sequestration of immigrant property i have remitted the impose they had ceased to pay that i had collected no rent that i had no recourse to no process the only response is that i have acted for an immigrant and where is that emigrant ah most gracious monsieur heretofore the marquis where is that emigrant i cry in my sleep where is he i demand of heaven will he not come to deliver me
• 31:30 - 32:00 no answer thomas you're here to for the marquee i send my desolate cry across the sea hoping it may perhaps reach your ears to the great brink of tilson known at paris for the love of heaven of justice of generosity of the honor of your noble name i supplicate you monsieur heretofore the marquis to sue cure and release me my fault is that i've been true to you almost you're here to for the marquee i pray you be true to me from this prison here of horror once i every hour to nearer and nearer
• 32:00 - 32:30 to destruction i send you the assurance of my dolores and unhappy service your afflicted gabel and this is the lodestone rock that darnay can't avoid that gabel is being held and will be executed because of darnay or you know they claim because of darnay because of the marquee right we know darnay is a good guy and so here we are he's now going to go
• 32:30 - 33:00 over to france but here's the problem ladies and gentlemen as gabal just pointed out he is monsieur the marquis he is a member of the second estate he is a noble this guy is being held because he helped the emigrant what is going to happen to darnay if he goes back to france because no it's not just 1789 it's not the new revolution i mean he would be in enough trouble based on what we saw in chapter 22 with fallon
• 33:00 - 33:30 it's three years and that's what sets us up for book the third which is the track of a storm