A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, was a novel written in 1858 about life in England and France at the time of the French Revolution. The story begins in 1775 when Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, was sent to find Dr. Manette, an unjustly imprisoned doctor, in Paris and bring him back to England. Lucie, Dr. Manette's daughter who thought that he was dead, went with Mr. Lorry. They arrived at Defarge's wine shop in Paris, where they found Mr. Manette. He was making shoes and appeared to be mentally ill. They took him back to London with them. In 1780, five years later, Lucie, Mr. Lorry and Dr. Manette went to court to testify against Charles Darnay. Darnay was a tutor at many schools including Cambridge and frequently traveled from England to France. These trips were suspicious and so he was being charged with treason. No one thought he would be found not guilty. Things looked especially bad for Darnay when an eyewitness testified but the eyewitness could not tell Darnay apart from Sydney Carton, a lawyer who looked like him, so Darnay was released. Darnay was a very good and moral man and befriended Lucie and her father and married Lucie. Carton was in love with Lucie but he was an alcoholic and knew that they could never be together. Throughout the book references were made to how Carton could really do something good if he tried but that he was unmotivated. This was certainly proven at the end of the book. Darnay's uncle, the Marquiuis St. Evremonde, was assassinated by Gaspard, the father of a child he ran over in the street. Marquiuis gave Gaspard a coin as payment for his daughter's life, just showing how little he valued the common person. Darnay was his heir, but he wouldn't have anything to do with his uncle's estate because he did not agree with his uncle's views on oppressing the masses. Marquiuis felt that he had a birthright to his wealth and vowed to keep the masses impoverished until he died.
