Audioblog: A Tale of Two Cities

I finally gave in to Trey's (numerous) suggestions and tried an audio blog. What you will hear if you play it is an excerpt from the first chapter of the novel you are supposed to be reading for Honors English this term. This is the passage about which this week's discussion board topic is to be written. If it helps you to hear it read aloud, give it a try. Realize, however, that out of context this excerpt may not mean much. You should read the entire first chapter carefully before you respond to the discussion topic.

Read the first "book" (the first six chapters) by next week.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...."

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Addendum (4/03/05): I just read the first few discussion board entries about this passage. Some of you have gone far beyond what I expected; others seem to be struggling...but practically all of you mention how hard this book is to understand. I'm going to post some thoughts and suggestions about this on the discussion board soon, but for now let's just look at this passage from the first chapter of the book.

Questions you should be able to answer after reading the first chapter:

1) Who were the king and queen of France in 1775? Of England?

2) What were two reasons conditions were bad in France? In England?

3) What was the method of execution in France? In England?

4) In the last paragraph, what does the phrase "creatures of this chronicle" refer to?

(If you can't answer these questions, you need to go back and carefully re-read the chapter and the footnotes. Try doing it aloud. This is basic expositional information that is crucial to understanding the plot.)

Now for the figurative stuff:

"There were trees already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to be sawed into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history." This is the book's first mention of the guillotine, which will become very important later on in the story. Notice how Dickens refers to Fate as a woodman. This seems a suitable personification given that many trees will need to be cut down to build the guillotines that will become such an important part of the French Revolution. (By the way, decide how you want to pronounce the word guillotine now. There are two acceptable ways, which you can hear at this web site, but it will be easier if you decide now how you want to say it.) Also, by discussing fate at this early stage of the novel, Dickens suggests the historical nature of the subject matter. He expects that most of his readers know about the French Revolution, why it came to pass, and how it turned out.

"In the rough outhouses of the land adjacent to Paris, there were rude carts, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution." Clearly, the Farmer (Death) makes his appearance here because there will be much death in the coming years (and over the course of the story). The Woodman (Fate) and the Farmer (Death) are figurative devices used to tell readers the historical context in which the story will take place. (It would be the same as a modern writer mentioning the Vietnam conflict in order to help readers understand that the story they are about to read is going to take place in the late 1960s against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.)

"But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread." The Woodman and the Farmer "work silently" because, no one in England or France (in 1775) could have then guessed at the devastation that would follow.

By personifying Fate and Death, Dickens tells readers the historical context of his story, suggests that the horrors of war will play a significant part in that story, and gives a suggestion of his often-figurative style of writing, which he uses to express his personal opinions without openly editorializing. Dickens has a rich and wonderful style, but his writing demands your full attention in order to appreciate that style. More on this on the discussion board....