Coping Skills

Mr. Lorry and Mss. Pross kept the news of Doctor Manette’s relapse a secret from Luci. They did this in a sly way; “Miss Pross was to write, describing his (Doctor Manette) having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post” (207).  Should Miss. Pross and Mr. Lorry have done this?  Did they have the right too?  I do not think they had the right to conceal this information from Luci.  Luci had been through so much with her father and had brought him mentally so far that she deserved to know his condition, she deserved to know his mental state especially if she played a role in it.  If Luci had been informed about her Father she may have been able to bring him back by walking up and down the hall with him like she frequently did, or just by her presence. But instead with out Luci’s assistance Doctor Manette reverted to the pointless activity or shoemaking for nine days, which is clearly unhealthy and unproductive.  Miss. Pross and Mr. Lorry ended up destroying Doctor Manette's shoe making tools using a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer.  They did this only for the wellbeing of Doctor Manette.  But in the long run was this the best thing to do?  Once again I think they made the wrong decision.  We can infer that if Doctor Manette relapses again Mr. Lorry and Mss. Pross will once again keep it a secret from Luci, because they don’t want upset or disappoint her.  Their devotion, admiration and love to her is so strong “Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; “and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me!” (199).  In this case Mr. Manette will be without his two essentials to cope with; his beloved daughter and is shoemaking kit.  From this we might infer that he will find a new coping skill but Dickens suggests something else. 

Dickens left us with thick foreshadowing at the end of chapter 19; “while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime” (214).  Dickens doesn’t add this passage in for no reason I think he is giving us insight on what is too come.  I predict that "innocent" Mr. Lorry and Miss. Pross are indeed taking away Doctor Manette's life by destroying his cope. The metaphor Dickens is using is physical death, one might infer that it is being compared to the shoemaking tools, but in reality I believe its being compared to the mental death of Doctor Manette.  

Sentence Translation

         Dickens goes into great detail to captivate and inform the reader.  He puts a helpful image of the text inside our minds.  In part two chapter eight this is displayed perfectly; “A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it but not abundant.   Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat.  On inanimate nature, as on the man and woman who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency toward an appearance of vegetating unwillingly- a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away” (118).  At first glance this passage looks overwhelming and nearly impossible to decipher.  But when one looks closer the multiple meanings imbedded in the passage become evident.  Dickens starts out by describing the slim variety of plants, and uses characteristics such as “not abundant” “poor” “most coarse” “dejected disposition” “inanimate” and “wither away”.  These characteristics paint a gray, sorrowful scene inside ones head.  Then Dickens switches gears by saying that these characteristics apply to not only the plants but the people of the village as well; “On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetation unwillingly- a dejected disposition to give up and wither away”. Here Dickens uses the word inanimate to describe the ‘lifeless’ plants.  Then he says‘As on the men and woman who cultivate it’ showing that the men and women who tend to the plants are also lifeless.  The second sentence translates to; “the plants look like they are unwillingly growing, as though they wanted to give up and die”.  We can infer that in the second sentence Dickens is again talking about the farmers of the plants not only the plants themselves. 

             I made sense of these passages by breaking them up and deciphering them little by little.  I looked up vocabulary words in the dictionary and replace them with similar synonyms.  I also moved around the sentence structure so it made more sense.  This enabled me to understand Dickens language and find out the many meanings behind it. 

            It is crucial to take the time to breakdown passages in the book that are challenging because it helps you not only understand the passage, but the book as a whole better.  And more importantly it lets you get out what Dickens wants you to get out of reading instead of being hung up on the text.  

Finding Meaning

            At first glance Charles Dickens language in A Tale Of Two Cities is confusing, and perplexing.  Yet, as one reads on they will discover the significance and beauty his unique voice holds.

Dickens analyzes Doctor Manetts actions; “His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake reverting to a subject of last night” (45).  Dickens uses this passage that captures a moment in time to allow us to understand this character better. We often times think of a “sleeper” as a low energy and gloomy person.  Therefore from reading this passage one will view the character in a new way.  They will think of Doctor Manette as a low-energy man.  The way Dickens can inform us on a character due to a subdue action is remarkable. 

How Dickens shows and not tells us is also remarkable.   In the passage above Dickens could have simply said that Doctor Manette was in daze.  But instead he analyzed his actions, which made the passage not only more interesting but more significant.