Your summative assessment over the novel A Tale of Two Cities will ask you to choose a character from the novel and show how the author uses him/her to further a particular theme. You will be expected to effectively utilize textual evidence in both quotations and paraphrases. Your paper must also discuss how the author utilizes figurative language in his depiction of the character. Although other themes are possible, below are some sample ones to consider. You will only have one hour to write your essay, so preparation is all-important. Aside from post-its and related notation in your book, you will not be allowed any other notes during the test.
Perspective
The novel's opening statement "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" sets the tone for a story in which a given circumstance is perceived as good or bad depending upon the point of view. Jerry
Cruncher, for instance, considers his nocturnal occupation a viable source of income to provide for his hungry family but Mr. Lorry views it as an abhorrent practice worthy of censure. Under scrutiny Cruncher admits that the sights of the bloody revolution in Paris have convinced him that such an occupation is immoral and he resolves to give up the practice. The revolution itself is believed to be an abomination by the exiled aristocrats that meet at Tellson's whereas the peasantry, personified by the mender of roads and the woodsawyer, see it as an opportunity for empowerment and revenge. Most significantly, Doctor
Manette's Bastille manuscript reveals that during his years in prison the doctor believed that the whole
Evremonde clan should be destroyed but when his daughter has wedded an Evremonde he is resolute in his determination to save him. The litany of wrongs suffered by the French peasants including the horrible execution of Gaspard serves to create sympathy for events such as the storming of the Bastille. After the revolution turns bloody, however, the reader's sympathies are transferred to the doomed aristocrats awaiting execution.
Class Struggle
The overarching theme of the novel is the struggle between those who have power and privilege and those who do not. At the beginning of the story, the French aristocrats exercise complete and more-or-less unfettered freedom to persecute and deprive those of the lower classes. This fact is harshly illustrated in
Doctor Manette's prison manuscript which details how one of the Evremonde brothers utilized his medieval privilege of harnessing a vassal to a cart and driving him like an animal to his death. It is also shown by Jerry Cruncher's insistence that the strict and violent sentence of quartering is "barbarous" and being told by the sanctimonious bank clerk that the law is just simply because it exists. Later, when the tables have turned, it is the peasants who use their newly discovered power to harshly persecute the aristocrats through mass executions and imprisonment. Darnay notes when he is first interred in La Force prison that the rough looking men are in charge and the prisoners are polite and civil. Jerry Cruncher is deeply affected by the revolution and he more than any other English character in the novel would have reason to be inspired by the uprising of the French poor. But as a good Englishman, his avowal that its bloody sights have caused him to reconsider his grave robbing occupation indicates that he, at least, recognizes the futility in avenging violence with violence.
Sacrifice

The novel's theme of self-sacrifice is best exemplified in the character of Sydney Carton whose willingness to give his own life for Lucie's happiness creates the means for Charles Darnay's salvation. He makes this willingness known well before the dangers of the revolution overtake the family when he says to Lucie: "If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you". This theme is furthered by the seamstress who accompanies Carton to the Guillotine who hopes that by her death her cousin, a longsuffering member of the peasant class, will profit by the bloody revolution. Charles Darnay is willing to sacrifice his own happiness when he returns to France in an attempt to save the life of his former servant.
Furthermore, Doctor Manette is shown to sacrifice his own mental health when he suffers a relapse of his prison-born derangement by allowing the nephew of his nemesis to marry his daughter.
Resurrection
Closely connected to the theme of sacrifice is the promise of resurrection. Christianity teaches that Christ was resurrected into eternal life for making the ultimate sacrifice (his death) for mankind. Near the end of
A Tale of Two Cities , Carton remembers a Christian prayer: "I am the resurrection and the life." As he goes to the guillotine to sacrifice himself, Carton has a vision of his own resurrection, both in heaven and on earth through Lucie and Charles's child, named Sydney Carton, whose life fulfills the original Carton's lost potential. Yet Carton's is not the only resurrection in the novel. After having been imprisoned for years, Dr. Manette is "recalled to life" by Lucie's love. Jerry Cruncher, meanwhile, works as a
"resurrection man" stealing body parts from buried corpses, but by the end of the novel he gives it up in favor of praying for a holier resurrection of his own.
Fate and History
Madame Defarge with her knitting and Lucie Manette weaving her "golden thread" both resemble the
Fates, goddesses from Greek mythology who literally controlled the "threads" of human lives. As the presence of these two Fate figures suggests, A Tale of Two Cities is deeply concerned with human destiny. In particular, the novel explores how the fates of individuals are shaped by their personal histories and the broader forces of political history. For instance, both Charles and Dr. Manette try to shape and change history. Charles seeks to escape from his family's cruel aristocratic history and make his own way in London, but is inevitably drawn "like a magnet" back to France where he must face his family's past. Later in the novel, Dr. Manette seeks to use his influence within the Revolution to try to save Charles's life from the revolutionaries, but Dr. Manette's own forgotten past resurfaces in the form of an old letter that dooms Charles. Through these failures of characters to change the flow of history or to escape their own pasts, A Tale of Two Cities suggests that the force of history can be broken not by earthly appeals to justice or political influence, but only through Christian self-sacrifice, such as Carton's self-sacrifice that saves Charles at the end of the novel.