Directions: You are to write approximately 2 paragraphs in answer to every question you are asked. Please consider that paragraphs – in LeClair’s world and the real world – are comprised of the following elements:
1.
A topic sentence that explains what the content of your paragraph holds
2.
Detailed evidence to answer each question – being sure that your evidence is exactly what you stated in your topic sentence that your paragraph was about…NOT introducing random, unconnected evidence!
3.
Quotations from both the article AND the novel, properly embedded and blended with your own written lead-ins, and properly cited with author and page number afterwards.
4.
Careful, thoughtful, accurate analysis of the prompt to show your critical thinking and comprehension of the novel.
Please write neatly and proofread your answers for spelling/grammatical mistakes upon completion. Use the article you received in class and your copy of the novel to help you answer the following prompts:
WOMEN
1.
Read your article. Explain why the author feels Madame Defarge is different from the other female
characters in Tale. Use support for your answer.
2.
Defend/critique Lucie Manette’s importance in the novel. Is she the key to holding the entire plot together, or is she a two-dimensional stereotyped character? Make your claim, and support it with
both the article AND the novel.
3.
Investigate Miss Pross as a character. Is she “feminine”? How so, or how not? Explore what Miss
Pross contributes to the novel, and how you think Dickens feels about her character.
“TWO”
1.
Read your article. Explain how the French Revolution is or is not an appropriate “double” for Dickens’s
Victorian England – according to your article’s author, not according to you!
2.
The author of the article talks about public executions at length. Why is Dickens (as a Victorian-era man) so fascinated with public executions, according to Gallagher? Where do we see evidence of
Dickens’s interest show up in the novel?
3.
Choose the strongest “doubles” in the novel – in your opinion. Trace where they exist throughout the plot of the book, and why those pairs/twins/doubles/twos/juxtapositions are, in fact, necessary to aid
our understanding of the theme of Tale.
RESURRECTION
1.
Read the first article in your packet. Explain some of the modern parallels the author draws to Tale – how was this time period usable for Dickens’s theory about rebuilding (resurrecting) goodness out of evil and violent frenzy? How is it still worth studying such things in modern times?
2.
Read the 2 nd article in your packet. How are people in this novel BESIDES Sydney Carton being “redeemed” or “resurrected”? Consider the supporting characters who have continued the motif of “resurrection,” and see if – truly – their lives have been changed at all for the better through the book. If so, how?
3.
Trace Sydney Carton’s character – how is he introduced to us, and where do we see him changing? Was his final sacrifice a complete redemption? Argue whether you believe he shows a changed man or not.