A TALE OF TWO CITIES
by Charles Dickens
LEVEL 2
Haanya M. Abbasi, National Winner
The Iris School, Karachi
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ is an ancient, gripping novel written by the
legendary author Charles Dickens, who lived in the times of Queen
Victoria, in the 1800s. The Oxford version was published first in
1992, then in 2006. A Tale of Two Cities is a historical romance,
tragedy and drama set in two cities as the name suggests, London
in England and Paris in France. Both places are worlds apart and
each cities’ laws, ways of life, and people are going to change
vastly.
Lucie Manette, the main character, believes that her father,
Dr Manette, is dead. But one day, a stranger who used to know
her father tells her that she is wrong—Dr Manette has been in the
dreadful Bastille prison for eighteen years. Lucie travels to Paris
and finds her father trusted with an old servant, Defarge. The ailing
Dr Manette returns to London with Lucie. But when they come back
to Paris half a decade later, everything has changed—the French
Revolution has begun. Lucie’s husband, the noble Charles Darnay,
is the descendant of one of the most callous noblemen—the
Evrémondes. But now the Defarges are planning to end him. Only
the greatest love of all, hope and courage can rescue him… The
storyline was fantastic, but I wish the characters were more
developed and personalities more detailed, especially in the case of
Lucie Manette. She is the character who binds everyone together,
but we don’t know much about her personality in the story, except
that she is sweet and everyone loves her. Also, in the original novel
there were many crucial parts that the Oxford version missed out
on. But I adored the dramatic moments in which the characters
were literally hanging on the line between life and death. And their
ending was picture-perfect and truly tragic—the beautifully woven
words ended the long, complicated story. The moral of the story is
that great courage and outstanding selflessness outshine everything
and to cherish the people you love because you could lose them
before you know it.
All in all, this was a grand novel and should belong in a shelf in
every library. The different point of views has inspired me to
broaden my outlook and now I feel the urge to read the rest of the
compelling works of the still-famous author Charles Dickens.
