”Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always.”
A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Dr Alexandre Manette is imprisoned in the Bastille on false charges to prevent him speaking out against the corruption of the aristocratic Evrémonde brothers who have raped a peasant woman and murdered her husband and brother.
After 18 years of imprisonment, Dr Manette is released to live in London and meets his daughter Lucie who he has never met. To say she is shocked to meet him is an understatement because she has grown up believing him to be dead. Lucie’s mother, who is no longer alive, invented this story, presumably to protect Lucie from the truth. Lucie was taken from Paris to London after her mother’s death.
Lucie is loving, kind, loyal to and protective of her father. These attributes attract the attention of a potential suitor, Mr Charles Darnay, who just so happens to be the son and nephew of the Evrémonde brothers. Darnay has been aquitted of treason against the British Crown at a trial. Lucie doesn’t know Darnay’s true identity as the son of an Evrémonde, and nor does Dr Manette until the morning of Lucie and Charles’ wedding when Charles decides to tell Dr Manette. The marriage is accepted.
Lucie and Charles have a son (who sadly dies in childhood) and a daughter called little Lucie.
Darnay travels back to Paris and is arrested as a returning emigrated aristocrat and jailed. He is sentenced to death but subsequently escapes.
The above is a brief and rather simplified summary of the novel, which is overall an interesting piece of work for several reasons, but most of all because it depicts the experiences of family members of those who are imprisoned. In my blog, I aim to examine the experience of family members of offenders, and also the voice of the child in relation to parental offending/ imprisonment.
A Tale of Two Cities also provides a unique opportunity to explore the depiction of inter-generational trauma, as little Lucie is forced to endure a similar fate to her mother with the experience of parental imprisonment, albeit older Lucie didn’t realise her father was in prison and believed him to be dead.
So, where did the inspiration for the novel come from?
Charles Dickens wrote about imprisonment because he was passionate about social justice and believed that everyone should have the opportunity to live a good life. He saw the prison system as a system of oppression and injustice, and he wanted to use his writing to expose the problems with it.
Dickens cared deeply about social justice because it resonated with him, as he had experienced parental imprisonment. His father was imprisoned for debt when Dickens was a young boy, and this had a profound and lasting impact. Dickens saw firsthand the devastating effects that imprisonment can have on families and individuals, and he vowed to do everything he could to help those who were suffering.
Dickens’ writing about imprisonment had a significant impact on the public’s perception of the prison system. He advocated for a more humane and just system of punishment, and he inspired many people to work for social change, a legacy that lasts to the present day.
‘Dickens bore as a deep emotional scar the memory of his father’s detention for debt in the Marshalsea prison. It was a wound to his childhood pride for which he never forgave society.‘ (Woodock, A Tale of Two Cities, Penguin).
In fact, the theme of prison appears throughout Dickens’ work:
‘Many of his novels contained an element of criminality: an escaped convict from the notorious prison hulks in Great Expectations; a body found in the Thames in the murder mystery, Our Mutual Friend; and finally, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, during the writing of which Dickens died without revealing the identity of the murderer‘ (Victorian Supersleuth Investigates)
I intend to explore Dickens’ representation of prison and families of prisoners in more detail in future blog posts.
Image courtesy of New York Daily News
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