Tale Themes

Tale Themes: How does Dickens develop a major thematic statement in Tale? In a clear essay, trace a main theme throughout the book using a strong thesis, paragraph claims, and quoted and cited evidence. (Themes and Ideas, Writing Targets)

For the first part of the second semester final, I am focusing on: selecting evidence, using evidence, mechanics, themes and ideas, and paragraph claims.

The past is something that no one can avoid, and the future is always based on the past. Written by Charles Dickens, the novel A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of the French Revolution, and how everything that someone does is based on their past. Charles Darnay attempts to run away from his past, but it always catches up. Doctor Manette’s past ends

While Darnay is deciding what he should do, after he received the letter from his family’s servant, Gabelle, he lets his past decide for him. Darnay’s decision was explained and the narrator said, “Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been… that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity” (Dickens 275). Darnay’s past, mainly his family, had begun to come back to him as the Marquis’ servant was imprisoned. He had decided before to let his family go, and let his past be only the past, but that didn’t last very long. He made the choice to go towards the “Loadstone Rock” or France because he needed to clear his past, and therefore his past did influence his decisions of the future. He ended up being imprisoned and the entire ending of the story can be traced back to Darnay’s past, and how it became the deciding factor of his