A Tale of Two Cities

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1859

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Book 2, Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 2: “The Golden Thread”

Book 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “The Honest Tradesman”

Jerry Cruncher and his son are sitting outside Tellson’s when a “dingy” funeral procession passes by, accompanied by shouts of “Spies!” (161). The sight excites both of them, and Jerry learns from one of the onlookers that the dead man is Roger Cly. Meanwhile, the crowd grows more agitated, eventually forcing the sole mourner out of the coach and climbing aboard it themselves: “Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it” (162). After they have buried Cly “to their own satisfaction,” the crowd begins to harass passers-by before “transition[ing] to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses” (164).

Cruncher, who had joined the funeral procession, remains in the cemetery after the rest of the crowd disperses. Musing that Cly was “a young ‘un and a straight made ‘un,” he stops at a doctor on his way back to Tellson’s (164).

Over tea that evening, Jerry tells his wife that he is going out “fishing” that night and that he will know she has been praying if his “wenturs goes wrong” (165). He also warns her against playing any “games” the next day by refusing to eat or drink whatever he “as a honest tradesman, succeed[s] in providing” (166).

Cruncher had earlier told his son he couldn’t come with him that evening, but Young Jerry simply pretends to be sleeping until his father leaves. He then follows his father as he joins two other men and climbs over an iron gate into a churchyard. Here, the men “fish” by digging up a coffin, frightening Young Jerry so much that he runs home.

The next morning, Young Jerry wakes up to see his father beating his mother for undermining “business” (169). After a meager breakfast, Cruncher and his son go to work at Tellson’s. On the way, Young Jerry asks his father what a “Resurrection-Man” is, and Cruncher responds that it’s a “tradesman” dealing in a “branch of Scientific goods” (170), which he then admits are bodies. Young Jerry says that this is what he wants to do when he grows up, and Cruncher, feeling “soothed,” advises him to “dewelop [his] talents” (170).

Book 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “Knitting”

For several days, the Defarges’ wine-shop has been unusually busy with customers who don’t purchase anything, but instead “[listen] and [whisper] and sl[i]nk about” (171). Monsieur Defarge has been out most of the time, but on this particular day he returns at noon, accompanied by the mender of roads. He introduces the man to his wife as “Jacques” and takes him to the garret where Doctor Manette once stayed. There, they find several men from the wine-shop (who are also the men Defarge once showed Doctor Manette to).

Defarge introduces the mender of roads to “Jacques One,” “Jacques Two,” and “Jacques Three,” and the mender tells the story of how he saw the Marquis’s murder hanging on to the underside of his carriage. As the other men question him, it emerges that the murderer was caught several months later, and that the mender saw him being escorted by guards to the town prison. The following day, when the mender passed by, he saw the man “high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty” (175). The man remained up there for days, and rumors arose that a petition was being arranged, since the man—Gaspard—was only acting to avenge his child. The listening Jacques confirm that Defarge approached the King with this petition, but say he was beaten back by guards.

Resuming his story, the mender says that rumors next began to circulate about the gruesome ways in which Gaspard might be executed. Ultimately, however, a gallows is constructed over the village fountain, and Gaspard is “left hanging, poisoning the water” (178).

Defarge dismisses the mender of roads and turns to the other men. Together, they decide that the Marquis’s family should be “registered” (179) in Madame Defarge’s knitting, which is a record of those marked for execution. The men express concern about the mender, who wants to see the King and Queen while in Paris. Defarge, however, isn’t worried about this: “Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day” (179). In fact, he and his wife take the mender to Versailles, where he cheers excitedly for the royals. Monsieur and Madame Defarge congratulate him on this, saying that he “make[s] these fools believe that it will last for ever” (181) and that he will do the right thing when the time comes.

Book 2, Chapter 16 Summary: “Still Knitting”

The mender of roads returns to his village, and the Defarges chat as they return to their wine-shop. Monsieur Defarge has learned that John Barsad has been sent to spy in their neighborhood, and Madame Defarge says she will record him in her knitting. Noticing her husband seems downcast, Madame Defarge assures him that rebellions like the one they have planned are necessarily long in the making, but that the payoff will be worthwhile even if they themselves don’t live to see it: “I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I would—” There madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed” (186).

The following day, Madame Defarge is manning the wine-shop when Barsad enters. Recognizing him from her husband’s description, she pins a rose to her hair—a signal for other customers in the shop to leave or stop talking. Barsad fishes for incriminating information by feigning sympathy for the “oppressed” (188) people of France and for Gaspard in particular. Madame Defarge, however, says that she and her husband are too busy trying to survive to concern themselves with other people’s problems. When Defarge enters, Barsad calls him “Jacques,” but Defarge doesn’t take the bait, merely saying his name is “Ernest.”

Barsad continues talking, turning the conversation to the Defarges’ relationship with Doctor Manette. Learning that they have not been in touch with Manette recently, Barsad reveals that Lucie is planning to marry the murdered Marquis’s nephew. Defarge is unable to entirely conceal his surprise and discomfort, and, when Barsad has left, discusses the topic with his wife: Darnay’s name is among those recorded in Madame Defarge’s knitting, and Defarge expresses hope that “Destiny will keep [Lucie’s] husband out of France” (191).

Madame Defarge removes the rose from her headdress, and activity in the wine-shop resumes. As evening falls, Madame Defarge visits and chats with several groups of women, all of whom are knitting; meanwhile: “Another darkness [is] closing in as surely, when the church bells, [now] ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon” (194).

Book 2, Chapters 14-16 Analysis

Throughout A Tale of Two Cities, the narrator associates Madame Defarge’s knitting with the workings of destiny; he describes her at one point, for instance, as “knitt[ing] on with the steadfastness of Fate” (117). The image is in part an allusion to the Moirai—Greek goddesses who determined the course and span of human lives by spinning, measuring, and cutting thread. In these chapters, however, it becomes clear that there is also a more concrete reason for the symbolism surrounding Madame Defarge’s knitting: she encodes the names (and therefore the fates) of those who are marked for death under the future French Republic.

Once again, then, Dickens depicts the Revolution as a foregone conclusion. As Madame Defarge tells her husband: “Although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing” (185). In other words, the “rage and discontent” of the oppressed peasantry are so unstoppable a historical force that they function as destiny, which to Madame Defarge is a source of consolation. There are already hints, however, that the Revolution may not necessarily usher in a more just social order.

Defarge’s suggestion that the aristocrats are the peasantry’s “natural prey” (179) is especially ominous, given how often the narrator has previously depicted the oppression of the peasantry through images of predators and prey. In fact, Madame Defarge is quite open about the fact that she is seeking “vengeance and retribution” (185)—that is, proportional payback for the wrongs inflicted on her and her family. Defarge’s comment about Darnay suggests that his views are more moderate, but it’s increasingly clear that his wife wields the real power in the relationship; throughout the couple’s conversation with Barsad, Madame Defarge subtly provides her husband with instructions, brushing his elbow at one point to tell him “that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity” (190).

In contrast to the dark scenes in Paris, the chapter involving Jerry Cruncher’s grave-robbing mostly functions as comic relief. With that said, it does eventually prove relevant to the plot, and it has immediate significance in terms of the novel’s central themes. In much the same way that Cruncher’s grave-robbing parodies the idea of resurrection, the vengeful crowd that takes over Cly’s funeral procession foreshadows (in a slightly more lighthearted form) the crowds that later form around the guillotine. Once again, then, Dickens suggests that the differences between London and Paris aren’t as great as they might seem.

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