The Tale of Two Cities has many assorted themes. The themes are
interconnected with each other. Theme plays a big part in the plot a book. The
opinions formed by the audience, of the characters, are also affected by the
themes in a book. Three themes in this book are sacrifice, love and hate, and
death; these themes show up many times in this book. The themes in this book
are shown through the characters and their actions.
Sacrifice shows up in the book many times. Sacrifice is giving up
something that is apart of your life that you do not really want to give up.
The greatest sacrifice in the book is Carton’s death. He sacrifices his life
for his love for Lucie Manette. Sydney Carton met his death with great dignity.
In fulfilling his old promise to Lucie, Carton attains peace; those watching see
“The peacefullest man’s face ever beheld”(366) at the guillotine. Charles
Darnay gives up his estate in France, for the idea of working in England. His
decision to become a teacher put him in a conflict with his uncle, the Marquis
St. Evremonde. Miss Pross lost her hearing when she tried to stop Madame
Defarge from killing Lucie and her family. Miss Pross was the loyal servant for
Lucie. She showed her loving devotion to Lucie by fighting off Madame Defarge.
Many characters are skilled with the force of love in this book. Miss
Pross, fought off Madame Defarge for the reason that she loved Lucie, and did
not want anything to happen to her. The true love was the feelings of Sydney for
Lucie. This love was so great he sacrificed his own life for her. He showed
more love for her than for himself. Hate is also plays a big part in the book.
Madame Defarge had so much hate she went to the extent of trying to kill Lucie.
This backfired and instead of Lucie dying she died in a struggle versus Miss
Pross. Even Madame Defarge’s husband Earnest Defarge shows hate when he
accidentally runs over a peasant’s son and kills him. Mr. Defarge showed no
remorse for what he had done, and instead was very hateful toward the father of
the child. The boy’s father shows his hate toward Mr. Defarge by getting
revenge for his son’s death. The boy’s father was powered by hate when he took
Mr. Defarge’s life into his own hands and killed Mr. Defarge.
Death plays a tremendous part of this book. Death in this book shows up in
many different ways by accidents, murders, and even the death penalty. The
death of the peasant boy was a total accident. The boy was hit by Mr. Defarge’s
horse carriage when the boy was trying to cross the road. This incident caused
the murder of Mr. Defarge. Mr. Defarge was killed by the peasant boy’s father
later on. The boy’s father killed Mr. Defarge because he did not try to help
the boy out at all. He just went on as nothing had happened. The death of
Madame Defarge was an accident for the reason the she has shot will she was in a
struggle with Miss Pross. Madame Defarge was trying to kill Lucie and her
family when she was found out, and then she shot her self by accident. The
death of Sydney Carton was caused by his love for Lucie. Charles Darnay was
tried for treason and was sentenced to die by the guillotine. Charles was
married to Lucie. Sydney pronouncing his love for Lucie died in the place of
Charles. Sydney did this so Lucie would be happy with Charles for the rest of
All these themes are interconnected in one way or another. They all end
up to be talking about the same people and the actions they took to make
something happen the way they want it too. The themes above are a couple of the
major themes in this book by Charles Dickens. The theme of sacrifice in this
book shows the audience it is sometimes all right to give up something means
something to them. The theme of love and hate gives the audience a real look at
life and how love and hate effects the life of a person. The theme of death is
a theme of many books, because it happens to everybody no matter how hard they
try to stop it from happening.