A Tale of Two Cities

1. In what year does A Tale of Two Cities open?

A) 1760

B) 1775

C) 1789

D) 1800

2. With what message does Mr. Lorry send Jerry Cruncher back to Tellson’s Bank? (short answer)

3) Mr. Lorry’s name alludes to which of the following?

A) his occupation

B) his social class

C) his personality

D) his narrative role

4. Where has Lucie Manette’s father, Doctor Manette, been for the last 18 years?

A. in prison

B. in exile

C. in hiding

D. dead

5. The spilled wine on the streets of Saint Antoine is an example of which literary device?

A. allegory

B. catharsis

C. foreshadowing

D. synesthesia

6. What is Defarge’s relationship to Doctor Manette?

A. He was Doctor Manette’s servant.

B. He is Doctor Manette’s former patient.

C. He was Doctor Manette’s jailer.

D. He is Doctor Manette’s cousin.

7. What is Doctor Manette making when Lucie and Lorry find him? (short answer)

8. Which of the following terms best describes Tellson’s Bank?

A) unscrupulous

B) stodgy

C) philanthropic

D) reckless

9. What is Charles Darnay on trial for at the Old Bailey?

A) theft

B) forgery

C) treason

D) murder

10. How does the defense secure Darnay’s acquittal? (short answer)

11. Which of the following character pairs can best be described as foils?

A) Doctor Manette and Lucie Manette

B) Mr. Stryver and Mr. Lorry

C) Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher

D) Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay

12. What is the nature of Carton and Stryver’s professional relationship?

A) Carton does most of Stryver’s work for him.

B) Stryver does most of Carton’s work for him.

C) Carton and Stryver split their workload evenly.

D) Carton and Stryver don’t work together.

13. The “echoing footsteps” surrounding the Manettes’ Soho house relate to which of the following themes?

A) resurrection

B) fate

C) family

D) isolation

14. How does the Marquis respond when his carriage runs down a young child?

A. He calls for a doctor.

B. He threatens to sue for injuries to his horse.

C. He tosses a coin to the child’s parents.

D. He drives on without stopping.

15. Who is the Marquis’s nephew? (short answer)

16. How does Darnay view his birthright?

A. as an honor

B. as an inconvenience

C. as a curse

D. as a blessing

17. Lucie is especially associated with which of the following motifs or symbols?

A) tides

B) debt

C) wine

D) light

18. What does Stryver advise Carton to do to improve his health and finances?

A) get married

B) leave the country

C) stop drinking

D) find a new profession

19. Which of the following characters unsuccessfully proposes to Lucie?

A) Mr. Lorry

B) Mr. Stryver

C) Sydney Carton

D) Charles Darnay

20. What promise does Carton make to Lucie?

A) to be friends with Darnay

B) to give up alcohol

C) to sacrifice himself for her or someone she loves

D) to marry someone else and be happy

21. What does Jerry Cruncher do to earn money on the side? (short answer)

22. What purpose does Madame Defarge’s knitting serve?

A. It records the names of perceived counterrevolutionaries.

B. It records the true identities of the revolutionaries.

C. It records the times and locations of the revolutionaries’ covert meetings.

D. It records the names of known victims of the Ancien Régime.

23. Who visits the Defarges’ wine shop to spy on the revolutionaries?

A. the mender of roads

B. the Marquis

C. Roger Cly

D. John Barsad

24. What causes Doctor Manette’s nine-day dissociative relapse?

A) Lucie’s marriage

B) something Darnay tells him

C) a letter from France

D) an anonymous visitor

25. What happens to Doctor Manette’s workbench and tools? (short answer)

26. What does the “golden thread” symbolize?

A) the French Revolution’s inevitability

B) Lucie’s feminine domesticity and moral influence

C) the possibility of redemption

D) the relationship between Paris and London

27. The comparison of the revolutionaries to an ocean or tide primarily emphasizes which of the following?

A) the crowd’s ignorance

B) the breakdown of gender norms

C) the justice of the Revolution

D) the broad historical forces at work

28. Why does Darnay return to France?

A) to safeguard his French property

B) to join a royalist uprising

C) to speak on behalf of an acquaintance

D) to claim restitution on Doctor Manette’s behalf

29. What is Darnay’s real name? (short answer)

30. What sits in the courtyard outside Tellson’s Paris branch?

A) a grindstone for sharpening weapons

B) a guillotine

C) a pile of confiscated valuables

D) a checkpoint for visitors to Paris

31. How do the revolutionaries initially see Doctor Manette?

A) as a scapegoat

B) as a traitor

C) as a leader

D) as a hero

32. How does the phrase “red wine for La Guillotine” reflect the novel’s Christian subtext (285)? (short answer)

33. What is the outcome of Darnay’s trial?

A) He is convicted and sentenced to death.

B) He is acquitted but rearrested later that day.

C) Warrants are issued for Lucie and Doctor Manette’s arrests.

D) A hung jury results in a mistrial.

34. How does Carton obtain the promise of a visit to the Conciergerie prison?

A) by speaking to the National Convention

B) by bribing a guard

C) by blackmailing a guard

D) by posing as Darnay’s relation

35. What Bible verse does Carton quote throughout the night he spends wandering Paris?

A) “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

B) “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25)

C) “The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters” (Psalm 23)

D) “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26)

36. Besides the Defarges, who “denounces” Darnay at his second trial?

A) Doctor Manette

B) John Barsad

C) the Vengeance

D) Sydney Carton

37. What does Doctor Manette’s testimonial reveal about the cause of his imprisonment?

A) He helped one of the Marquis St. Evrémonde’s tenants escape and begin a new life elsewhere.

B) He married one of the Marquis St. Evrémonde’s tenants without his consent.

C) He treated the Marquis St. Evrémonde’s wife, who died under his care.

D) He treated a tenant woman raped by, and a man murdered by, the Marquis St. Evrémonde’s brother.

38. What is Madame Defarge’s connection to the Evrémonde family? (short answer)

39. While visiting the Conciergerie, Carton most likely drugs Darnay for which of the following reasons?

A) He resents Darnay’s past treatment of him.

B) He thinks it will be easier to sneak out with Darnay if he’s unconscious.

C) He wants to spare Darnay the pain of execution.

D) He knows Darnay would not voluntarily agree to exchange places.

40. Who kills Madame Defarge?

A) Miss Pross

B) Mr. Lorry

C) Jerry Cruncher

D) Roger Cly

41. Whom does Carton comfort on the way to his execution?

A) a countess

B) a seamstress

C) a prostitute

D) a child

42. Which of the following best describes the tone of Carton’s imagined final words?

A) joyful

B) resigned

C) peaceful

D) defiant