Week 8: Dickens worksheet 1 Dickens reading for March recess Name : Shenay Mahadeo Student number : u19042214 Group : 14 Worksheet due :

Week 8: Dickens worksheet 1 &

Dickens reading for March recess

Name: Shenay Mahadeo

Student number: u19042214

Group: 14

Worksheet due: Wednesday 3 April, by 8 pm

If possible, delay doing Section A till you have returned to UP at the start of April and have had your second and third lectures on Dickens. (You can begin with Section B: there is plenty of reading for you to do in the March recess!)

SECTION A: Dickens

PASSAGE

  "What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

  A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

  "Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

  "Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"

  "Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes."

  The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword- hilt.

  "Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"

  The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

  He took out his purse.

  "It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the, way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that."

  He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"

  He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.

  "I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?"

  "You are a philosopher, you there," said the, Marquis, smiling. "How do they call you?"

  "They call me Defarge."

  "Of what trade?"

  "Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine."

  "Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?"

  Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.

  "Hold!" said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who threw that?"

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

  "You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels."

  So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word "Go on!" (From Book I, Chapter 7: "Monsieur the Marquis in Town")

QUESTIONS

1) In three or four sentences give an overview of the incident or situation described in this passage. (This, if you were writing a critical analysis of the passage, could be used in the introduction to contextualize and situate the passage, as well as give an overview of what the passage is about.)

2) Mark on the passageitself everything that shows the callous disregard of the Marquis for the suffering of the distraught father and the people of Paris. Then, write a paragraph in which you use four of your observations to show what this passage tells us about the Marquis's attitude to the common people.

3) Why does Defarge disappear from the scene? What is Dickens suggesting by this seemingly insignificant detail?

4) Write a paragraph describing the significance of the presence of the Defarges in this passage. Try to use the following construction: "[fact or detail from the passage] suggests that ..."

5) Very soon after this passage the Marquis has another encounter with a poor woman. How does the later encounter echo the incident described in this passage? (Before you answer this question, read the example critical analysis of the passage describing the Marquis's encounter with the woman. It is the last thing in the Study Guide.)

6) Give two examples of implicit information in the passage - i.e. things that are suggested rather than stated explicitly.

7) Find the one brief example of free indirect discourse in this passage.

TYPE ANSWERS HERE:

SECTION B: READING DICKENS

During the March recess you should read to the end of Book 2 of the novel. The holiday is a good time to get reading done.

Book the Second, Chapters 1 to 4 (the trial of Charles Darnay)

1) Write a paragraph explaining what Charles Darnay is accused of, and how his advocate gets him acquitted.

Book the Second, Chapters 5 to 24

2) Make sure you understand what irony and sarcasm are (see the 'Reader's Guide to Tale of Two Cities' in the study guide, p. 60). Give two examples of the narrator's sarcasm in Chapter 7.

3) In Chapters 7 - 8 what significant things does the reader know that the Marquis does not?

4) In Chapter 9 we see how Charles Darnay clashes with his uncle, the Marquis de St Evremonde. Briefly explain their differences of character and 'philosophy'.

5) In Chapter 14, "The Honest Tradesman", what does Jerry Cruncher find out about Roger Cly's death, and how does he discover this?

6) In Chapter 15, "Knitting", who is added to the revolutionaries' "register" of enemies of the people, and why?

7) In Chapter 16, "Still Knitting", who is added to the revolutionaries' "register" of enemies of the people, and where have we met this character before?

8) Why does this person ask Madame Defarge whether people in the neighbourhood are angry about Gaspard's fate?

9) How does Madame Defarge respond, and why does she respond in this way?

10) Why do the customers in the wine shop seem to dislike the rose in Madame Defarge's headdress?

11) In Chapter 18, "Nine Days" how does Dr Manette react the fact that Lucie is marrying Charles, and why does he respond in this way?

12) In Chapter 19, "An Opinion" who is the subject of Mr Lorry conversation with Dr Manette?

13) In Chapter 20, "A Plea", what does Lucie ask Charles to do?

14) In Chapter 21, "Echoing Footsteps" what does Defarge find in Dr Manette's cell on the day the revolutionaries storm the Bastille? (Note: this takes place on 14 July 1789, a day still celebrated in France every year as Bastille Day.)

15) In Chapter 24, "Drawn to the Loadstone Rock" why does Charles Darnay go to France?

TYPE ANSWERS HERE:

1)

2)