A Tale of Two Cities2

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . ." Dickens begins A Tale of Two Cities with this famous sentence. It describes the spirit of the era in which this novel takes place. This era is the latter part of the 1700s - a time when relations between Britain and France were strained, America declared its independence, and the peasants …

…introduced in this section. Resurrection is the literal action of bringing the dead back to life. However, Dickens uses it metaphorically. Lorry likens his mission to digging up a man who has been buried for eighteen years, in short, "recalling him to life." Resurrection in this novel appears as many things: a second chance at life, an escape of a death sentence, release from imprisonment, the digging up of graves, and memories of the dead.