Today is Bastille Day, a day
that celebrates the beginning of the French revolution: the storming of the prison, La Bastille.
On this date, who doesn’t
think of the character from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Madame
Defarge? She was a knitter without mercy
who passed judgement and insisted upon the execution of many individuals
considered to be enemies of the French people.
In every one of her scenes in the book, she is knitting. What she is knitting is gruesome: a list of those whom she considers deserve to
die.
I read A Tale of Two
Cities for the first time about 15 years ago. I have always been a big fan of Dickens. I love his convoluted, coincidence-filled –
yet logical – plots. One thing about the
book that I found especially satisfying is that it has one of the most famous
opening lines and one of the most
famous closing lines. What other piece
of literature can claim this honor?
The Beginning –
“It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing
before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the
other way.”
The End –
“It is a far, far better
thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to
than I have ever known.”
Can’t you just hear Ronald
Coleman’s distinctive voice saying those last words?
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