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Chapter 4: Calm in Storm The title describes how Dr. Manette has a period of time in which he is unusually strong and stable. This may also foreshadow future events because even though he may have reached the eye of the storm which is calm, it is only an amount of time until the other side of the storm must pass over.
Summary • Dr. Manette did not return until one morning four days later. • He kept information on much of what he saw about the conditions in France from Lucie such as how eleven hundred prisoners of differing gender and age had been killed by the people. • Dr. Manette tells Mr. Lorry that when the crowd took him the La Force Prison, there was a tribunal holding trials for prisoners. • The people who had escorted Manette told the tribunal that he had spent eighteen years as a secret prisoner at the Bastille who had never been officially accused of anything. Defarge claims that he recognizes Manette. • Manette says that to compensate for his unjustly imprisonment, Darnay should not be killed. The tribunal agrees, but keeps Darnay in the prison.
Summary (cont.) • Manette then asks for permission to ensure that his son-in-law is safe, and is given a job as a physician to attend to prisoners in La Force. He is permitted to talk to him once a week, which allows him to make sure that he not in any danger. • Mr. Lorry was initially concerned that the stress would once again take a drastic toll on Manette’s mental health, but he is instead more confident in his purpose. • France continues to be in a state of anarchy as insurgents behead the king and queen, more and more revolutionaries are added to the resistance, and the guillotine becomes a well-known figure in Paris. • Despite Manette’s continual efforts to persuade the tribunal to free Darnay, he stays in prison for a year and three months.
Literary Devices Simile: “…three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all varying soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud…” (p. 277). Dickens uses this to show how many more revolutionaries came out to fight against their unjust leaders like “dragon’s teeth” in the earth. They come from many different places described as hill, plain, rock, gravel, mud, and then more examples are later described in the quote. Anaphora: “There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time,” (p. 277). By repeating the word “no,” in the sentence, it draws attention to the fact that during the bloody revolution, things were so hectic and people were so barbaric, that civility was lost, rest was rare, and time was easy to lose track of.
Literary Devices (cont.) • Religious Allusion: • “It [the guillotine] superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied,” (p. 278). An allusion the Holy Cross, a symbol of faith in the Christian religion, describes that the guillotine became more prevalent in society than the Cross. This shows that its presence was more materialistic and instilled great fear upon the people, who knew that large masses of people were being executed on a daily basis. Therefore, people came to respect its power as if it were an actual living thing, and rejected the practices and beliefs associated with the Christian cross.
Essential Quote This quote explains the transformation in character of Manette, and the resulting exchange in roles between himself and his prior caretakers, Lucie and Mr. Lorry. Manette used to be dependent on Lucie and Lorry to take care of him in his weakened state, but when they prove to be able to accomplish little to keep Darnay safe, Manette becomes the capable one whom they then become in urgent need of. “Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through that old trial with forces to which they both looked for Charles’s ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong,” (p. 177).
