Book 3, Chapter 13 : “ Fifty-Two”

1. Book 3, Chapter 13: “Fifty-Two” Title meaning: the court has scheduled fifty-two prisoners for execution that day Also counted as “two score and twelve,”as a score is twenty. There are also 52 cards in a deck, playing on the previous references to a “hand at cards.”

2. Plot Summary: • On the eve of his execution, Darnay comes to terms with his imminent death. • After writing letters to Lucie, Dr. Manette and Mr. Lorry, he spends the night restlessly trying to sleep. • The next day, Carton enters the cell, using the influence over the spy he gained from the chapter “A Hand at Cards,” and changes clothes with him. • While Carton dictates a letter to Darnay, Carton drugs him so that he loses consciousness. These are the drugs he’d purchased from the chemist on page 318 in the chapter, “The Game Made.”

3. Plot Summary, contiuned: • Two guards, who believe that Darnay is Carton and that Carton is Darnay, then carry Darnay out of the prison. • At two o'clock, guards take Carton from the cell to a larger room in which the fifty-two prisoners that the court has scheduled for execution are assembling. • No one notices that he is not Darnay, except for a meek little seamstress who asks Carton to hold her hand on the way to the guillotine. • Meanwhile, the coach containing Mr. Lorry, Doctor Manette, Lucie, Darnay, and young Lucie passes through the gates of Paris, where they identify Darnay, still unconscious, as Carton, and the group escapes France.

4. Literary Devices: A Tale of Two Themes: The theme of doubles returns when Carton uses their resemblance to save Darnay's life for a second time. The first time Carton saved Darnay, Carton did so without risk to himself, but this time, it requires that Carton sacrifice his own life. It first appears Carton makes the sacrifice out of love for Lucie and her child, but, by considering the theme of resurrection, we realize that Carton is also giving his life to save his soul, resurrecting his own wasted potential through the man who represents the realization of that potential, Darnay. Carton’s words to the seamstress, when she recognizes him, are Christ-like: “‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered.” ‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.” (360). Motif of lightness and darkness: As we reach the story’s climax, it is dark at the prison, as well as at the barrier, where Lorry, Manette, Lucie, Darnay and their daughter make their escape: “The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined.” (360).Personification:At the end of the chapter, several things are personified to show the intensity and desperation of their flight from France : “The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.” (362).

5. “Change that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of mine!” (356). Essential Quote Hear this chapter read aloud.