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Scenes From Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" in Today's Fiction

© Lynda Ochsner

Charles' Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities ranks among the best historical fiction novels of all time. The story is so well known and loved that even contemporary authors have written their own variations on important plot elements from Dickens' novel. In popular culture alone, the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan quotes the beginning and ending lines of the book, with an antagonist Khan consumed by hatred and revenge in a way quite similar to the French woman Madame' Defarge. Like Defarge, Khan bears a years-long grudge against his enemy and is determined to destroy not only the object of his hatred but all the friends of that hated one. Mr. Spock responds to the crisis in a like manner to Sydney Carton to ensure the safety of all the people on the ship.

One interesting scene in A Tale of Two Cities has proved especially popular for today's historical fiction authors. It is the darkest hour of the French revolution, and Charles Darnay has been sentenced to death, and all his associates can find no way out this time. Sydney Carton, an acquaintance who bears great physical resemblance to the doomed man, visits Darnay in the final hours. He subsequently drugs Darnay, undressing and exchanging clothes with him, then takes on the identity of Darnay and arranges for the drugged, unconscious man to be safely returned to his family. Then Sydney Carton walks to the guillotine to face his death, with the wonderful ending words "it is a far better thing I do than I have ever done before, a far better resting place…"

Two different authors, Jack Cavanaugh and Angela Elwell Hunt, have written very similar scenes in novels featuring identical twin brothers. In Jack Cavanaugh's novel, The Patriots (An American Family Portrait series,) Jacob and Esau Morgan have taken sibling rivalry to its extreme, fighting on opposite sides of the American Revolution and detesting each other. When Jacob is caught along with Major John Andre in Benedict Arnold's treason, Esau suddenly decides to take his own life instead and set his brother free: by showing up at the jail and switching places with him. Esau hasn't prepared any drugs or alcohol to knock his brother unconscious, so when Jacob protests his idea, he beats him up to the point of unconsciousness.

Angela Elwell Hunt, in her book Hartford (Keeper of the Ring series,) writes a similar identity-switching scene for twin brothers Daniel and Taregan in colonial New England -- with a twist on the original Dickens' scene. The two brothers have been separated for 15 years, and when Daniel finds out that Taregan is returning, he plots his brother's destruction. He diverts Taregan from a canoe, then takes control of the canoe, rushing it forward to kill one of two women passengers, who naturally mistake him for Taregan. Daniel then high-tails it out of town, with his scheming friend giving him an alibi; the new man in town, Taregan, is swiftly tried, convicted and sentenced to hang for the crime. But then Daniel repents and realizes the best way to make amends and "out-do" his brother at something: owning up to his crimes and paying the penalty. Daniel comes to the jail, talks to his brother for a while, and offers him a drink that soon drugs him. Then Daniel plays the familiar switcharoo of changing clothes with his brother, sending his brother away "drunk" back to a friend's home, and then hanging the next morning: a familiar re-play, but one in which the truly guilty person dies instead of the innocent one.