A Tale of Two Cities: ThemeTracker

The LitCharts ThemeTracker is a mini-version of the entire LitChart. The ThemeTracker provides a quick timeline-style rundown of all the important plot points and allows you to track the themes throughout the work at a glance.

	Back- story	Dr. Alexandre Manette is secretly imprisoned in the Bastille by Marquis St. Evrémonde and his twin brother. Mr. Jarvis Lorry smuggles Dr. Manette’s daughter, the infant Lucie, to safety in London.
	1,1	It’s 1775 and the King and Queen of France govern their country harshly. The allegorical figures of Fate and Death stalk the land.
	1,2	Mr. Lorry travels to Dover in a mail coach. Jerry Cruncher delivers a note to him, and Mr. Lorry replies with the words “Recalled to life.”
	1,3	Mr. Lorry has a dream about digging someone up from the grave.
	1,4	In Dover, Mr. Lorry meets Lucie Manette and explains that her father, Dr. Manette, has been found.
	1,5	Mr. Lorry and Lucie meet Monsieur Defarge at his wine shop. He takes them to the attic where Dr. Manette is making shoes in a corner.
	1,6	Dr. Manette gradually recognizes Lucie. Mr. Lorry helps them all leave Paris.
	2,1	Jerry Cruncher waits for jobs outside Tellson’s Bank. He complains about his wife’s praying.
	2,2	In London, Charles Darnay stands trial for treason. His defense lawyers are Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton. Lucie and Dr. Manette are witnesses for the prosecution.
	2,3	Carton undercuts an accusing witness when Carton points out how much he himself looks like Charles. The jury acquits Charles.
	2,4	Carton takes Charles to a tavern and drunkenly, insultingly prods him about Lucie Manette.
	2,5	Carton works through the night to do all of Stryver’s legal work.
	2,6	Dr. Manette and Lucie move into a house. They receive frequent visits from Mr. Lorry, Charles, and Carton.
	2,7	In Paris, Marquis Evrémonde runs over a little girl with his carriage as the Defarges look on.
	2,8	A mender of roads tells the Marquis he saw a man clinging onto his carriage. Driving on, the Marquis spurns the petition of a woman wanting a gravestone for her husband.
	2,9	Charles Evrémonde visits the Marquis and renounces his family’s name and property. The sleeping Marquis is murdered in his bed; a note on the knife reads “Jacques.”
	2,10	A year passes. Charles obtains Dr. Manette’s permission to marry Lucie, but Dr. Manette refuses to learn Charles’s real name.
	2,11	Stryver tells Carton that he will propose marriage to Lucie Manette.
	2,12	Mr. Lorry strongly advises Stryver not to propose to Lucie, and Stryver changes his mind.
	2,13	Carton visits Lucie to express his love and his hope that she might pity him. Carton promises his life to her.
	2,14	Jerry Cruncher watches a funeral procession for the spy Roger Cly. That night, Jerry digs up the coffin to steal the body, but the body is missing.
	2,15	The mender of roads tells the Defarges about Marquis Evrémonde’s murder, and how the criminal was later caught and hanged.
	2,16	John Barsad tries to spy on Monsieur and Madame Defarge. The Defarges are shocked to learn that Lucie Manette has married an Evrémonde.
	2,17	Lucie spends the evening before her wedding with Dr. Manette and promises to become closer to him.
	2,18	Charles privately tells Dr. Manette his real name. When the couple leaves for a honeymoon, Dr. Manette relapses into making shoes.
	2,19	Dr. Manette snaps out of it. That night, Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross destroy the shoemaker’s bench and bury the tools.
	2,20	Carton meets Charles and Lucie on their return. Later, Charles notes that Carton is awkward and strange, but Lucie demands that her husband give Carton a chance.
	2,21	Time passes. Lucie gives birth to a daughter (“Lucie”) and a son who doesn’t survive. In 1789, Defarge leads the people to destroy the Bastille. He searches Dr. Manette’s old cell. Madame Defarge beheads the prison warden with a knife.
	2,22	The Defarges lead another mob to seize and execute an aristocrat who insulted the people.
	2,23	The castle of Marquis Evrémonde is burned down. No one helps. More arson and fighting occur across the nation. A mob pursues Gabelle who hides on his roof.
	2,24	The year is 1792. Mr. Lorry receives a letter for Evrémonde from Gabelle who has been imprisoned and asks for help. Charles leaves for Paris the next night.
	3,1	After arriving in France, Charles is escorted by soldiers to Paris, taken prisoner, and jailed in secret.
	3,2	Mr. Lorry, Lucie, and Dr. Manette arrive in Paris. Bloodthirsty revolutionaries are on a rampage killing their prisoners. Dr. Manette rushes out and saves Charles.
	3,3	Mr. Lorry gets Lucie an apartment. The Defarges bring a note from Dr. Manette. The cold Madame Defarge terrifies Lucie.
	3,4	Dr. Manette’s reputation in Paris grows, but Charles is not freed. A year passes and the guillotine becomes a popular form of capital punishment.
	3,5	Every day, Lucie walks near the prison where Charles might see her. She is watched by the wood-sawyer and Madame Defarge.
	3,6	At Charles’s trial, Gabelle and Dr. Manette testify in his favor. Charles is freed and celebrated as a patriot.
	3,7	Charles is reunited with Lucie, but that night he is arrested again on charges brought by Monsieur and Madame Defarge, as well as one other unnamed person.
	3,8	Jerry Cruncher and Miss Pross run into Solomon Pross in the streets. Sydney Carton shows up and identifies him as John Barsad. Carton threatens to reveal him as a spy unless he cooperates to help Charles.
	3,9	Carton wanders the Paris streets and buys a packet of drugs. A prayer runs through his head: “I am the resurrection and the life.” At Charles’s trial, the prosecutor brings charges from the Defarges and Dr. Alexandre Manette.
	3,10	Monsieur Defarge reads from Dr. Manette’s letter he discovered in the Bastille. The Marquis Evrémonde and his twin brother secretly imprisoned Manette to hide their crimes against a peasant family. Charles is convicted and sentenced to be killed within 24 hours.
	3,11	Lucie and Charles say their goodbyes. Dr. Manette freaks out. Carton and Mr. Lorry quietly confess they have no hope for a political solution, but Carton implies that he has a plan.
	3,12	At the wine shop, Carton overhears Madame Defarge plotting to convict Lucie. Madame Defarge is the missing daughter of the peasant family persecuted by the Evrémondes. Carton instructs Mr. Lorry to get a carriage ready to leave for England.
	3,13	John Barsad lets Carton into Charles’s prison cell. Carton drugs Charles, swaps clothes with him, and makes Barsad carry Charles back to Mr. Lorry, who immediately leaves with everyone. As Carton is taken to the guillotine, another prisoner, an innocent girl, asks to hold Carton’s hand until the end.
	3,14	Madame Defarge goes to Lucie’s apartment. She scuffles with Miss Pross and accidentally shoots herself.
	3,15	Carton is executed by the guillotine. Before he dies, he realizes that his sacrifice is the greatest thing he’s ever done and has a vision of his resurrection through Lucie’s son, who will one day be born and named after him.

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