a tale of two cities

[unknown]

im doing a report and need to know what year the first chapter takes place??

[emily655321]

This type of question generally doesn't get answered, since this is a forum for discussing literature, not an answer key for schoolwork. If you don't get a response, it isn't a personal offense; it's just pot luck whether people reply or not. But I wouldn't hold out any expectation of getting a lot of help with this one.

[Jay]

Emm, haven't read it but got curious, found this on the beginning of the third paragraph of the first chapter:
"It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five."
http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/twocities/1/

*edit* Makes me kinda wonder if you have even read it. One can't just ask a question like this after reading the first chapter. It doesn't seem that the said year should not be the correct one, even though as I said, I haven't read the book, only first three paragraphs of it.

*edit2* *hopes the rest of the members who are against answering schoolwork questions won't go grrrrr on me ;)*

[amuse]

beginning...third paragraph

Jay honey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


oh god that was not my 999th post. (covers face.)
not to our most beloved Jay!!!

[Jay]

:D:D:D and the hero has been born... ;)

[Capnplank]

I could maybe see missing it. I tried to read that book three times, and it wasn't until the second or third attempt that I even had the slightest idea what was going on. Entire worlds can be born, corrupted, crumbled, and resuscitated -- and all that fully documented -- within a single Dickens sentence.

[essentience]

Dickensian erudition pulls at the tattered threads of the helplessness of a generation of schoolchildren who have been weaned away from semantic convolutions, subordinate and coordinate structures, and syntactical inversions by the mindless routine of the video game and the frenetic image-drenched montage showers of the MTV era. I am currently pulling two classes through this inspirational novel by the teeth. They will clench and gnaw at the gristle of the grammar until the get it, by God! Or my nickname is not Essentience!

[den]

Heh, so, tell us how you really feel!

I totally agree however. Passive activity seems much preferred over picking up a book and having to focus on all the big words for more than 3 nanoseconds.

Keep up the good fight and welcome to the forums.



Dickensian erudition pulls at the tattered threads of the helplessness of a generation of schoolchildren who have been weaned away from semantic convolutions, subordinate and coordinate structures, and syntactical inversions by the mindless routine of the video game and the frenetic image-drenched montage showers of the MTV era. I am currently pulling two classes through this inspirational novel by the teeth. They will clench and gnaw at the gristle of the grammar until the get it, by God! Or my nickname is not Essentience!

[Tabac]

I could maybe see missing it. I tried to read that book three times, and it wasn't until the second or third attempt that I even had the slightest idea what was going on. Entire worlds can be born, corrupted, crumbled, and resuscitated -- and all that fully documented -- within a single Dickens sentence.

All that in one sentence is the beauty of Dickens. I think it would be difficult for a serious reader to miss the somewhat odd (by today's standards) manner in which he posted the date....especially since it comes just one year before another rather important date for American history (given, of course, that the reader is American).