【正文】 worth investigating. But in his novel, the force which moves and shakes is an impersonal one. Its impact on character is felt most strongly when we consider the two principal antagonists: Sydney Carton and Madame Defarge. In the former case, we seem to have a spoiled man who has somehow lost his nerve and his selfrespect and bitterly knows it. He gets the chance to do a noble thing and, in doing it , redeems his wasted life. But, had there been no such opportunity, we must suspect that he would have gone on in his downward track, drinking more and enjoying it less, and at some not too distant point being cast off by xvi the now affluent Stryverthe man who has used him to his own great benefitwhen he needs him no longer. Madame Defarge is cut altogether from other cloth. She has never lacked for backbone, and we feel that she would have made her powerful way in the world regardless of circumstances. In her fate, Dickens teaches the lesson that relentless implacability, unrelieved by any sense of proportion, let alone mercy, will meet the end expressed in the old saying about those who live by the sword. But she is truly an actor on the stage Dickens provides: all the others by parison seem like reactors. I just give a brief understanding summary of the characters. Next I will talk about it in detail. This novel has portrayed three types of characters. Firstly, what the Marquis St. Evremond brothers stands for are the feudal aristocracy, their only stable philosophy is “oppression”. They are the ones who the author wants to lash. Secondly, the Defarges, the husband and the wife. Their characters had been distorted by the revenge. The last type is the ideal embodiment, they are the examples of using the love to defeat the revenge contain the Mates, Darney, Lorry and Carton. Doctor Alexandre Mate (Dr. Mate) Alexandre Mate was a kind doctor with mercy. He once saw the Evremondes’ violence to the slaves eighteen years ago. Actually, the slaves were Mrs. Defarge’s family. Unfortunately, the Evremondes did not hope Dr. xvii Mate to divulge their cruel behavior。 but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn”. The faintness was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. We can deeply imagine how this old man had been harmed. When you asked his question, his first words are always “what do you say?” you can infer that he had used to talking to nobody everyday and he couldn’t reflect others’ words quickly. All these had implies that his character and spirit were much easier to be influenced especially when he met with the loneness. It is worthy of talking about Dr. Mate’s change. Although he was arrested in Bastille Prison by the Evremondes, he did not hate Darnay when he learned Darnay’s true identity. Due to Lucy’s love to Darnay, Dr. Mate did not want to see his daughter suffering from losing her lover。人民對暴政的恨再深再多也彌補(bǔ)不了他們逝去的親人的生命。 I find some relationship between the background and the characters in the novel. So I used the methods of theoretical discussion, search for the datas, reading and quotation to analyze respectively the social background and the economic background which had resulted in the different characters of the people with different classes. Charles Dickens is a master of using unique tones to portray the personality traits. I analyze this point based on the describing details in the article. At the last part of my assay, I gave a parison between the novel A Tale of Two Cities and Les Mis233。 they ended up in prison for getting into debt. In order to make ends meet, Dickens discontinued schooling to work in the factory. Since then, Dickens suffered from difficulties and humiliation, seeing the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. But Dickens did not take his ix misfortune out on the others. Instead, he made good use of what he had seen and gone through. The observation of the parison between the extravagant upper class and the struggling lower class bees the main feature in his creation. Bemoaning the state of the universe and pity the fate of mankind, he wrote what he had seen in the book, and most of them are about the lowlevel (1). The Research and Development at Home and Abroad Which are Related to This Topic In 1935, the American had adapted this immortal famous novel into a movie. And 23 years later, in 1958, the English also used this novel to create a famous movie. From this we can infer that this novel has much significance to our human beings and makes us to understand the Revolution deeply. And the movie showed each character vividly and deeply attracted us. Many books on the interpretation of this novel are going into the markets, for example the Understanding of A Tale of Two Cities whose writer is Gee Newlin. It has analysis the novel from the perspective of literary, the law, the history and the human right. The Purpose of This Paper A Tale of Two Cities, which will be discussed later in the thesis and one of x his best novels, is a way to get to know the background of the French Revolution. Dickens portrays each character’s personalities brightly. Actually, Dickens discovers the serious social problems in England, such as the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. So he creates this work, to warn the people. The story ’s structure is very strict, and the plot is plex. Also, the story conveys the terror of the French Revolution. Most important of all, it describes the dark aspect of the general will (2). At the last of my paper, I give a contrast of two novels—A Tale of Two Cities and Les Mis23