Plot Summary
Book II, Chapter 2 of A Tale of Two Cities opens at Tellson's Bank, where an elderly clerk instructs Jerry Cruncher, the bank's odd-job messenger, to carry a note to Mr. Jarvis Lorry at the Old Bailey courthouse. Jerry learns that the day's proceedings involve a treason trial — a crime punishable by the gruesome sentence of being drawn, hanged, and quartered. Jerry's blunt disgust at the barbarity of the punishment contrasts sharply with the clerk's prim insistence that "it is the law."
Before entering the courtroom, pauses for a sweeping satirical portrait of the Old Bailey and the English criminal justice system of the late eighteenth century. The gaol breeds deadly diseases that sometimes kill the judge himself. Public executions at Tyburn are presented as routine spectacle, and the pillory, the whipping-post, and a thriving trade in blood-money are catalogued as fragments of "ancestral wisdom." The narrator's ironic conclusion — "Whatever is is right" — underscores the chapter's critique of institutional cruelty.
Character Development
Jerry Cruncher is established as a rough but morally instinctive character. His horror at the idea of quartering a man ("It's hard in the law to spile a man") reveals a common-sense decency that the "ancient clerk" and the legal system lack. Inside the courtroom, Jerry becomes our eyes and ears, observing Mr. Lorry at the lawyers' table and a mysterious wigged gentleman who stares only at the ceiling — later revealed to be Sydney Carton.
The chapter's most important moment is the first appearance of Charles Darnay, the young prisoner accused of passing military secrets to the French King. Dickens describes him as composed, well-looking, and "plainly dressed in black," his pallor showing "the soul to be stronger than the sun." His self-possession stands in sharp contrast to the bloodthirsty crowd. Almost immediately, Darnay's gaze falls on two figures — Dr. Manette and Lucie Manette — seated near the judge's bench. Lucie's expression of "engrossing terror and compassion" is so striking that the crowd itself is moved, whispering to learn who these witnesses are.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter's title, "A Sight," operates on multiple levels. The crowd has come to the Old Bailey for entertainment — to see a man sentenced to a horrific death. labels their fascination "Ogreish", linking the spectators' appetite for suffering to the dehumanizing violence of the state. This theme of public bloodlust as spectacle anticipates the later scenes of revolutionary mob violence in Paris. The mirror above the prisoner's dock, which has reflected "crowds of the wicked and the wretched," serves as a symbol of institutional memory and the disposability of human life within the justice system.
Literary Devices
employs biting irony throughout, particularly in the passage describing the Old Bailey as "a choice illustration of the precept, that 'Whatever is is right.'" His use of catalogue — listing the pillory, whipping-post, and blood-money in mock-admiring terms — amplifies the satirical attack. Foreshadowing is layered densely: the mysterious wigged gentleman staring at the ceiling, Lucie's immediate compassion for Darnay, and the revelation that the Manettes are witnesses against the prisoner all plant seeds for the novel's central conflicts. The crowd pressing to see every inch of Darnay is rendered through a masterful extended simile, with human breath rolling at him "like a sea, or a wind, or a fire."