Book II - Chapter XXI. Echoing Footsteps Practice Quiz — A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Book II - Chapter XXI. Echoing Footsteps
What is Lucie doing as the chapter opens, and what metaphor does Dickens use?
She is sitting in her Soho parlor "winding the golden thread" that binds her family together, listening to the "echoing footsteps of years" as time passes.
What personal tragedy does the Darnay family experience during the years covered in Chapter 21?
Their young son dies in childhood. He says farewell with a radiant smile: "Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!"
How often does Sydney Carton visit the Darnay family, and what is notable about his behavior?
He visits about half a dozen times a year, coming uninvited as they had once permitted. Notably, he never arrives "heated with wine," suggesting he controls his drinking around Lucie.
What special bond does little Lucie have with Sydney Carton?
She was the first stranger to hold out her arms to Carton as a baby, and he maintained a special place with her as she grew. Even the dying boy said, "Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!"
What metaphor does Dickens use to describe Mr. Stryver's legal career?
Stryver "shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water," dragging Carton behind him "like a boat towed astern" in a "swamped life."
What news does Mr. Lorry bring from Tellson's Bank on the July evening in 1789?
French customers are frantically sending their property to England. Lorry says there is "positively a mania among some of them" and describes "a run of confidence upon us."
What date does the storming of the Bastille occur in this chapter?
July 14, 1789—described as "a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine."
What weapons does Madame Defarge carry during the storming of the Bastille?
An axe (in place of her usual knitting), a pistol, and a cruel knife in her girdle.
What does Defarge cry to rally the crowd before the attack?
"Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!" The crowd responds with a roar "as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word."
How long does the siege of the Bastille last in Dickens's account?
Four fierce hours. Dickens marks the progress: "Two fierce hours" after the first assault, then four hours total before the white flag and surrender.
What does Madame Defarge say to rally the women during the assault?
"To me, women! What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!"
What cell does Defarge demand to see once inside the Bastille, and why?
One Hundred and Five, North Tower—the cell where Dr. Alexandre Manette was imprisoned for eighteen years.
What does Defarge find carved into the wall of cell 105?
The initials "A. M." (Alexandre Manette), the words "a poor physician," and a scratched calendar.
What is Defarge searching for inside the cell?
He searches the chimney with a crowbar, smashes the furniture, and has Jacques Three rip open the straw bed—looking for a hidden document Dr. Manette may have written during his imprisonment.
Who is Jacques Three, and what trait does Dickens emphasize about him?
Jacques Three is one of the revolutionary leaders. Dickens emphasizes his bloodthirsty craving—he croaks "Kill him!" at the turnkey and is "disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed."
How does the governor of the Bastille die?
The mob beats him to death in the streets. Madame Defarge stays immovable beside him, then puts her foot on his neck and severs his head with her knife.
What gruesome tally marks the end of the chapter?
Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, and the keys of the Bastille carried through the Paris streets.
What literary technique does Dickens use in the phrase "deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers"?
Anaphora and repetition. He repeats the physical features of the Bastille like a refrain, creating a rhythmic, incantatory effect that mirrors the relentless assault.
How does the extended ocean/sea metaphor connect the two halves of the chapter?
The gentle echoes and murmurs in Lucie's quiet parlor ("like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore") transform into the violent "living sea" of the revolutionary mob surging against the Bastille.
What is the "horrible idea" Saint Antoine executes at the end of the chapter?
"Hoisting up men for lamps"—hanging soldiers from lampposts as a demonstration of revolutionary power.
How old is little Lucie when the menacing echoes from France become "awful"?
Six years old. Dickens writes: "it was now, about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France."
What is the final sentence of the chapter, and what does it foreshadow?
Dickens warns that the revolutionary footsteps "are headlong, mad, and dangerous" and "are not easily purified when once stained red," foreshadowing the Revolution's impact on the Darnay family.