SOURCE: “Language, Love, and Identity: A Tale of Two Cities,” The Dickensian, Vol. 88, No. 428, Part 3, Autumn, 1992, pp. 154-70.

In the following essay, Lloyd discusses the “precarious nature of identity” illustrated by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.

Thirty years ago G. Robert Stange criticized the ‘excessive artificiality’ of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, writing that ‘its construction constantly calls attention to itself’ (74). Much has changed in the critical realm since 1957, for now this is exactly what commends the novel to the attention of those nurtured on post-structuralist ideas. A number of writers in recent years have analysed Dickens's fascination with language, including ‘redoubling of the theme of writing’ (Baumgarten 163), closure, hidden desires (Vanden Bossche 211), and in general the strong influence of Thomas Carlyle's Romantic Irony on Dickens's work.¹ A Tale of Two Cities does question the value of language divorced from feeling and experience, but...