Book 2, Chapter 17: “One Night” Title meaning: The events of this chapter take place the night before Lucie’s wedding

Plot Summary: Lucie is sitting under the plane-tree with Dr. Manette on the night before her marriage. They are having an earnest conversation in which Lucie promises not to change and to always be there for her father. She tells him that if she had never met Charles, she would have been perfectly happy to continue living as she had been with him. He tells her earnestly that he dreamed of her in captivity, and that his troubles at their worst never compared to how happy he has felt after their reunion. That night, she has dinner with her father and Miss Pross, and after dinner they go to bed. Lucie tiptoes into her father's room and finds him sound asleep. She kisses him goodnight as he sleeps, then tiptoes away.

Literary Devices: Foreshadowing: During a chapter that doesn’t have as much “action” as the others, Dickens keeps his audience engaged through foreshadowing about something ominous about to happen to the family that has finally found happiness: “So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, beforehand.” (192). Theme of Imprisonment: Manette’s peaceful face is “imprisoned” in a worn body, hinting that he won’t be able to escape his past quite so easily: “Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, he covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night.” (193). Motif of lightness and darkness: The dominant image in the chapter is of the moon, with the Doctor and his daughter having their conversation outdoors in the moonlight. The narrator reflects that moonlight, like the passage of human life, is invariably sad: “Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves.” (188).

“‘See!’ said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. ‘I have looked at her from my prison- window, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to think of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against my prison-walls.’” (190). Essential Quote Hear this chapter read aloud.