A Tale of Two Cities Related to Les Miserables

October 10th, 2013
A Tale of Two Cities: Weekly Log 4
Choose one theme from the novel and relate it to a movie, song, or video game.
In Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, one of the reoccurring themes, the preservation of family groups, is shown through the relationship between Lucie Manette and her father Dr. Manette.   The same theme can be shown in a similar relationship between Jean Valjean and his adopted daughter, Cosette, in the movie Les Miserables, based off of the novel by Victor Hugo.   It is present in the way that their bonds have grown stronger due to conflicts in the past, bringing the fathers back from the darkness to the light, and the fathers realising that other men will eventually come in to their daughters’ lives, but a space in their heart will always be dedicated to their fathers.        
An obstacle that both family groups have had to overcome in A Tale of Two Cities and in Les Miserables, was the imprisonment of the father figures, Jean Valjean and Dr. Manette, for many years when the daughters were young.   Valjean broke his probation after nineteen years in prison, wanting a fresh start someplace new, which caused him to become a wanted man with a price on his head.   Years later, just before he adopted Cosette, his past caught up with him, and he was forced to take Cosette and run.   For the rest of his life, he was forced to hide who he really was, and what had happened to him, from Cosette to preserve her happiness and to protect her.   It wasn’t until the time of her wedding that Cosette found out all that her father had done for her, and in the end, the deception only served to make their bond stronger.   In A Tale of Two Cities, Lucie Manette found out about her father’s imprisonment right away, but had thought him to be dead for the years before that.   By hearing that he had been locked away for so long, and didn’t even realise he had a daughter, Lucie did not push this stranger away, but held him closer to her heart in...