A Tale of Two Cities
Read 'A Tale of Two Cities' by 'Rudyard Kipling' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.
Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
Hides and ghi;
Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints
In his prints;
Stands a City -- Charnock chose it -- packed away
Near a Bay --
By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer
Made impure,
By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp
Moist and damp;
And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,
Don't agree.
Once, two hundered years ago, the trader came
Meek and tame.
Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,
Till mere trade
Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth
South and North
Till the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
Was his own.
Thus the midday halt of Charnock -- more's the pity!
Grew a City.
As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
So it spread --
Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built
On the silt --
Palace, byre, hovel -- poverty and pride --
Side by side;
And, above the packed and pestilential town,
Death looked down.
But the Rulers in that City by the Sea
Turned to flee --
Fled, with each returning spring-tide from its ills
To the Hills.
From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze
Of old days,
From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat,
Beat retreat;
For the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
Was their own.
But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain
For his gain.
Now the resting-place of Charnock, 'neath the palms,
Asks an alms,
And the burden of its lamentation is, Briefly, this:
"Because for certain months, we boil and stew,
So should you.
Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspire
In our fire!"
And for answer to the argument, in vain
We explain
That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry:
"All must fry!"
That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain
For gain.
Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in,
From its kitchen.
Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints
In his prints;
And mature -- consistent soul -- his plan for stealing
To Darjeeling:
Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile,
England's isle;
Let the City Charnock pitched on -- evil day!
Go Her way.
Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors
Heap their stores,
Though Her enterprise and energy secure
Income sure,
Though "out-station orders punctually obeyed"
Swell Her trade --
Still, for rule, administration, and the rest,
Simla's best.
A Tale of Two Cities Summary and Analysis
Kipling sets this poem in colonial Calcutta, a city imagined as congested, unhealthy, profitable, and politically unruly all at once. The opening moves through a brisk catalogue of local life, commerce, disease, and civic decay before widening into a historical account of how a trader's temporary stop became an imperial city. The poem's central argument is that the city's wealth and power grew from trade and initiative, yet its climate, geography, and population make it a place that cannot be comfortably controlled from within.
The poem's movement is both comic and argumentative: it begins with mock-epic description, shifts into a miniature history of imperial expansion, and ends as a satirical plea that administrative authority belongs elsewhere, in the cooler hill station of Simla. The tension at the heart of the poem lies between dependence and distance. Calcutta generates wealth and prestige, but the rulers want escape from its heat and disorder, while the city insists, with some irony, that if it must endure discomfort then its governors should too. Kipling lets the poem sound witty and playful, yet the conclusion also reveals a hard colonial hierarchy in which commerce, climate, and government are separated rather than harmonized.
Tone in A Tale of Two Cities
Kipling's tone is wry, brisk, and sharply satirical, with a speaker who sounds amused by the contradictions of colonial life even while judging them. The mood for the reader is more uneasy than playful: the poem's jaunty movement keeps the lines lively, but the repeated reminders of heat, disease, crowding, and political friction make the city feel oppressive and unhealthy. That contrast between verbal energy and grim setting is one of the poem's strongest effects.
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Themes in A Tale of Two Cities
- Empire and administration - The poem contrasts the commercial city that helps build empire with the hill station that ultimately becomes the preferred center of rule, suggesting that power in colonial India depends on separation from the place it governs.
- Trade as the seed of power - What begins as a trader's brief stop grows into a city and then an empire, showing how commerce becomes the foundation for political control.
- Climate and bodily discomfort - Heat, fog, swamp, and disease are not just background details; they shape how people move, where they live, and where authority can be exercised.
- Urban disorder - The city is presented as crowded, mixed, and unstable, with wealth and poverty pressed together in a single space.
- Colonial irony - The poem undercuts official authority by showing that those who govern the city prefer not to stay in it, even though it produces the wealth they oversee.
- Conflict between city and government - Calcutta and the Viceroy are portrayed as fundamentally mismatched, emphasizing the strain between local conditions and imperial administration.
Literary Devices in A Tale of Two Cities
- Cataloguing - Kipling piles up place-names, commodities, illnesses, and social types to create a dense, bustling portrait of the city.
- Irony - The poem repeatedly treats administrative logic as if it were reasonable while making clear that the rulers avoid the very city they govern.
- Mock-epic tone - The poem borrows the grand sweep of historical narrative but applies it to trade, drainage, heat, and government relocation, giving small practical matters a grand public voice.
- Rhyme and ballad-like rhythm - The tight rhyme scheme and driving meter make the poem sound light and witty, even when it is describing decay and imperial conflict.
- Personification - The city, death, and even distance from the hills are treated as active forces, giving the setting a kind of hostile life of its own.
- Hyperbole - Phrases about empire, weather, and civic misery exaggerate reality for comic and satiric effect.
- Historical allusion - The poem invokes Charnock and other colonial references to compress a long political history into a few vivid moments.
Symbolism in A Tale of Two Cities
- The City by the Sea - It stands for Calcutta itself, but also for the unstable colonial metropolis built on commerce, drainage problems, and administrative contradiction.
- The Hills - They symbolize retreat, comfort, and the separation of rulers from the lowland city they control.
- Charnock - As the founder figure, he represents the accidental beginnings of empire, when trade first hardens into settlement and power.
- The sewer and swamp - These suggest the physical and moral unsuitability of the place as a seat of government.
- Simla - It symbolizes administrative distance and the preference for cool, detached rule over direct engagement with the commercial city.
- Indigo and tea - These commodities symbolize the economic engine of colonial power and the profit that keeps the empire moving.
Historical Context of A Tale of Two Cities
The poem belongs to the world of British imperial writing about India, where cities, hill stations, trade routes, and administrative centers were often imagined through the needs of empire. Calcutta was long a major colonial capital and commercial hub, while Simla became associated with cool-weather government and seasonal retreat. The poem draws on that colonial geography to frame governance as something that must be physically distanced from the lowland city.
It also reflects a wider late-Victorian habit of turning imperial history into witty public verse. Kipling frequently writes about India as a place of commerce, bureaucracy, and climate, and this poem fits that pattern by treating the city as both the product and the problem of empire. Its satire depends on assumptions common to colonial rule, including the division between rulers and the ruled and the idea that climate shapes civilization and administration.
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