In a well organized essay, briefly explain the necessity for secrecy and how the character choice to reveal or keep the secret affects the plot and contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
One of the main driving features in the novel A Tale of Two Cities is the fact that the main character, Charles Darnay, is of the Evremonde family of aristocrats. By his character in the story, he is an honorable and truthful man who despises the fact that the current leadership of the Evremonde family is cruel and uncaring to the general populace in France. Because of this, when he asks for Lucie's hand in marriage from Doctor Manette, he includes the fact that he is of the Evremonde family regardless of the ramifications of this revelation. Although Doctor Manette is initially in shock and reverts to his prison era behaviors, by having Darnay tell him now, he is able to gain his support and fatherly love in his time of need, regardless of his family background. If he did not tell his father in law long before he was arrested in Paris for being an Evremonde, the shock of this revelation would have ended any communication from Doctor Manette and would have condemned Darney to death. Another aspect of his telling the truth about his family relations is that this knowledge is a double edged sword. On the one hand, his family supports him for telling the truth of his origins and judges him for not what his family has done but what he himself has done. On the other hand, people like Madame Defarge only see him as an Evremonde and judges him on his heritage and not his personal actions. Even though he renounces his family name long before he gets married or his incarceration in France, this stigma still looms over him to the point that this truth almost lead to his death.
By having his family origins public for the people of France to know, he willingly gives his prosecutors a way to have him executed by association even though he has done none of and refuted all of the atrocities his family name caused in prerevolutionary France. Although he is able to escape due to the actions of Carton taking his place at the execution block, his telling the truth does cause him trouble and almost death but gives him more trust and family acceptance that is more important than the consequences.
