Dickens' Use of Repetitive Chapter Names (Farheen's post)

I would like to focus in the literary technique Dickens’ constantly employs throughout the book, that is, the use of repetition. Due to the serialized nature of the novels at the time of publication, the repetition may predominantly have been used to serve as reminders to the readership of events that had passed or to grant importance to events that would be critical to the story later.

In the chapter names themselves, Dickens uses two methods, one of which is aligning two chapter names together which are quite similar such as Monseigneur in Town followed by Monseigneur in the Country.  The Gorgon’s Head is also a continuation of the Monseigneur’s narrative. These allusions allow Dickens to continue the tale of a very important character who in himself merely brushes a few pages of the novel but whose existence and death is associated with the major happenings in the story. Another reason for aligning two chapter names together is to present a comparison such as The Fellow of Delicacy followed by The Fellow of no Delicacy, which refers to Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton respectively. This novel can be seen as a novel about Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay and the rest as a supporting cast.  

There are strangely three chapters that make use of the word knitting: Knitting, Still Knitting and then The Knitting done. These chapters tie up ends in the story and the major role these titles perform is to indicate a pattern to the reader which is unraveled with each proceeding chapter. Since it is this knitting and the role of the knitting women in Paris that plays the greatest part in the imprisonment of Charles Darnay (and which is seen in the novel as the group of vigilantes who attempt to execute their own justice), these chapter serve as anchors to focus on the subtleties that underlie the story.

The chapters The Echoing Footsteps and The Footsteps die out for Ever allow Dickens to use repetition for distinctive meaning. It presents the critical moving moments of the story. The Echoing Footsteps refers to the capture of Charles Darnay and his imprisonment in France and the Footsteps die out for Ever brings the curtain down on the story showing how Lucie’s presentiment of the echoing footsteps that indicated danger had arrived and how the footsteps of Sydney Carton would die out from her life as he  sets in motion his plan that would inevitably lead to his execution in the place of Charles Darnay.