A Tale of Two Cities Chapter 14 Summary

Summary

The chapter follows Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher—a coarse, practical messenger employed at Tellson’s Bank—and his son (Young Jerry) as they witness and participate in a raucous public funeral and then engage in a secret nocturnal enterprise. During the day a crowd in Fleet Street attacks and mockingly converts the funeral of Roger Cly, accused as an "Old Bailey spy," into a carnival of jeers, improvised pageantry, and then a riot that marches to St. Pancras and buries Cly in its own disorderly way. Jerry is swept up in the mob’s enthusiasm, rides in the mourning coach, and later lingers in the churchyard smoking and reflecting.

That night, after stroking his suspicion that his wife prays against his success, Jerry prepares for a clandestine outing. He tells his son he is “going a fishing,” but actually sets out with a sack, crowbar, rope and other illicit tools. Young Jerry follows at a distance to learn the trade and watches as his father and two companions scale a wall into a churchyard, work with spades and a corkscrew-like instrument, and extract a coffin from the earth. Terrified by what he sees, the boy runs home in panic, haunted by a vision of the coffin pursuing him. In the morning the household tension flares as Jerry punishes his wife for her religiosity and insists she not “flop” (pray) against his ventures. The chapter ends with Jerry at his day stall in Fleet Street, explaining the phrase "Resurrection-Man" to his curious son—hinting plainly that the family’s “honest” trade includes dug-up corpses.

Key events

1. A mob in Fleet Street interrupts and jeers during the funeral procession of Roger Cly.
2. The crowd converts the solemnity into a riotous procession to St. Pancras and improvises the burial.
3. Jerry Cruncher joins the mob and later lingers in the churchyard smoking and pondering.
4. At home Jerry berates his wife for praying and threatens her for 'flopping' against his business.
5. That night Jerry dresses with tools and, with two companions, breaks into a churchyard to dig up a coffin.
6. Young Jerry secretly follows, witnesses the grave-robbing, is terrified and runs home, haunted by visions.
7. Next morning Jerry dismisses his wife's piety again and explains to his son that a 'Resurrection-Man' is a tradesman who deals in bodies.

Analysis

This chapter deepens the novel’s texture by exposing the seedier underside of London life and contrasting public spectacle with private crime. Dickens uses Jerry Cruncher as both comic and sinister figure: comic in his coarse speech, superstition about his wife’s prayers, and greedy domestic bullying; sinister as an active body-snatcher who desecrates graves. The public funeral of Roger Cly reveals crowd psychology—how ritual can be inverted into mockery and violence—foreshadowing social upheaval by showing how easily civic order yields to mob passions. The riot’s carnivalization of death (turning hearse and coffin into a stage and vehicle for petty vengeance) parallels Jerry’s private profanation of corpses, tying public and private disrespect for human dignity.

Narratively, the chapter alternates wide, panoramic scenes (the crowd, the procession) with close domestic snapshots (the Cruncher household) and then a nocturnal thriller (the grave-robbing), mixing tones to unsettle the reader. Symbolically, the coffin and the churchyard function as motifs of violated sanctity and the literal “resurrection” of the dead for profit—a dark inversion of spiritual resurrection. The boy’s terror and the image of a pursuing coffin dramatize the moral consequences pursued across generations: the son is drawn toward his father’s trade yet repelled by its horrors. The language—rowdy on the streets, blunt at home, tense at night—supports characterization and social critique without explicit moralizing, letting Dickens expose a metropolitan hypocrisy that will resonate with the novel’s broader concerns about justice, violence, and human worth.

Important quotes

“If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.”

Jerry CruncherJerry blames his wife's private prayers ('flopping') for failures in his illicit enterprises and threatens punishment for them.

““What’s a Resurrection-Man?” Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, “How should I know?””

Young Jerry / NarratorYoung Jerry asks what a 'Resurrection-Man' is; the question frames the chapter’s revelation about grave-robbing and the family's hidden trade.

Characters in Chapter 14

• Jerry Cruncher
• Young Jerry
• Mrs. Cruncher
• Roger Cly
• undertakers
• the Guards