A Tale of Two Cities Final Essays

Returning to life and escaping death are central to A Tale of Two Cities. The book begins with the first to be "resurrected," Dr. Alexander Manette. Manette had been imprisoned in one of France's most brutal places, the Bastille prison. For 18 years, he was in or near a small cell in the North Tower, with no hope to get out, no communication with the outside world, and not even a chance of being put on trial. To the people outside the Bastille, like his daughter, he was for all intents and purposes dead. Being set free recalled him to life, where he had to start from square one, and regain his sanity. Manette's one resurrection pales in comparison to Charles Darnay's three. He cheated death once by winning a trial - had his lawyer been less sharp or the government's witness less foolish, he would have met his end in the second book. The second time, he had to rely upon Manette for his life - only through Manette's influence was he even brought to trial. Without it, he would have either rotted in prison or been beheaded by the guillotine. The third time, he very narrowly escaped the guillotine, with Sidney Carton's help. Unlike Manette and Darnay, Carton's is not "recalled" to life, but only "called" - he never had a life worth living before he decided to give up his own miserable one for Charles' and Lucie's. In doing so, he discovered respect for himself, and earned the respect of the seamstress, finally giving him a life that was not a waste.

It's not categorically true to say a person's true self can only be seen under great hardship, although there are examples of that being the case. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Alexander Manette and Sydney Carton both discover the best in themselves under stress. Manette, who a short time before, had been a weak, broken man, sprang to action to help his son-in-law when he was incarcerated, using his status as a Bastille survivor to bring Darnay to trial. In doing so, he spared Darnay the fate he himself had suffered, and saved his wife and daughter the pain of seeing Darnay disappeared or killed. His motive was to help them and to help himself - he said that Lucie's happiness was essential to his own. Sydney Carton discovers something good inside himself under pressure as well. Unsatisfied with his years of life, it took a critical situation for him to earn self-respect. Darnay is certain to die within the day, so Carton had to make a quick decision to save him. Carton would not have been able to bear seeing Lucie sad after her husband was killed, so he took his place, the only good thing he'd ever done. However, not everyone's true self comes out under hardship or stress - some people are unable to perform under pressure, or too afraid to speak in public, and etc. However, that doesn't mean they are ineffectual people - Shaquille O'Neal is a good basketball player, even though he can't make crucial free throws.

I think Charles Dickens and I would agree about the Sydney Carton character in A Tale of Two Cities. He was a self-pitying, ineffective fool, who realized his mistake and redeemed himself. In the beginning, he is simply the "jackal" to the drunken "lion," Mr. Stryver. He does nothing to improve his situation, even lying about something he obviously thought was very important, Lucie. To Stryver, he says "She is pretty?" like he didn't notice her, but it's obvious that he did during Darnay's first trial. He never made a serious attempt to pursue Lucie's affection, even though that would have meant the world to him. She became the most important thing to him, and all he did was wander around drunk, proclaiming to be helpless. However, he does realize how he can make his life not be a waste in the end, when Darnay condemned to die. Carton knew he would be unable to live with the idea that Lucie was heartbroken, so he did the first self-gratifying thing he'd ever done; letting him finally have respect for himself. Once he obtained that, he also obtained the respect of the seamstress, who was also scheduled to die. I think Dickens included her to show the reader that Carton's final action was not self-sacrifice, but self-fulfillment.