Tale Of Two Cities

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Imagine being the only one left in your whole family, being imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years, and being extremely depressed. All of these things have happened to characters in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. A Tale of Two Cities is a story that takes place during the French Revolution. In the book, Lucie Manette, her once-imprisoned father Dr. Manette, her husband Charles Darnay, and more characters must escape execution by order of Madame Defarge. The French Revolution was a very hard time to live in and it caused the characters both physical and emotional imprisonment. Based off of the experiences of Dr. Manette, Madame Defarge, and Sydney Carton, imprisonment always has a negative impact on mental state and personality, but if an individual is …show more content…

It has no good in it for me…” (88). This shows that Sydney Carton does not think that there is a point of him being alive. He is imprisoned in his lack of purpose so his emotional imprisonment can only go away by finding purpose in his life. This happens at the end of the book when he sacrifices himself to save Darnay and therefore to make all of his friends happy. This is shown right before his execution when he says, “I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous, and happy…” (386). More specifically, if Darnay was executed, Lucie would probably become imprisoned in the depression she would face if her husband were killed. After Darnay’s death, Lucie too would become emotionally imprisoned, and Carton did not want that to happen to someone he loves. In a way, sacrificing himself for the lives and happiness of others gave Carton’s life purpose. Knowing that this was the way to give his life purpose, Carton sacrificed himself and died free of his emotional imprisonment. For these reasons, even though his emotional imprisonment caused him to question his life’s purpose for quite some time, it ultimately led to the happiness of all his