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Tale Of Two Cities Darnay Vs Carton Essay

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A beautiful blonde girl with brilliant blue eyes first meets a handsome Frenchman aboard a ship returning to England. He is kind and caring towards her and her father. This incident sets into motion the love story between the beautiful Lucie Manette, and the compassionate Charles Darnay. After a while they are married and share a happy life together with a single child, little Lucie. Sounds like the perfect love story right? However, hidden in the shadows of these two characters in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is another person who loves Lucie, Sydney Carton. As we grow older, we begin the search for a person to share our life. Lucie does this when she chooses Charles to be her husband, but Lucie was rash in her decision because Sydney Carton is the better man of the two. …show more content…

Sydney Carton is introduced during Charles Darnay’s court scene. Darnay is accused of treason to the crown of England, and possesses Mr. Stryver as his lawyer. Stryer is not an exceptional lawyer, but through the help of his friend, Sydney Carton, he has done quite well. Now, as the debate over Darnay’s guilt is looking ill for Charles, Sydney tosses a piece of paper to Stryver. This crumpled sheet highlights one of the key characteristics between Darnay and Carton: they look almost identical. When this is pointed out, the two are found to be, “sufficiently like each other,” and when he, “lay aside his wig...the likeness became much more remarkable” (Dickens 77). Later on in the novel, Madame Defarge also makes this observation while Sydney is eavesdropping in her wine shop. Ever since Charles’ father and brother murdered her father, sister, brother, and brother-in-law, Madame Defarge has been bent on the extermination of the Evrémonde family. Thus, when she sees Charles, she knits a record of his appearance and would have his face branded in her

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Book II, Chapter 11: A Companion Picture, picks up later that same night with Carton and Stryver working on some papers inside of Stryver’s council. While they were working they were talking and drinking wine casually. Stryver, in an arrogant manner announces that he intends to marry Lucie. Carton ignores Stryver’s words doing his best not to let them get to him.

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Joyfully, the genius Dr. Manette regains a significant piece of his life. Additionally, Dr. Manette later becomes the attending physician at three prisons in France, including the prison where Charles Darnay is held in captivity. Dickens proclaims, “He was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons” (210). This allows Dr. Manette the ability to check up on Darnay in his imprisonment.

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In the book we meet Sydney Catron and Mr. Stryver who are both lawyers. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens juxtaposes Mr. Stryver and Mr. Carton to show how they are extremely different people. Dickens describes Mr. Stryver as persuasive, immoral, bold, and well prepared. In Book 2, Chapter 5, Dickens states, “Mr. Striver might be seen daily, bursting out of a bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun among a rank garden-full of flaring companions” (Dickens 91).

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Lucie is the source of hatred cast out from Carton toward Darnay, fore she loves Charles not him. While the two are never casted head-to-head for anything, they are steady opposites until Carton sacrifices himself to save Darnay. This action proves Sydney more like Charles than anyone could have imagined since it was an act of

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He discovered a passion to write and in 1859, A Tale Of Two Cities was published into the public eye for anyone to read and enjoy. Readers end up learning about the lives of many characters. Dr. Manette, father to Lucie Manette and imprisoned for trying the bring the crimes of the Evremondes to the public trial. Charles Darnay, secretly Charles Evremonde, and an aristocrat who lives in England, because he disagrees with the social castes of France. Sydney Carton, an English lawyer who spends a great deal of his life drunk, has a brilliant legal mind and shares a striking resemblance to Charles Darnay.

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Charles only told Dr. Manette that he is part of the St. Evremonde family, as he said he would the day he got married to Lucie Charles changed his name because he was embarrassed how his family treated peasants. Once Madame Defarge found out his true identity she wanted to kill him, because of the way they treated Madame Defarge's family. Another secret, which was a successful one, was Charles near death experience. Carton took Darnay's place when he was sent to the guillotine because of aristocracy. Specifically, “Carton!

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At the end of chapter fifteen, Carton is about to give up his life for the people he loves by going to the guillotine in place of Darnay. Carton imagines what happens after his death and he thinks, “I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away" (428). Sydney imagines Lucie’s future son living life amazingly, making Carton’s name well known and doing great things with it. The wrong that he did in his name was covered up with the greatness of Lucie’s son.

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Within A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, many characters are introduced as relevant to the story’s plot and progression. One, however, stands out above all others for his contributions to the story not only as a pivotal part of moving it towards its conclusion, but also for his complex personality and endearing actions throughout the novel: Sydney Carton. The beginning of the tale introduces Carton as a drunk lawyer, and one who is no good for anything but doing the work behind the scenes and taking midnight strolls in a drunken stupor. More than any other character, Carton is able to transform himself into someone of great importance, who bestowed upon himself the duty of not only getting his love and her family out of a dangerous Paris, but saving the life of the man, so much like him, who had all he could ever dream of. Sydney Carton is a tragically lonely man, and while forced to wallow in his woe through his own actions and failings, he is shown as an incredibly pitiful being.

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A Tale of Two Cities and its Characters One of the major criticism of Charles Dickens', A Tale of Two Cities, is that he does not develop his characters enough, but this is not true for several characters. For example, Madame Defarge is given a background that explains her motives, Dr. Manette is dynamic, and Sydney Carton is a considerate and genuine person. Each of these aspects that Dickens expounds on in his characters shows their sophistication. In contrast, there is Charles Darnay; he is neither dynamic nor or is he given any sort of background; he is also severely lacking in depth.

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As the officer checks Darnay’s papers, he asks Darnay about his citizenships and family, after which, without even stating which laws and offenses influence the decision, the officer declares that Darnay is to be imprisoned. He arrests Darnay under the decree that all aristocratic emigrants who return to France are to be executed; however, he does not inform Darnay of the reason before making the arrest. The incident shows the hypocrisy exhibited by the rebels who begin the French Revolution in an attempt to protest the injustices of the nobles, which include imprisoning and killing people without reason. Yet ironically, the rebels are likewise imprisoning and murdering the nobles.

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“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind” (Dickens 3.15.1).That is to say, human suffering, as long as inequality and violence exist, will continue to be a contemporary issue, not a historical one. Dickens encompasses this idea most efficiently in his work A Tale of Two Cities. Accordingly, from a critical perspective, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, therefore, becomes a social critique. Modern society has found Dickens’ claims to be true.

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Tale of Two Cities is wonderful!” Forster, Dicken closest friend, accordingly delivered the letter and Dickens responded to Charles Carlyle five days late, expressing his thanks and gratitude for such compliment. Both writers believe that just as fiction might play role to enrich the study of the history,, so as well could history enhance the art of fiction. Dickens was in particular deeply influenced by the attitude and the perspective in which Carlyle had thoughtfully used his sources in The French Revolution. He had read Carlyle’s book widely and extensively to fully implement the historical events of the French revolution properly in his A Tale of Two City.

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