Sydney Carton's Redemption And Death

In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens opens with an anaphora, about how the world is throughout the novel. A reoccurring theme throughout this story is the battle between good and evil. Most of the novel is about the struggles each force has and how most of the time good triumphs over evil. In A Tale of Two Cities, the triumph of love, the death of the Marquis, and the contrast between Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay shows how good triumphed over evil.

Dickens uses Carton to symbolize resurrection in numerous parts of the book. "I am the resurrection," Carton calls himself. Dickens uses this specific character to symbolize that because of how Carton got Charles Darnay out of prison, and saved him from death therefore he symbolically resurrected him, by saving his life.

Carton has given up his own life to give Lucie and a child whom he’s never met a better life. A main theme in A Tale of Two Cities is loyalty, and Sydney Carton’s loyalty seems to lie with not only Lucie, but with everyone but himself.

This statement is revisited at the top of the novel once Carton offers up his life so as to save lots of that of Charles to make sure Lucie’s happiness.

Despite Carton’s disliking for Darnay decides to once again save Darnay’s life just before he is to be beheaded by the revolutionaries and their beloved guillotine. He creates an elaborate plan that includes blackmail with a double-crossing spy, Barsad, the changing of clothes with Darnay, and using a special vapor to knock Darnay out and send him back to England with his family. Carton, because of his uncanny resemblance to Darnay gets away with taking his identity. He stays unphased by the situations that follow and just before he is beheaded he envisions a better future. This includes “[Lucie] with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name… I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up the path of life” (292-293). Carton was not nervous when staring death in the face, proving his braveness.

This wasted potential is emphasized when both Darnay and Carton fall in love with Lucie Manette. Darnay, as the typical charming hero, is chosen over desperate, brooding Carton. As a result, Carton finds himself channeling his love and his physical advantage of being Darnay’s double into keeping Lucie safe and happy by way of rescuing Darnay from the guillotine. Thus, Carton is able to become the proverbial “good guy,” a role he saw for himself in his counterpart, Darnay. He also managed to thwart the Defarges’ plot to murder all those connected to the aristocracy in any way. In this way, Dickens is able to use the comparisons and contrasts between the two men to show how love is capable of victory over violence and vengeance.

Sydney Carton, “one of Dickens’s most loved and best-remembered characters” (Stout 29), is not just another two-dimensional character; he seems to fly off the pages and into real life throughout all the trials and tribulations he experiences. He touches many hearts, and he even saves the life of Charles Darnay, a man who looks surprisingly similar to him. In Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton is a selfish man of habit, a cynic, a self-loathing drunk, and an incorrigible barrister until he meets Lucie Manette; throughout the novel Sydney is overcome by his noble love for Lucie and transforms from a cynic to a hero as he accomplishes one of the most selfless acts a man can carry out.

In the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, one of the main characters Sydney Carton is portrayed as a Jesus Christ-like figure, risking death and sacrificing his life to create a better life for the ones around him. Carton takes one of the biggest risks a human can ever take in their lifetime, the risk of death. He goes into this risky situation knowing the consequences, but he doesn’t care, he just wants to accomplish his goal, to save his friend Charles Darnay from his demise, Of course, one would not be able to complete such a task without motivation. This motivation of course is his one true love, Lucie Manette, Carton wants to save the husband of Lucie, Darnay, and allow them to live a happy life, with their daughter who was also named Lucie. Using Lucie’s own life as the true motivation, and completely disregarding all the consequences, Carton’s own life is redeemed through the resurrection of his hopes and his dreams for Lucie.

“‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered. ‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’ ‘O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?’”( Dickens 631). The Seamstress recognizes that Sydney has taken Charles place to be killed, she begins to adore him because of his heroic act. Sydney gave up his opportunity to marry the love of his life, Lucie and instead gave his life for her happiness. Sydney thought of himself as a Christ-like figure because of his sacrifice. Carton a foolish hero shows how love for one's cause can cause you to take your own life.

In the melodramatic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, the author uses the theme sacrifice. He shows that sacrifice is important in his story because some of his characters must give up their lives for another. Miss Pross dedicates herself to Lucie because she wants Lucie to have a brighter future than she did. Then, out of his love and devotion for Lucie Manette, Sydney Carton sacrifices his life to save a life she loves. The sacrifices Miss Pross and Sydney Carton make express that mankind will give everything for what they love and believe in.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I have ever known” (Dickens 367). Sydney Carton spoke these immortal words in the last few moments of his life in the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. In the shadows of the growing French Revolution Carton, a lawyer, wastes his life on alcohol and apathy. But in the midst of it all the noble part of his life is his love for Lucie, a young married French woman, which is strong enough to induce him to give his life for her husband, Charles Darnay. Through his death Carton redeems himself and is reborn in his namesake that the Darnay family shall survive. He ultimately develops into the tragic romantic hero that readers will come to

Sydney Carton is the most memorable character in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, a story of redemption, resurrection, self-sacrifice change and love, all of these words have to do with the extreme transformation of. Sydney Carton had such great love for Lucie Mannette that evolves from a depressed loaner that can only attempt to substitute happiness with alcoholic indulgence to a loyal caring friend who makes the ultimate sacrifice for the ones he loves.

Dickens makes it evident to the reader that Carton can be seen as a version of Jesus many times throughout book three, especially through the way he portrays the guillotine. The guillotine was idolized in France, for it was the “sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied,”(Dickens 262). French revolutionist denied religion and began to worship the guillotine, the machine in which the sacrifice took place. After Carton had set a plan for sacrificing himself, he is described wearing a “white riding-coat and top-boots” with “long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him,”(Dickens 296), a description that physically relates Carton to Jesus. Before he is sacrificed, Carton repeats the bible verse “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,”(Dickens 359). He believes that what his legacy will live on through Lucie and her family, and they will bring honor to his

Sydney Carton walks through the streets and repeats the following words spoken by the priest at his father’s funeral, “These solemn words, which had been read at his father’s grave, arose in his mind...“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die” (3.9.323). These words are foreshadowing that he will sacrifice himself for Lucy as Christ sacrificed himself. Sydney is symbolizing Jesus, an innocent man sacrificing himself for the ones he loves. Carton loves Lucy so much that he will sacrifice himself so that she can live with Charles.

In the beginning, Sydney Carton was a mean drunk that did nothing well and was only worried about himself. Carton had never done anything correctly, or for the benefit of others until he met Lucie, which was the love of his life, that he would do anything for. In another incident he shows his love for Lucie by dying in place of her husband, Charles Darnay, and when asked why he was dying for this man, his reply was, “ It is far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done: it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known” (446). Sydney Carton is basically saying that it was the best thing that he has ever done because he did not grow up doing things for other people’s better good. This shows how much he has changed from being a drunk and mean, to dying for the happiness of a person he loves. Sydney Carton has been greatly “recalled to life”, because he has changed so much, and it has made a huge impact in the book.