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Tale Of Two Cities Sacrifice

Decent Essays

Sacrifices Must Be Made for Love and Happiness A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is a suspenseful novel taking place before and during the French Revolution in the late 1700s. The audience is taken on a journey through time, learning about how the Revolution affected two main families, the Manettes and the Evrémondes. Throughout the novel, Dickens makes the reader question what drives man-kind to sacrifice? The answer is love and happiness result in sacrifices. The characters, such as Charles Darnay, Doctor Manette, and Sydney Carton prove this as they commit sacrifices to start a new life, for a loved one, or for the benefit of other people. Charles Darnay sacrifices all the luxuries that come with being part of the Evrémonde family …show more content…

It was the morning of Lucie’s wedding day, all was well until Dickens states, “The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale—which had not been the case when they went in together—that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind” (149). This scene in the novel foreshadows the event of the Doctor’s unstable behavior. Dr. Manette has just learned that Charles Darnay is an Evrémonde. He is the son and nephew of the men who imprisoned Doctor Manette without trial. Doctor Manette feels dread from the fact that he was marrying his daughter off to a man of a cruel family, but Manette stays strong and sacrifices his mental stability for Lucie. All he wants is for Lucie to be happy, and for that, she must have his permission to marry Darnay. Later in the chapter, Dickens describes Doctor Manette’s mental state saying, “He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked …show more content…

Earlier in the novel, when Carton confesses his love to Lucie, he states, “And when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you” (117). His word is tested later in the end of the novel. Darnay is sentenced for execution, but Carton would not allow for Lucie to loose “the life she loves” (117). Carton trickes Darnay into switching places and eventually, Carton is executed in Darnay’s place, without any of the Revolutionists realizing. Indeed, he is willing to give up his own life, a life Lucie could never love the way she loves Darnay, so she and Darnay could stay together. Besides sacrificing his life for Lucie’s husband, Sydney also sacrifices his life because he believes the people of the city would benefit from it. Carton states during his last moments of life, “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out” (292). Carton explains how he thinks the Revolution will end since the revolutionist have achieved their goal of killing the last “Evrémonde.”

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