Characterization- 'A Tale Of Two Cities'

 
 
 

Characterization in A Tale Of Two Cities

Reference Material

A Tale of Two Cities, a novel by Charles Dickens, was published both serially and in book form in 1859. The story is set in the late 18th century against the background of the French Revolution. The complex plot involves Sydney Carton’s sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette.
 

 The book is perhaps best known for its opening lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and for Carton’s last speech, in which he says of his replacing Darnay in a prison cell, “It is a 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.”

Characters are crucial to all books, novels, articles, and other pieces of literature. Their characteristics, actions, personalities, and looks allow an author to create any story he or she can dream of with the use of unique characters.

Dickens is one of the greatest creators of characters in English fiction. A mere glance of at the list of persons who figure in any of his novels is enough to remind us of the author’s amazing fertility in the invention. He has portrayed a whole variety of characters such as David Copperfield, Pip, Trotwood, and Sam Weller. There is no shortage of real and unique characters in his works.

A Tale Of Two Cities affords ample evidence of Dickens’ capacity for the character –portrayal. The range of characters in A Tale Of Two Cities is wide and has deep and penetrating studies. Some of the figures like Monsieur Defarge and Madame Defarge are memorable. Dicken's purpose in the case of this novel was to allow the characters to reveal themselves through incidents and through their deeds and actions rather than through dialogues.

Charles Dickens creates a powerful story with the use of his characters in A Tale of Two Cities. Some of his characters are more important than others, but none of them go unnoticed and none of them are unnecessary. Dickens refrains from using complex characters, therefore making them easy to understand and relate to. The development of each of his characters is clear and evident. The theme is also important to a story; without theme, there would be no moral to a story. Alongside the development of the characters, Charles Dickens creates a very powerful theme in this novel. The theme in A Tale of Two Cities is the need for sacrifice. Dickens uses three specific characters to present this theme. A different story is told through each character and Dickens uses them in three unique ways. Charles Dickens develops the characters of Doctor Manette, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carton to display the theme of the need for sacrifice.

 A Tale of Two Cities is, in many ways, Doctor Manette's story. The Doctor's release from the Bastille begins the novel, and the mystery of his imprisonment creates tension throughout the book. The reading of his letter ultimately condemns Darnay to death, forcing Carton to sacrifice his life. A close reading of the book reveals the Doctor to be one of its few complex characters. Throughout the course of the novel, he is seen as an aspiring young doctor, a prisoner who craves revenge and who descends into madness, and a man who fights to regain his mind, his family, and his profession. His life after prison is a continual struggle against the shadows of madness and despair that are his legacy from the Bastille.

The love he has for his daughter helps him to overcome the darkness in his life, even giving him the strength to welcome the son of his enemy as a son-in-law. When his status as a Bastille prisoner becomes an asset at the end of the book, he regains the strength and confidence that characterized him before his imprisonment. When his bitter, angry letter surfaces, however, the past undermines his stability.

Through the Doctor, Dickens makes a statement regarding the nature of forgiveness and revenge. The Doctor's ability to forgive brings him happiness in his daughter's marriage and children. However, his past demand for revenge has the power to destroy his life and the lives of his family. Additionally, whereas revenge leads the Doctor to a state of dementia, forgiveness raises him to a level of intellectual vigor and emotional happiness. In showing these contrasting aspects of Doctor Manette's character, Dickens emphasizes the concepts of the destructive power of revenge and the healing power of forgiveness.

The second important character in the story is Lucie. Dickens describes Lucie as being beautiful physically and spiritually, and she possesses a gift for bringing out the best qualities of those around her. She is one of the lesser-developed characters in the novel, but she is "the golden thread" that binds many of the characters' lives together.

 
A reader can best judge Lucie by her actions and influences on other characters rather than by her dialogue, which tends to be melodramatic and full of stock sentimentality. Dickens portrays her as a compassionate, virtuous woman who inspires great love and loyalty in the other characters. For example, Darnay, Carton, and Stryver all court her and envision their futures being made brighter with her as their wife. Additionally, both Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, who are without families, love Lucie as if she were their daughter and do everything they can to keep her safe. Although Lucie is a flat character, she is an important one. She represents unconditional love and compassion, and Dickens uses her to demonstrate how powerful these qualities can be, even in the face of violence and hatred.

Another important and major character in the novel is Charles Darney. Although Darnay rejects the Evrémonde name and inheritance and moves to England, he cannot escape his family history. Trying to make compensation to an unknown woman whose family was wiped out by his father and uncle, he is arrested for treason in England; trying to save a jailed family servant, he is arrested in revolutionary France, where he is tried twice. His sense of responsibility motivates him to right wrongs, but he is otherwise a passive character who lets events direct his fate rather than trying to control it himself. Forces outside of his control inevitably foil even his attempts to assert himself and atone for his family's transgressions, placing him in increasingly dangerous situations from which he must be rescued.

Darnay represents justice and duty, qualities inherited from his mother. He (and his mother) also stands for the members of the French aristocracy who were aware of the damage their families were inflicting, but who could do nothing to prevent it. Darnay's willingness to atone for his family's wrongs and to work for a living demonstrate that eventually, something good can come out of evil, a point that Dickens emphasizes at the end of the novel.

Carton, Darnay's double and alter-ego has wasted his life on alcohol and apathy. He makes his intelligence obvious through his ability to analyze cases for Stryver. He makes clear that he had the same opportunities for success as Stryver, but for some reason chose not to take them. Besides some vague references to his student days and the disclosure that his parents died when he was young, Carton's past remains a mystery to the reader. Consequently, the reader can only guess what caused him to become so degenerated. The only noble part of his life is his love for Lucie and his affection for the rest of her family. His love for her is strong enough to induce him to give his life for that of her husband.

Carton takes on a mythical aspect in sacrificing himself to save his friends. He represents the sacrificial hero who is ritually slaughtered of his own free will so that society might renew itself, a prospect he envisions before he dies. Through his death, he redeems his sins and is reborn in the afterlife and through the life of his namesake. Sydney Carton is one of the most dynamic and poignant characters in the novels. Readers, critics, and Dickens fans offer a multitude of words on the subject of Sydney Carton. Some view him as the most heroic of heroes. Others see him as a miserable drunkard, welcoming the guillotine as a way to escape from an unhappy existence. He is a complex character, evolving as the novel progresses. Upon studying Dickens’ novel, Carton’s heroism becomes indisputably clear. Dickens’ establishment of Carton as a flawed man merely elevates Carton as a hero, demonstrating how an ordinary, struggling human being can become extraordinary. Dickens gradually details Carton’s character growth as Carton’s love for Lucie Manette spurs him to acts of greatness.

Childless and merciless, Madame Defarge is the antithesis of Lucie Manette. Both women possess the ability to inspire others, but while Lucie creates and nurtures life, Madame Defarge destroys it. Because her entire family perished when she was a young girl, Madame Defarge wants revenge, not merely on the family that caused the evil but on the entire class from which it came. What makes her such a threatening figure is her stubborn patience, which bides its time until it can strike. In this, she is like some natural force that, when the opportunity is right, becomes ferocious and unrelenting. Her secret management of Darnay's re-arrest is cunning but shows immense cruelty as well. In seeking to avenge her family, she has acquired the same ruthlessness as the men who destroyed her family. Her knitting represents both her patience and her urge to get revenge because she knits the names of her intended victims. Symbolically, Madame Defarge stands for the intensity and bloodthirst behind the Revolution. Her relentless drive for vengeance makes her strong, but it eventually destroys her because she is unable to comprehend the powerful love that gives Carton the strength to die for Darnay, and Miss Pross the courage to defeat her.

Her husband Defarge was Doctor Alexandre Manette's servant. When the Doctor was newly released from prison, Defarge was not above exploiting his insanity as a spectacle to further the revolutionary cause. As a revolutionary leader, Defarge organizes the Jacquerie and helps lead the mob in storming the Bastille. He bases his desire for a revolution more upon a desire for positive change than the blood thirst of his wife, as demonstrated when he resists denouncing Doctor Manette, Lucie, and young Lucie simply because of their relationship to Darnay. His wife interprets his scruples as weakness, giving the reader the impression that before long revolutionaries such as Jacques Three will turn on Defarge and send him to the guillotine himself. Defarge represents the more rational aspect of the Revolution. He is not blinded by class hatred and retains his conscience and sense of fairness. His ability to empathize with those people Madame Defarge views as enemies, however, will probably result in his death, showing how out of control the Revolution became as paranoia and violence destroyed its positive forces.

Well, in nearly all novels by Dickens, characters take the main stage and generally are just as important as the plot because of their complexity. As such, A Tale of Two Cities offers far more to the reader than the title suggests, particularly because of the enormous complexity of the characters—both major and minor.

“A Tale of Two Cities” by Dickens is also a series of tales about dual identities and the ways in which one character serves as a foil to another. In Books I and II of “Tale of Two Cities”, Dickens establishes the setting and the dynamic relationships among the characters, all of whom are struggling, to greater and lesser degrees, with their positions regarding the Revolution and as a result, this creates a struggle with their identities. While some characters in the Dickens novel “A Tale of Two Cities”, especially Darnay, clearly have more acute conflicts to resolve and far more to lose than the seemingly minor characters, it is by examining the marginal characters that the reader can understand the dynamic conflicts of the period more fully. Two of the novel’s marginal characters, John Barsad, the duplicitous spy, and Gaspard, the quiet but determined peasant who takes justice into his own hands, represent two faces of the Revolution and help to emphasize the conflicts and conditions of the major characters.
When John Barsad is introduced in the novel, it is immediately clear that he is not only self-serving and hypocritical, he is a man who is not to be trusted. While he is not a popular character, he is, nonetheless an excellent candidate for a character analysis as Barsad is complex and multilayered. He testifies falsely against Darnay for spying, when he himself is a spy which shows him to be not only untrustworthy but willing to be a hypocrite when his own interests are at stake. Barsad will eventually play a significant role in other aspects of Darnay’s affairs as well. Although Barsad represents himself before the court as a loyal patriot, a skilled barrister exposes Barsad’s seedier side as a gambler and debtor. The narrator of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Dickens describes Barsad as “a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon the earth since accursed Judas–which he certainly did look rather like…" (Dickens 72).

This description is apt, and it foreshadows the effects that Barsad will have on the other characters. While he is a minor character in the larger scheme of the novel, his sphere of influence is rather extensive, and his actions have a decisive impact on the trajectory of the plot and upon the decisions of the other characters. When he visits the Defarge’s wine shop, for instance, Barsad knowingly drops a tidbit of information that he knows will set a chain of events into motion. He reveals that Lucie is to be married to Darnay. This is news that puts the DeFarges into conflict because they care for Lucie and her father, but not for Darnay. This information shapes Madame DaFarge’s future revolutionary activities.

While Gaspard is a different sort of character altogether. Whereas Barsad is obnoxious and grandstanding, trying to seem like someone more respectable than he is, Gaspard is quiet and unassuming. Nonetheless, Gaspard holds as least as much power and influence as Barsad exercises, for he takes justice into his own hands and kills the Marquis for having run over his child and then insulting him with the compensation of a coin. While the reader of A Tale of Two Cities is never privy to the thought process that leads to Gaspard’s decision to ride on the undercarriage and stab the Marquis in his sleep, it is perhaps easy enough for the reader to empathize with this marginal character, for he could be any common man who has been wronged by a haughty and careless aristocrat. Gaspard’s actions are a mirror of revolutionary thought and feeling, and it is through Gaspard that we can understand the sentiments that provoked uprisings against the traditional social structure. Gaspard not only represents but embodies fully, the suffering and rage of his class. Rather than accepting his position of powerlessness, however, he finds a way to seize personal agency and act upon it. In doing so, he clearly affects the life—or rather, the death—of the Marquis, but his action also influences Darnay’s position and the circumstances which will eventually envelop him later in the novel. Beyond affecting Darnay, though, Gaspard’s actions serve as the spark for the Revolution itself. It is the tipping point for some characters; those who might have felt lukewarm about the Revolution beforehand, are incensed by Gaspard’s sentence and execution and are thereby compelled to change their opinions.

Aside from these cases, the literary canon of the novel is full of examples of seemingly minor men and women who become heroes and highly worthy of character analysis, hardly-noticed characters who turn into villains, and people of no reputation who shape the entire course of a novel’s events. This is part of what makes the story Dickens is telling so interesting—even though the events themselves are worthy of note, the characters who are the subjects of great interest and character analysis and their level of complexity make A Tale of Two Cities what it is.

Beyond offering the reader a mere narration of the events leading up to the Revolution, Dickens creates suspense, tension, and the opportunity for opinions and actions to be transformed by uplifting the influence of characters worthy of intense character analysis in “A Tale of Two Cities” by Dickens who would otherwise be marginal to the plot. John Barsad and Gaspard are two men who are quite different from one another, and who also differ in their motives and means of expressing their power and influence. Nonetheless, in several relatively brief scenes, both men shape the outcome of the novel by acting upon their beliefs and passions decisively and without apology. As a result, the lives of the major characters in “A Tale of Two Cities” by Dickens and the decisions that they are able and choose to make are transformed.