A Tale of Two Cities Syndney Carton Analysis
A Tale of Two Cities - Syndney Carton AnalysisSydney Carton dies on the guillotine to spare Charles Darnay. How
you interpret Carton’s sacrifice- positively or negatively- will
affect your judgment of his character, and of Dickens’ entire work.
Some readers take the positive view that Carton’s act is a triumph
of individual love over the mob hatred of the Revolution. Carton and
the seamstress he comforts meet their deaths with great dignity. In
fulfilling his old promise to Lucie, Carton attains peace; those
watching see “the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld” at the
guillotine. In a prophetic vision, the former “jackal” glimpses a
better world rising out of the ashes of revolution, and long life
for Lucie and her family- made possible by his sacrifice.
This argument also links Carton’s death with Christian sacrifice and
love. When Carton makes his decision to die, the New Testament verse
beginning “I am the Resurrection and the Life” nearly becomes his
theme song. The words are repeated a last time at the moment Carton
dies. In what sense may we see Carton’s dying in Darnay’s place as
Christ-like? It wipes away his sin, just as Christ’s death washed
clean man’s accumulated sins.
For readers who choose the negative view, Carton’s death seems an
act of giving up. These readers point out that Stryver’s jackal has
little to lose. Never useful or happy, Carton has already succumbed to
the depression eating away at him. In the midst of a promising
youth, Carton had “followed his father to the grave”- that is, he’s
already dead in spirit. For such a man, physical death would seem no
sacrifice, but a welcome relief.
Some readers even go so far as to claim that Carton’s happy vision
of the future at the...
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