Chapter Ⅰ Carton’s Tragedy on Love
Carton‘s love best reflects his tragedy. His deep love for Lucie is the most touching element in this novel. However, the one he loves falls in love with another young man, and his humble love result in his sacrifice for love.
For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. 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. 4
These are the sentences what Sydney Carton says to Lucie Manette. This is the first time that he shows his feelings to her. Carton is so considerate that he does not give Lucie any pression. Carton‘s fixed despair of himself comes to Lucie‘s relief and this atmosphere makes the interview unlike any other that could have been holden. In fact, at the end of the story, the promise should not be forgotten. If Carton did not stand out, he must be thought as an empty talker, so the final performance is truly moving. What is Carton sacrifice for? For Lucie, Sydney or may be that promise. This can prove his noble and selfless devotion of great love. It also can prove his kindness, faith, generosity. Life can be life without revolution. But life can not be life without love.
Just as previously mentioned, love is Sydney Carton tragic flaw. Carton‘s nobility of character is reflected most clearly in the emotional aspect. Carton‘s sacrifice of his life enables him to live in a way that he otherwise could not, for this sacrifice—the only means by which Darnay can be saved—assures Carton a place in the hearts of others and allows him to have undertaken one truly meaningful and valuable act before dying. This is most touching part. During the French revolution, most of the people are filled with violence, hatred and anger, but it is rare that Carton showed the noble sentiment in the turbulent times. This is a tragedy, but it is a
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beautiful one.
A． Resultless Love
Lucie Manette is a very important female in this novel. Pretty appearance is not her only advantage. In every detail of her being, she embodies compassion, love, and virtue. The indelible image of her cradling her father‘s head delicately on her breast encapsulates her role as the ―golden thread‖ that holds her family together. She manifests her purity of devotion to Charles Darnay in her unquestioning willingness to wait at a street corner for two hours each day, on the off chance that he will catch sight of her from his prison window. She is a perfect woman, and has changed many persons‘ fate. Carton is one of them. Just like what himself said, ―And yet I have had weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.‖ (141) However, such an important person chooses another young man. Charles Darnay is an outstanding young man. Whether from appearance, career, morality, personality, he can be considered perfect. Darnay met Lucie for the first time since their encounter on the boat where their epoch of romance began. In combination with other characters, they contribute to a more detailed picture of human nature. First, they provide the light that counters the vengeful Madame Defarge‘s darkness, revealing the moral aspects of the human soul so noticeably absent from Madame Defarge. Second, throughout the novel they manifest a virtuousness that Carton strives to attain and that inspires his very real and believable struggles to become a better person. From the most direct point of view, Carton died for Darnay. Because of Darnay‘s perfect, Lucie fell in love with him. Because of Darnay‘s perfect, Carton would be willing to sacrifice for him. Because of his perfect, readers will turn their attention to Carton, who is not perfect. Readers absolutely do not want to see Carton dead. And this can predict Carton‘s great sacrifice.
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B. Humble Love
Sydney Carton loves Lucie Manette very much. His love in other people‘s eyes is a little humble. It is can not be denied that all the love there is humbleness, just in different weight. Because of falling in love with a person, caring about a person, there is compromise and sacrifices. Compromises and sacrifices will naturally feel humble. But Carton‘s love has another name, it is called selfless.
In his conversation with the recently acquitted Charles Darnay, Carton‘s comments about Lucie Manette, while bitter and sardonic, betray his interest in, and budding feelings for the gentle girl. ―She was a golden- haired doll‖ and he denied Lucie was pretty. When Stryver questioned him, he even tired to hide his emotion. However, after everyone had gone, he ensured his feelings.
Waste forces within him and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, self-deni-al, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglectedbed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. (83)
This is a very exquisite description, and it truly reflects Caron‘s motion. Carton falls in love with Lucie at first sight. It was he that first noticed Miss Manette‘s head dropped in her father‘s breast and called officer to help them. He even loves her, loves her dog. He cares something for the streets that environed Lucie‘s house and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there. However because he lacks confidence, he does not pursue her. At the very end of the novel you find out that Carton is about to go to the guillotine, but not for himself. Charles Darnay was found guilty of treason and was about to be executed.
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However, Darnay and Lucie are madly in love. Another thing is that Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay look very similar to each other or \could easily take each others place if they wanted to. Earlier in the novel Carton told Lucie that he would do anything for the man she loved. Well, Carton then dies in Darnay's place. He wanted to do something that was important for other people, so he took his life instead of another. Lucie had succeeded in transforming him into a man of profound merit.
Besides, Charles Dickens is very good at using writing methods. Foreshadowing is used in many of Charles Dickens' novels. It can bring about a sense of wonder and imagination of what might occur later in the novel. The concept of foreshadowing means to present a warning sign, or hint beforehand. Proclaiming these words with passion, Carton, in a rare moment of sincere sobriety, becomes the carrier of Dickens's most poignant use of foreshadowing. From the beginning, Dickens writes Sydney Carton‘s and Charles Darnay‘s appearances are very like, to the middle part, Carton professes his love to Lucie, all of those are foreshadowing.
Perhaps many readers question that is sacrifice really necessary to achieve happiness, and is Carton really necessary to die for Lucie. Dickens examines this question on both a national and personal level. For example, the revolutionaries prove that a new, egalitarian French republic can come about only with a heavy and terrible cost — personal loves and loyalties must be sacrificed for the good of the nation. Also, when Darnay is arrested for the second time, in Book the Third, Chapter 7, the guard who seizes him reminds Dr. Manette of the primacy of state interests over personal loyalties. Moreover, Madame Defarge gives her husband a similar lesson when she chastises him for his devotion to Manette—an emotion that, in her opinion, only clouds his obligation to the revolutionary cause. Most important, Carton‘s transformation into a man of moral worth depends upon his sacrificing of his former self. In choosing to die for his friends, Carton not only enables their happiness but also ensures his spiritual rebirth.
It may be argued that Sydney Carton's silent prophecy about the future on his way to the guillotine compensates for the negative image of revolutionary Paris and
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France in the novel. ―I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss,‖ thinks Carton to himself. And yet, his prophecy seems to be inappropriate, as the novel has never given a sense that Paris is likely to become a 'beautiful' city that ennobles or is ennobled by its people. This is tied up with the resurrection theme. Just as mentioned before, Charles Dickens obviously has no love for the French aristocracy; he does not characterize them in a nice light - they are rapists and murderers essentially. But he's also not purely sympathetic to the revolutionaries either. They brought the Reign of Terror; they executed lots of people, which are symbolized by Darnay's conviction for something that he really had nothing to do with. So right and wrong on both sides is what the Tale of Two Cities shows. Dickens is a humanist and he correctly reveals the source of the outbreak of the revolution, is not mean that he agrees with revolutionary violence. We soon discovered that after the revolution, Dickens is extraordinarily sensitive to the problems which will appear after the revolution. Readers can experience through his writing about riots, terrorist, bloody and uneasy, the overthrow of the ruling class people become crazy and both destructive, hate the flames consumed the oppressor evil, but also bring disaster to the innocent people. Real revolution is not perfect. Sydney Carton is the best character that expresses Dickens‘s humanitarian thought. The view of Dickens humanitarian is positive and advanced. Just as it can not deny that the position of humanitarian is important in Dickens novels，it also can not deny that some of Dickens views about humanitarian are still worth appreciating and learning today. That is humanitarian is still important to us. And only love can make the world go round.
One factor in that times that must be mentioned is that the Enlightenment has already spread to France. ―For Kant, Enlightenment was mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance.” 5 The Enlightenment brings liberalism to France. Liberalism pursues freedom, emphasizing democracy. Liberalists were against government‘s economic control. The Enlightenment gave the new ideas to the French, and it took a social change to the old system. Therefore, the new ideas which were brought by the Enlightenment had a great impact on the French Revolution. It is obviously that the
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