RESURRECTION : ( used
interchangably with "recalled to life")
Dr. Manette is recalled to life first when he is released after 18 years
imprisonment, then when his
daughter Lucie nurses him back to
physical and mental health. When Darnay's true identity is revealed
to him, such fearful memories
are recalled to life that he suffers a mental relapse.He suffers another
relapse
when the contents of his journal
are read in court in Paris, condemming Darnay, but Carton sees him
fully restored in his
vision of the future.
Charles Darnay is recalled to life when he is aquitted at his treason trial;
a guilty verdict would've
resulted in his death. He is again
recalled to life when he is tried, then freed, in Paris. This is short-lived
because he is re-arrested that same
night, retried the next day, and condemned. He is again resurrected
from certain death by Carton.
Sydney Carton's love for Lucie caused a resurrection of "whispers of old
voices impelling me upward,
that I thought were silent forever." He
seemed to have died in spirit when he "followed his father to the grave".
He is resurrected from a useless
existence to a useful and purposeful life when he sets out to save Darnay.
As
he walks the streets of Paris, he
repeats the words "I am the resurrection and the life...". He dies but
lives
on in the memories of those for whom
he gives his life. He also lives on in the life of Lucie's son, who is
named for him and "resurrects" his
career, winning his way up so well that Carton's name "becomes illustrious
by the light of his." Carton's story is
kept alive for generations when Lucie's son tells his own son.
Jerry Cruncher is a "resurrection man", digging up newly deceased bodies
and selling them to science.
Roger Cly is "resurrected" when he fakes his own death in England and resufaces
in France.
SACRIFICE:
Dr.Manette
sacrifices his own feelings for Lucie's happiness when Darnay reveals to
him his true identity.
Darnay sacrifices a title and inheritance rather than "live on the overburdened
people of France". He sac-
rifices his personal freedom and safety in order to
aid a faithful family servant in Paris.
The
tribunal expects Dr. Manette to sacrifice his family, if need be,
for the good of the revolution.
Miss Pross is willing to sacrifice her life to protect Lucie. While trying
to stop Madame DeFarge from
seeing Lucie, they struggle, resulting in Madame
DeFarge's accidental death and Miss Pross loss of hearing.
Sydney Carton promises Lucie "I would embrace any sacrifice for you and
for those dear to you." He
makes the ultimate sacrifice for Darnay.
REVENGE :
Dr. Manette
harbors feelings of revenge while he is imprisoned in the Bastille.
Gaspard gets
revenge when he murders the Marquis who killed his child.
Madame DeFarge
wants revenge for what the St.Evrémonde brothers did to her family.
The lower
classes take revenge on the upper classes during the revolution with arson,
imprisonment and murder.
The peasant boy
swears revenge on the St.Evrémonde family when he says he will summon
them on
judgement day to answer for their wrongs.
In Dr. Manette's
prison journal, he condemns the St.Evrémonde family "to the last
of their race".
The revolution
is personified in Madame DeFarge's assocoate known only as "the vengeance".
RAPE :
Usually overlooked
as a theme because it is not revealed until almost the end of the book
when Dr. Manette's
prison journal is read during Darnay's trial. This shocking
incident sets in motion the chain of events upon which
the whole story is based. As a result of this rape, the victim
and her unborn child dies. Her brother dies trying to
defend her. Her husband had already died, worked to death
by the Marquis, for not giving his wife up to him. Her father died of a
broken heart. Her sister was sent away, hidden beyond the reach of the
Marquis. Dr. Manette was imprisoned for trying to report the rape to the
authorities. In his prison journal he condemns the Marquis St. Evrémonde
and all his descendants, unwittingly condemning Charles Darnay in the process.
Darnay's mother's last wish to him was for him to find the hidden girl
to pay compensation for the loss of her family. That hidden girl turned
out later to be Madame Defarge, who would stop at nothing
short of extermination in her quest for revenge against the St.Evrémonde
family.
VALUE OF LIFE :
In
London, the courtroom spectators are much more interested in the spectacle
of a public execution than
they are in real justice.
Many of the nobility in France view the lower classes as being worth not
much more than animals.
When
the Marquis runs over and kills a child, then throws a coin to the child's
distraught father, his attitude
is that of someone who has "broken some common thing and
has paid for it".
Darnay
values the lives of the poor, telling his uncle that he would rather support
himself in England than
be supported by the overburdened people of France.
Carton
does not value his own life, saying that he has "no business to be". He
refers to the years of a
wasted life as being "so many curses". He values highly the
lives of Lucie and her family and sacrifices his own
life for their safety and happiness.
SPYING :
Jacques 1,2
and 3 spy on Dr.Manette in his garret in Paris.
Young Jerry spies
on his mother and tells his father if he sees her "flopping". He also spies
on his father to
see where he goes "fishing".
Barsad and Cly
are both paid to spy on Darnay and testify against him in London. They
both later become
spies against the revolutionaries in France. Barsad is a "sheep
,or spy, in the prisons in Paris.
The woodsawyer spies
on Lucie as she stands outside the prison, and is ready to testify against
her on the
false charge of a prison plot.
PRISONS :
Dr.Manette
is incarcerated in the Bastille, Darnay in La Force. Tellson's Bank is
likened to a prison
with its barred windows and dark backrooms.
Dr.Manette
is in a literal prison for 18 years. He is imprisoned mentally by the experience,
periodically
lapsing into episodes of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Madame
DeFarge is imprisoned by a secret past that fuels her desires for revenge.
The
people of France are imprisoned by a social and economic system from which
they can escape only
by the revolution.
Darnay
is literally imprisoned 3 times. He is figurativly imprisoned,or confined,
by his mother's last wish,
which sets him on a fruitless search. He "breaks out" of the
imprisonment of his social class by rejecting his title and inheritance
and moving to England.
Carton is
in an emotional prison, cutting himself off from close relationships with
his comment "I care for
no man and no man cares for me." This self-imposed isolation results
in an alienation as real as that of any
literal prisoner.
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