346 Dickens, Charles
feminine propriety, is actually her way of keeping
a record of antirevolutionary targets. She performs
this activity “with the steadfastness of Fate,” sealing
the tragic fates of those whose names she weaves
into her pattern.
In typical Dickensian style, A Tale of Two Cities is
full of fateful coincidences. Even as we are reminded
of the scale of London and Paris, the world becomes
small when characters continuously reunite. Char-
acters from different social classes, occupations,
and geographical locations all come together in
the end to affect each other’s destinies. Such is the
case with Sydney Carton, for instance, who twice
appears to save Charles Darnay from death, first in
England and then in France. Incidentally, the physi-
cal similarity that allows Carton to save Darnay
on both occasions seems to him like a mockery of
fate, a reminder of what he might have been were
he born under different circumstances. By rescuing
Darnay for the second time, however, Carton does
not allow himself to become a victim of fate. Unable
to resign himself to a meaningless life, he sacrifices
himself for the sake of Lucie and her lover, telling
himself, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I
have ever done.”
Fate is an intractable force in A Tale of Two Cit-
ies. It works in mysterious ways to reveal the inter-
connectedness of people’s destinies and shows that
no man has complete control over his destiny. At the
same time, however, indiscriminately submitting to
fate is presented as a dangerous choice, one that in
this case leads to the continuation of a terrible cycle
of violence. The most admirable characters in A Tale
of Two Cities are those who know when it is best to
face their fate and when to do something to change
its course.
Marie Gonzales-Posse
HerOism in A Tale of Two Cities
Almost every character with whom we are encour-
aged to sympathize in A Tale of Two Cities performs,
throughout the course of the novel, some act of
heroism. Dr. Manette is drawn into heroism when
he is picked up by the Evrémonde brothers to give
medical assistance to the brother and sister they have
seriously injured. The doctor further acquits himself
honorably in his staunch refusal to accept payment
from them, raising the Evrémondes’ suspicions
against him and resulting in his incarceration in the
Bastille in order to guarantee his silence. Charles
Darnay makes the heroic decision to renounce the
life of comfort and luxury he would enjoy as part
of the corrupt French nobility to live a simple life
as a tutor in England. He demonstrates the same
integrity in returning to France to help free Gabelle
when he is imprisoned by French Revolutionaries.
The men are not the only heroic characters in
the novel. There is heroism in Lucie’s quiet stoicism
as she stands before her husband’s prison every day
in the hope of allowing him to catch a glimpse of
her so he can retain his sanity. More dramatically,
perhaps, Miss Pross is ultimately responsible for
eliminating the villainous Madame Defarge, not
through mindless violence but in a courageous dem-
onstration of her love and loyalty for the Manette
family.
The novel’s most outstanding act of heroism,
however, is Sydney Carton’s final sacrifice when he
decides to take Darnay’s place at the guillotine at the
end of the novel. Even though the conclusion may
be surprising, in retrospect we can see that it has
been foreshadowed. Not only has Carton declared
to Lucie that he would be willing to sacrifice any-
thing for her, but he more explicitly declares that she
should think of him as “a man who would give his
life, to keep a life you love beside you!” Furthermore,
Carton’s rescue of Darnay in France in many ways
resembles his first intervention in England. In both
instances, Carton comes to the aid of Darnay (who
is being wrongfully accused) and uses their physical
resemblance to bring about his liberation.
Sydney Carton is an unlikely hero by any defi-
nition. If anything, we might be tempted to think
of him as an antihero. He drinks himself to stupor
on a regular basis, and he is generally depressive,
apathetic, and irresponsible. Some readers have even
seen him as a tragic hero in the sense that he is a
brooding individual, socially outcast and both driven
and tormented by an impossible love. His exis-
tence has no meaning outside of his love for Lucie
Manette. The conclusion of the novel, however,
allows his lack of commitment to himself to become
a virtue when it is used in service of protecting Luc-
ie’s happiness and the unity of the Manette circle.