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Charles DickensA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Twelve months after his uncle’s murder, Darnay has successfully established himself as a French tutor. Although he has been in love with Lucie since his trial, however, he has hesitated to speak to her about it. Instead, he chooses to visit Doctor Manette when he knows Lucie will be out.
Manette is visibly pained as Darnay confesses his love for Lucie, although he reassures Darnay that he doesn’t doubt his sincerity or selflessness. He also realizes that Darnay hasn’t spoken to Lucie out of respect for him, which Darnay confirms, noting that the two share a particularly strong bond because of Manette’s long imprisonment. He assures him, however, that he would not separate Lucie from her father if he married her; he has still not decided whether (or if) he will tell Lucie how he feels, but he asks Doctor Manette to “bear testimony to what [he has] said” (140) if Lucie ever confesses that she herself is in love. Manette promises that he will, and assures Darnay that “any fancies, any reasons any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or old, against the man [Lucie] really loved—the direct responsibility not lying on his head—they should all be obliterated for her sake” (141).
Darnay thanks Manette and says he wishes to repay him by revealing his true name and history. Manette, however, grows alarmed and makes Darnay swear not to tell him until the morning of his wedding to Lucie. Darnay promises this and leaves. Later that evening, Lucie comes home to find her father working at his shoemaking bench and helps calm him down and put him to bed.
Early the next morning, Carton and Stryver are in the latter’s rooms after a long night of work. As Carton prepares another bowl of punch, Stryver announces that he plans on marrying, though he doesn’t expect an “insensible dog” (143) like Carton to understand this. Carton sarcastically retorts that Stryver is a “sensitive and poetical spirit” (143), which leads Stryver to berate Carton for not doing more to make himself “agreeable” (144) when they visit Doctor Manette’s house. Carton ignores this and continues to take jabs at Stryver until the latter comes to the point, which is that he hopes to marry Lucie: “She is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself […] She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune” (145).
Stryver expects Carton will disapprove of this match, since he once spoke of Lucie in “slighting terms” (145). Carton, however, says little and continues to drink punch. Stryver therefore explains that while he himself wants to marry in order to “have a home when he feels inclined to go to it,” Carton is “in a bad way” and should think about marrying a woman with some money who can act as a “nurse” (146). Carton simply says he will think about it.
Feeling certain of the “strength of his case” (147), Stryver goes to visit the Manettes. As he passes by Tellson’s, he decides to stop in and explain his intentions to Mr. Lorry. To his surprise, however, Lorry seems doubtful about his plan to marry Lucie. Growing irritated, Stryver asks whether he isn’t “eligible,” “prosperous,” and “advancing” (150), and Lorry admits that he is; he says, however, that in his opinion Stryver oughtn’t to go through with his proposal unless he has some reason to think it will be accepted. Stryver complains that he has just listed several reasons and says that Lorry must consider Lucie a “mincing Fool” (151) if he thinks she would reject him. Lorry grows angry next, saying he won’t hear Lucie spoken of disrespectfully. However, in an effort to avoid “pain” (152) on all sides, Lorry offers to speak to the Manettes himself and report to Stryver later that day, and Stryver agrees.
Realizing that Lorry “would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty” (153), Stryver returns home with no intention of pursuing Lucie further. In fact, he is surprised when Lorry shows up later that day to tell him that his earlier advice was correct. In response, Stryver announces that was never committed to proposing anyway, and merely pities Lucie and her father’s loss:
In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing has been dropped, because it would have been a good thing for others in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view (154).
He then ushers a stunned Mr. Lorry out the door.
Meanwhile, Carton has been visiting the Manettes’ often: “When he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him” (155). He seems drawn to the house and spends much of his time walking up and down the streets nearby. Sometime after Stryver’s failed proposal, Carton stops by the house to visit Lucie.
Although Lucie isn’t entirely comfortable with Carton, she expresses concern for his health and—when he says his life is “not conducive to health” (155)—questions why he doesn’t change it. To her surprise, Carton begins to cry, explaining that he “will never be better than [he is]” and that he will simply “sink lower” (156). He asks her, however, to think of him as “one who died young” and to listen to what he has to say: he is glad that Lucie could never return his feelings for her because marrying him would simply “blight” and “disgrace” (156) her as well. Simply knowing her, however, has touched him profoundly; he describes her as “the last dream of [his] soul” and explains that if anything could have “reclaimed” (157) him, it would have been Lucie.
Throughout Carton’s speech, Lucie tries to persuade him not to give up on himself so easily and begs to know how she can use her “influence” (157) with him for good. Carton denies that this is possible, and asks that she simply “let [him] believe […] that the last confidence of [his] life was reposed in [her] pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one” (158). Lucie promises to keep Carton’s declaration a secret, and Carton promises never to bring up the subject again, wishing her an otherwise “light and happy” (158) life and assuring her he isn’t worthy of sorrow. He does, however, make one final request before he leaves: that Lucie will believe in the sincerity of his feelings, and of his sincerity when he says that he would “give his life, to keep a life [she] love[s] beside [her]” (159).
As it becomes clearer that Carton isn’t so dissimilar to Darnay as he initially appears, Stryver emerges as Carton’s true opposite. This is nowhere more obvious than in Dickens’s juxtaposition of the two men’s declarations of love. When Stryver announces his plan to marry Lucie, he is thinking almost entirely of himself; he wants a wife to return home to—although only “when he feels inclined” (146)—and he believes that Lucie is the right sort of wife for him—a “charming creature” (145) who will reflect well on Stryver. What’s more, he can’t fathom the idea that Lucie might turn him down, and when he realizes that she is likely to do just that, he immediately rearranges the narrative surrounding his proposal to one that places him in the best possible light: “Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done” (153-54).
Carton, by contrast, doesn’t ask Lucie for anything; in fact, he declares his love for her by offering to sacrifice his life on her behalf. Given that Carton views himself and his life in such bleak terms, this may not initially seem like much of a sacrifice. By the end of the novel, however, it’s clear that Carton’s offer isn’t a suicidal gesture, but just the opposite. Throughout his conversation with Lucie, Carton makes it clear that he considers his current state a form of death; he describes himself, for instance, as a “heap of ashes” that Lucie momentarily brought back to life but that will soon “[burn] away” (157) again. By losing his life Carton will find the precise things he lacks throughout the rest of the novel: a sense of purpose, a pathway out of his isolation, and, symbolically, life itself.
Meanwhile, Manette is preparing to make a different kind of sacrifice on his daughter’s behalf. Dickens doesn’t reveal the full story of Manette’s imprisonment until the final chapters of the novel, but he hints at it during Manette’s conversation with Darnay: Manette senses that he may have some “fancies” (141) about Darnay that Darnay himself doesn’t deserve. As it turns out, this is because it was Darnay’s uncle and father who were behind Manette’s arrest. Despite suspecting who Darnay is, however, Manette refuses to stand in the way of Lucie’s happiness.
By Charles Dickens