A Tale Of Two Cities Doubles

Many celebrities have doubles, people who look very much like them, but come from other walks of life. Charles John Huffman Dickens did not have a known double in real life, but he employed their use in his writing. A Tale Of Two Cities is a classic tale of the French Revolution written by Dickens. The novel begins with Mr.Lorry saving a man from prison whose daughter, Lucie Manette, later marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to save an old family servant, he is sent to the guillotine because he is part of the aristocracy. At the last minute, Sydney Carton (a man who also loved Lucie but knows he isn’t good enough for her) takes Darnay’s place to save the Darnay family. In the novel, A Tale Of Two Cities, Dickens utilizes the
motif of duality to reveal his belief in fate through the doubling of Darnay’s life, patriots and soldiers, and Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay. From the start, Dickens introduces the juxtaposition of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay.
Although the two men have vastly different levels of self confidence and success, two things remain the same between them: their looks and their love for Lucie Manette. Dickens first introduces their likeness in book two during a trial for Carton: “they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everyone present,...to bid my friend [Darnay] lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable.”(72). The two characters doubling each other here are Carton and Darnay. This comparison saves Carton in his trial. Later on, their likeness and love for Lucie saves Darnay when Carton gives his life at the guillotine. A seamstress notices the swap and whispers “‘Are you dying for him?’” to which Carton answers “‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’” (344). Carton made the ultimate sacrifice because he loved Lucie so much he knew she couldn’t live without her husband. It was fated beforehand that someone would die at the guillotine through a revolutionary’s plans. Darnay is expected to be the one who dies but because of the unlikely coincidence of his and Carton’s looks he
lives. As Darnay awaits his fate outside a prison, Dickens describes the similarities between the patriots and soldiers. The state of these opposites varies, yet their mission remains the same: escort prisoners inside to the proper cells. The men waiting could be in any state and yet they all hold similar fates. Each one would eventually be taken inside as Dickens describes, “Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount.”(243) When escorted inside Darnay witnesses the patriots and soldiers who lay in disarray, similar to the state of the convicted: “soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were lying about.”(244). Dickens created these paradoxes to help the reader understand that overall, the people were fated in their patriotism and job. They may not be in the same state of rest or sobriety but their loyalties and duties connected them all with a feeling of solidarity.
Throughout the second and third book, Dickens plays with the irony behind Darnay’s dualistic life through his relationship with Lucie. Darnay hides the fact he is the heir to the Marquis St. Evrémonde and tries to live a normal life with his family. He brings “life” of sort to the family by impregnating Lucie with two children: “Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of tiny feet and the sound of her [Lucie’s daughter] prattling words.”(202). Later, Darnay’s family name comes back to haunt him in Paris when he is put in prison for being nobility. This puts the family in danger and practically condemns them to death. Darnay writes to Lucie from prison: “Dearest - take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me.You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me.”(258). In the end, Darnay’s two lives are incredibly similar. He lives on with Lucie with his feeling true for her no matter his title. He is in grave danger while he is in Paris even if he wasn’t a Marquis because he comes from London, one could say his journey was fated. In chapter twenty-four Darnay’s fate is depicted through the metaphor of Paris as a loadstone rock: “the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction.”(233) Dickens shows here that Darnay could not avoid his fate and that something bad will happen. Darnay is always a loving, caring man whose dual lives don’t get in the way of his personality whose fate is set in stone. Carton and Darnay are from different walks of life, but their looks and love for Lucie stay the same. The patriots and soldiers acted differently, yet their mission was the same. Darnay led two lives, but both were intertwined by his relationship with Lucie and personality. Each one had an unchangeable fate in their job, destination or death. Through the juxtaposition of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, grouping of patriots and soldiers, and dualistic life of Darnay, Dickens leads his readers to understand that much of their everyday life is set in fate. The only way to escape is to accept what may happen will and work past the issue.