Resurrection of Dr. Manette

Dr. Alexander Manette: The Real Resurrection Man
“Eighteen years! …Gracious creator of day! To be buried alive for 18 years!” (Dickens 19). Although not physically buried alive, Dr. Alexander Manette was forced to cope with the fact that he was falsely imprisoned for almost two decades. For students and teachers all over the world, one single school day can seem like an eternity. Dr. Manette had to live in terrible conditions, away from his loved ones, for more than 6,500 days! Those days pass by very slowly, and can severely ruin a man. By the time he is released from prison, Dr. Manette does not know anything about the world around him. All he knows is how to make shoes, a skill he used habitually while serving his time in the slammer. Even after his life in prison, Manette choses to live like a prisoner. However, everything changes when he is reunited with his daughter, Lucie. In the novel, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Dr. Manette makes the transformation from a feeble old man into a leader of his family.
When Dickens first introduces Dr. Manette, he is portrayed as an insane man who is locked up in the top floor of the Defarge’s wine shop. He is frantically making shoes; this is because whenever Dr. Manette is in “insane mode”, he goes to his shoe cobbling bench and works day and night until he has recuperated. In the beginning, whenever he faces adversity, Dr. Manette always goes back to the shoe-cobbling bench and furiously works until he has regained his peace of mind.
Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity—as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind (Dickens 203).
This passage suggests that Dr. Manette is mentally weak. After the wedding between Charles Darnay and Dr. Manette’s daughter, Lucie, Manette is having to cope with a doubt in his mind, so he goes back to shoe making. He does not have the mental strength to keep living his life normally without letting the doubt dictate him. The passage suggests that he still has not fully recuperated from his time in prison. Thankfully, however, once he gets out of his “work coma” Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Pross take away all of his shoe-making tools and they bury them in the backyard. This way, the next time a tough situation faces the doctor, he cannot go back to his former backbone: making shoes. Lucie Manette plays an immense role in Dr. Manette’s resurrection. Throughout the novel, the doctor is twice recalled to life. The first time he is revitalized is when Mr. Lorry and Lucie go pick him up from the Defarge’s wine shop in San Antoine, France. Manette has no clue about anything going on in the world, and he is still living like a prisoner. Dr. Manette recognizes Lucie’s luscious locks of blonde hair, and he mistakes her for his wife; this shows that Dr. Manettes feels a connection to Lucie. Lorry and Lucie take the doctor back to England, where Lucie feels her father will be safer. Lucie spends a lot of time with her father throughout the novel, and they develop an extremely close relationship. She helps him heal the mental wounds he received while falsely imprisoned for 2 decades.
She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always (Dickens 83).

The passage above illustrates that Lucie has become the new backbone of her father. He no longer has to go to the shoe-cobbling bench when he faces adversity because he can always lean on Lucie. However, it is during Lucie’s honeymoon that the Doctor faces a new trauma. This time, with no Lucie to lean on, the doctor resorts to the bench; he stays there for nine days and nine nights, working feverishly without stopping. On the tenth morning, when he is suddenly normal again, Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross convince him to let them bury his shoe-cobbling tools. Now, next time he faces difficulty, he will have to handle it like a man. This difficulty comes in the form of Darnay’s letter to the Manettes; he has returned to France, and is in grave danger. My prediction is that Dr. Manette will rise up to the occasion and go to France to save Darnay, but he will not be able to do so without Lucie by his side. Together, they will work hard and do everything in their power to keep Charles Darnay alive. Dr. Manette has passed the stage in his life where he is timid, now he will be the aggressor. He will do anything necessary to save the love of his daughter’s life. He will be the man of the family once again.
Throughout the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Alexander Manette has come full-circle. Before his imprisonment, Dr. Manette was the head of his family, and a well-respected doctor in France. At the end of Book 2, he is once again the head of his family, and on the verge of regaining the medical respect he once had. However, none of this could have happened without the help of his beloved backbone, Lucie. Lucie Manette plays the biggest role in the resurrection of her father, helping him heal mentally through her love and compassion. At the conclusion of book 2, Dr. Manette has to look adversity right in the face. The only Charles Darnay does not die is if Dr. Alexander Manette rises up to the occasion, and he will.