“Recalled to Life”: Christian Heroism and Rebirth in Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities”
In the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, the white-haired prisoner, Dr. Manette, is recalled to life and returns to a fulfilling earthly existence, having been dug out of the prison that was his grave. At the end of the story, it is Sydney Carton, the downtrodden lawyer, who finds his true life by giving up his earthly one. Though the character of their resurrection is unique to each — Dr. Manette in the physical world, Sydney Carton in the spiritual one — the cause of their salvation is the same: Lucie Manette. This golden woman is the one who recalls her father to life and inspires Carton to attain eternal life. Incorruptible and almost sacred, Lucie Manette is more of a symbol than a character, serving as she does to demonstrate the bountiful mercy, conquering love, and redemptive power of Christianity.
From the beginning, Lucie is singled out by her very name: “lux,” or “lucis” in the genitive form, is Latin for “light.” In addition to her name, Lucie’s radiance finds expression in her rich golden hair, which crowns her like a shining halo. In fact, it is her golden hair that recovers her father, the man, within her father, the specter: after staring and holding Lucie’s hair in his hand, Dr. Manette takes a bit of cloth from his body and opens it up, revealing several strands of hair like hers that he has carefully kept all these years (45–6). The only surviving remnant of his wife, these golden threads have comforted Dr. Manette in his imprisonment but most importantly enable him, even in his weakened mind, to connect to Lucie as someone dear to him (46). As the spark that kindles his memory and awakening, Lucie and her locks draw him from the darkness of his isolation and loss of sanity. More than the key that unlocks his chamber door, more than the kind words of Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge, it is Lucie who thus liberates her father: as she hugs him to her heart, “His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him” (47). Her love is a promise of hope, of a future, that brings him back to the world around him. And as Dr. Manette recovers, Lucie continues to save him: “Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. 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” (76). When Dr. Manette falls prey to the shadows in his mind, vulnerable to sinking back into the grave hidden within himself, Lucie recalls him to the light of day by her own light. For her father, she radiates love and devotion, peace and security, goodness and faith; she is his “‘gentle angel,’” a life-bringer and servant of God, who rescues him on this earthly plane (46).
Yet as the story progresses, it becomes clear that Lucie signifies more than an angel: she becomes a parallel to the Virgin Mary, the Christian paragon of female virtue. Not only is Lucie a spotless and selfless angel, but she channels those energies into the traditionally feminine role of caretaking. Due to Dr. Manette’s traumatized and disabled mind, Lucie must elevate herself to a motherly position from the moment they meet. In their very first interaction, Lucie vows to always serve and protect this fragile white-haired prisoner, and she embraces him not as a daughter does her father, but as a mother would her son: “She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like a child,” trying to warm the spirit of life into him once again (47). Dr. Manette reacts by clinging to her, a lost soul seeking solace: “He readily responded to his daughter’s drawing her arm through his, and took — and kept — her hand in both his own,” holding onto her like a child uncertain of the world and his place in it (49). Like a mother, Lucie answers Dr. Manette’s needs by nursing him and making him a home. Inspired as she is by the greatest Christian love and charity, Lucie even bestows life upon him by freeing him from his state that resembles death. However, such an inversion of roles does not demean Dr. Manette, who eventually regains his faculties (as well as his status as her elder); rather, the inversion highlights Lucie’s station as a nurturer, that epitome of traditional femininity, and likens her to the most pure and noble of all mothers, the Virgin Mary.
Even when Lucie becomes an actual mother, she remains free from sexuality. Though Charles Darnay’s wife, she appears as though she never left virginly purity: she still radiates innocence and a pristine bloom, even in her husband’s arms (200–1). Similarly, her fertility is granted a spiritual character: “…the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her” (202). In other words, rather than the result of base desire, Lucie’s childbearing reflects and gains the nature of her dignified spirit. Performed with Christian self-sacrifice and virtue, her motherhood honors God and is thus elevated to an act of worship. By giving herself up in order to lovingly serve others, Lucie, like the Virgin Mary, is able to be both a mother and a symbol of pureness of body and soul.
Yet Lucie’s most remarkable influence is her gift of life to Sydney Carton, the lawyer who, having squandered his potential, exists without purpose. Though he rises every morning, Carton makes himself as one dead by pursuing a debauched life colored by wine-induced unconsciousness: “Waste forces within him, and a desert all around,” he is filled with an emptiness that consumes him and compels him to ruin (87). A “disappointed drudge” seeking refuge in drink, he declares to Charles Darnay, “‘I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me’” (81). Such being the case, Carton is truly as one dead to the world: a lack of love and meaningful companionship does entail a lack of life. And yet when he meets Lucie, his being becomes animated, inspired, spurred towards transformation. He confesses to her, “‘Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever’” (145). Lucie’s tender, unassuming goodness reminds Carton of the beauty that humanity and life can possess, causing him to regret that he gave up on both. With great Christian imagery, Carton continues, “‘[I] wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire…’” (145). Lucie’s inner and outer loveliness, by reawakening in him the desire to be noble and worthy like her, revives the sensation of being alive, of being a human being, that he had long forgotten. As a result, Carton falls in love with the woman who embodies the virtue, faith, and dignity for which his heart has secretly ached.
Ultimately, it is thanks to Lucie that Sydney Carton is able to follow the path to redemption. Warmed and exalted by his pure and selfless love for her, Carton takes the place of her beloved husband on La Guillotine so that she and her family may be happy (340). Indeed, by shedding his own blood to save others, Carton emulates the sacrifice of Christ. Aware of the greatness of his action and the yearning of his soul, he thus ascends the steps to the La Guillotine while repeating to himself, “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (360). Carton’s prayer is answered: it is through this noble and greatest sacrifice that he redeems his soul and attains the salvation that is eternal life. Like that of Dr. Manette, his rebirth, his recall to life, can be traced by a golden thread back to Lucie, that heroic and sanctified woman of utmost Christian love and purity.
Works Cited: Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859. Oxford University Press, 2008.
