Sacrifice In A Tale Of Two Cities

Sacrifice is a word of loss for one side and joy for another. In Charles Dickens’ book, A Tale of Two Cities, sacrifice is shown through the parallel of the French Revolution and Sydney Carton. The French Revolution took many lives, in the same way that Carton’s life was taken in his sacrifice for Darnay. Carton’s supreme sacrifice gave both a sense of loss and a sense of joy to Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette, and their family. While Darnay was overjoyed that his life was saved and he could support his family for a long time, he was sad at the loss of his friend. Though Darnay thought Carton had made a sacrifice in place of Darnay, Carton had really made the sacrifice out of love, selflessness, and hope for Lucie Manette.

Carton could have made his sacrifice

out of selfishness and loneliness for friends, but he made his sacrifice out of love for Lucie Manette. While Lucie once had three suitors, Carton, Stryver, and Darnay, only two actually loved her: Darnay and Carton. Darnay ended up marrying her, but Carton could hardly feel that he was done with her. Instead, Carton knew that the love between her and Darnay could not be broken. In order to save his lover from distress, heartbreak, and loss, Carton concludes he must sacrifice himself. Carton knew that though he could not convince Lucie to marry him, he comments to Lucie that “you [Lucie] have been the last dream of my soul” and he wants her to lead a life different than his (Dickens 156). Dickens says as Carton has “heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward,” Dickens foreshadows Carton leaving the world and going upward to Heaven (Dickens 156). Carton’s love for Lucie may have failed towards his hand in marriage, he still feels a need to show his appreciation for her, thus, sacrificing himself in the guillotine.
In place of marriage, Carton makes a selfless choice and replaces Darnay on the guillotine so Darnay could support his wife and daughter. The parallel of the revolution and Carton’s life is displayed through Carton’s final thoughts before his death. As the revolution appears, “rising from this abyss,” it creates an image of the violence of the deaths/fighting and the chaotic mess of the French Revolution symbolizing the “abyss” (Dickens 386). The people’s struggles being free “in their triumphs and defeats, for long, long years to come” represents that there will be triumphs and defeats for a long time in a lengthy revolution (Dickens 386). In the same way, Carton rises out of his miserable life and creates a new beginning by leaving a memory for Lucie of Carton’s selfless act of courage. By sacrificing his life, Carton takes away his miserable self and leaves a legacy of his great life of love, courage, and hope. The only way Carton can take his life on the guillotine is by remembering his good life and leaving his courageous, selfless legacy for Darnay and Lucie.
In the same doubling motif seen earlier in the book, resurrection is displayed in Carton, as it was also displayed in Christ.

As Carton wanders through the streets of Paris, he mutters “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, shall never die” (Dickens 385). He constantly reminds himself of his protector (Christ) and as Carton dies, he believes he will go to Heaven. Carton is a good man of faith, close to Christ and His love thereof, and like Christ, Carton sacrifices his life for others. In his last words, Carton sees a “beautiful city and a beautiful people rising from this abyss” and foreshadows him looking down from Heaven on the French people rising from the French Revolution (Dickens 386). The story also parallels the Bible through Carton being a hero without thinking of himself, as Christ sacrificed his life as a hero without caring for His own life. As Carton knew of his selfless act, he thought of it as being “’a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to then I have ever known’” (Dickens 386). Carton knew the better life in Heaven would raise him out of his misery in the revolution and create a new, hopeful life for

him.
Carton makes the sacrifice of his life as a caring, loving act for Lucie, in a hope that he would go to Heaven (someday with Lucie) to a happier place. He feels no selfishness in his sacrifice, rather, he does it to leave Lucie with the love of her life, Darnay. Carton wants to marry Lucie, but concludes that he is not the best man for her, and Carton believes Darnay is needed in the world more than he. Even though, “Charles Darnay is willing to sacrifice his own happiness when he returns to France in an attempt to save the life of his former servant,” Carton still sees more in Darnay than he sees in himself” (novelguide.com 1). Carton may have been a lonely, desperate man at one time, but his selfless sacrifice for Darnay and Lucie gave him a hope for a long-lasting legacy.