Theme of Resurrection in Charles Dickens’s Book, A Tale of Two Cities

Robespierre, the dictator of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror once said, "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible." If terror is justice, would 30,000 men and women across France have lost their lives during the Reign of Terror? In Charles Dickens’s book, A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens used the injustice in the French Revolution and the corruption in societies of that time to show the theme of resurrection along with many other themes. In the novel, the heroes and heroine uses sacrifice to resurrect an important person in their lives. However, through the process of resurrecting another, some characters also resurrected themselves. The two most important characters that relates to the theme of resurrection were Doctor Manette and Sydney Carton. In all there books of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens explores the theme of resurrection by showing how Doctor Manette and Sydney Carton resurrected other characters and how they were resurrected.

As suggested by the title of the book, “Recalled to Life”, Book One was about how one the novel’s heroes, Dr. Manette, came to be resurrected. In Book One, the reader was introduced to Doctor Manette as a political prisoner who was kept in the Bastille for eighteen years due to unknown reasons. He was recalled to life by his daughter, Lucie Manette, after being mysteriously released from the Bastille. At that time, Doctor Manette had lost his mind and was nothing but a shell of a person. However, with the care given to him by his daughter, Doctor Manette slowly regained his memories and had begun to live, once again, a normal life. The freeing of the doctor relates to the theme of resurrection because after eighteen years of living like a ...

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...kens showed how Doctor Manette was resurrected by his daughter and Mr. Lorry. In Book Two, the theme of resurrection became more obvious to the reader when Carton saved Charles Darnay from death in his trial. Lastly, in Book Three, the most important resurrections occurred, which involved the resurrections of both Doctor Manette and Sydney Carton, and the resurrection of Charles Darnay, who was twice resurrected in this book. Although Dickens theme of resurrection was very significant in the novel, one does still wonder why he chose that theme. Dickens left the readers wondering why he had chosen such a theme, for it had nothing to do with the author’s life. However, Dickens was correct when he stated that “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (1), for while revolutions do lead to a new way of life, it also causes the lost of many innocent lives.