Manette Dialectical Journal

The book begins in 1775 with the words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” (1) to show that there is a great divide between the rich and the poor in France. Jarvis Lorry goes to Paris with Lucie Manette to get Dr. Manette, her father. He has been locked up for 18 years in the Bastille. When asked about his reason of travel, he explained that he was going to dig up someone who has been long dead, and had the same conversation with everyone, “ ‘Buried how long?’ ‘Almost eighteen years.’ ‘You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?’ ‘Long ago.’ ‘You know that you are recalled to life?’ ‘They tell me so.’ ‘I hope you care to live?’ ‘I can't say’” (12). Dr. Manette was long thought to …show more content…
Manette in the care of his old servant Ernest Defarge who runs a wine shop with his wife Madame Defarge. Although he is now free, the long imprisonment has changed him. Dr. Manette is still a broken man who spends most of his time making shoes and pacing up and down his darkened room. Once Dr. Manette sees Lucie, he remembers his wife and begins to weep. Lucie comforts him and takes him back to England. In 1780, Charles Darnay is being accused of being a traitor and a spy. Mr. Lorry, Lucie, and Dr. Manette have are reluctant witnesses against Darnay who they met traveling in a carriage together in 1775. Darnay’s charges are dropped when Sydney Carton, a lawyer, is seen to have a striking resemblance to Darnay. Carton and Darnay both fall in love with Lucie, but Lucie returns her love to Darnay and they get married. When Carton confesses his love to Lucie, he tells her, “when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you” (159). This foreshadows to the end of the book when Carton actually switches places with Darnay on death row so that Darnay could escape and live with