8/14/2019 Dickens's Art of Characterization

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dickenss-art-of-characterization 1/4

Altaf Ahmed Sheikh 1 M.A (Hons.) English Literature

Dickens’s art of characterization w.r.t “a tale of two cities”

IntroductionCharacterization is an art, technique, method or process of forming and portraying a character in anyliterary piece. It is practiced in most of the literary genres by almost all the writers dealing with literature.

However, some of them have reached to an average skilful use, while others have remain average. Butthere are very few writers who have reached par excellence in using this technique. Dickens name comesin that list, just after Shakespeare.

Dickens is one those novelists, who bring many minor characters in their novels. But unlike other writers,he had successfully given each character his or her individual traits so that it may appear to be new andunique simultaneously. In ‘A tale of two cities’, although there is a considerable variety of characters, yetit is believed that Dickens brought them thorough his imagination power, and not from society or real life.It is either deliberate, or by incident that these characters represent the society at whole.Dickens declared himself as mouthpiece of poor labour class and of the struggling lower middle class, inhis novel ‘A tale of two cities.’ He satirized and criticized aristocratic class, including kings, dukes and

earls etc. Most of the characters in novel represent some idea or abstract moral value, what we generallyknow as symbolism.Lucie stand for Beauty and Innocence.Dr. Mannette stand for Suffering, endeavor, tortures.Sydney Carton stand for selflessness & Sacrifice.Jarvis Lorry stands for social service & humanity.Jerry cruncher stands for corruption.Miss Pross stands for Love, affectionate and tenderness.Mr. Defarge stands for faithfulness & loyality.Madam Defarge stands for evil, hatred, revolution.

Some of the characters are presented through action, while others through dialogues.Some are virtuous, while others vicious.Dickens does not analyze the psyche of his character, rather he is more into physical appearance andexaggeration of their outward characteristics.

Many have felt that Carton and Darnay are doppelgangers, which Eric Rabkin defines as a pair "of characters that together, represent one psychological persona in the narrative"

One can only suspect whose psychological persona it is that Carton and Darnay together embody (if theydo), but it is often thought to be the psyche of Dickens himself. Dickens was quite aware that betweenthem, Carton and Darnay shared his own initials. [31] Furthermore, in early drafts of the novel, Darnay and

Carton each individually had the same initials as Dickens, since in early drafts Carton's forename wasDick rather than Sydney

Characters

Many of Dickens' characters are "flat" rather than round, in the novelist E. M. Forster 'sfamous terms, meaning roughly that they have only one mood. [32] In Tale , for example, the

altafsheikh1988@gmail.comhttp://altaftheredmax.spaces.live.com

8/14/2019 Dickens's Art of Characterization

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dickenss-art-of-characterization 2/4

Altaf Ahmed Sheikh 2 M.A (Hons.) English Literature

Marquis is unremittingly wicked and relishes being so; Lucie is perfectly loving andsupportive. (As a corollary, Dickens often gives these characters verbal ticks or visualquirks that he mentions over and over, such as the dints in the nose of the Marquis.) Forster

believed that Dickens never truly created rounded characters, but a character such asCarton surely at least comes closer to roundness.

• Sydney Carton• An insolent, indifferent, and alcoholic attorney who works with Stryver. Carton has no real

prospects in life and doesn't seem to be in pursuit of any. He does, however, love Lucie, and hisfeelings for her eventually transform him into a man of profound merit. At first the polar opposite of Darnay, in the end Carton morally surpasses the man to whom he bears a striking physicalresemblance. – quick-minded but depressed English barrister alcoholic, and cynic;his Christ-like self-sacrifice redeems his own life as well as saving the life of Charles Darnay.

Sydney Carton proves the most dynamic character in A Tale of Two Cities . He first appears as a lazy,alcoholic attorney who cannot muster even the smallest amount of interest in his own life. He describes his

existence as a supreme waste of life and takes every opportunity to declare that he cares for nothing and noone. But the reader senses, even in the initial chapters of the novel, that Carton in fact feels something thathe perhaps cannot articulate. In his conversation with the recently acquitted Charles Darnay, Carton'scomments about Lucie Manette, while bitter and sardonic, betray his interest in, and budding feelings for, thegentle girl. Eventually, Carton reaches a point where he can admit his feelings to Lucie herself. Before Lucieweds Darnay, Carton professes his love to her, though he still persists in seeing himself as essentiallyworthless. This scene marks a vital transition for Carton and lays the foundation for the supreme sacrificethat he makes at the novel's end. Carton's death has provided much material for scholars and critics of Dickens's novel. Some readersconsider it the inevitable conclusion to a work obsessed with the themes of redemption and resurrection.

According to this interpretation, Carton becomes a Christ-like figure, a selfless martyr whose death enablesthe happiness of his beloved and ensures his own immortality. Other readers, however, question theultimate significance of Carton's final act. They argue that since Carton initially places little value on hisexistence, the sacrifice of his life proves relatively easy. However, Dickens's frequent use in his text of other resurrection imagery—his motifs of wine and blood, for example—suggests that he did intend for Carton'sdeath to be redemptive, whether or not it ultimately appears so to the reader. As Carton goes to theguillotine, the narrator tells us that he envisions a beautiful, idyllic Paris “rising from the abyss” and sees “theevil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.” Just as the apocalyptic violence of the revolution precedes a new society's birth, perhapsit is only in the sacrifice of his life that Carton can establish his life's great worth.

• Lucie Manette – An ideal Victorian lady who was perfect in every way, she was

loved by both Carton and Charles Darnay (whom she marries); daughter of Dr.Manette. She is the "golden thread" after whom Book Two is named, so called

because she holds her father's and her family's lives together (and because of her blond hair like her mother's.) She also ties almost every character in the book together. A young French woman who grew up in England, Lucie was raised as a ward of Tellson's Bank because her parents were assumed dead. Dickens depicts Lucie as an archetype of compassion. Her love has the power to bind her family together—the text often refers to her as “thegolden thread.” Furthermore, her love has the power to transform those around her. It enables her father to be “recalled to life,” and it sparks Sydney Carton's development from a “jackal” into a hero.

altafsheikh1988@gmail.comhttp://altaftheredmax.spaces.live.com

8/14/2019 Dickens's Art of Characterization

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dickenss-art-of-characterization 3/4

Altaf Ahmed Sheikh 3 M.A (Hons.) English Literature

• Charles Darnay – a young French noble of the Evrémonde family. In disgust at thecruelty of his family to the French peasantry, he has taken on the name "Darnay"(after his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais) and left France for England. [34]

• Dr. Alexandre Manette – Lucie's father, kept a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen

years.• Monsieur Ernest Defarge – owner of a French wine shop and leader of the

Jacquerie; husband of Madame Defarge; servant to Dr. Manette as a youth. One of the key revolutionary leaders, he leads the revolution with a noble cause, unlikemany of other revolutionaries.

• Madame Therese Defarge – a vengeful female revolutionary; arguably the novel'santagonist

• The Vengeance – a companion of Madame Defarge referred to as her "shadow"

and lieutenant, a member of the sisterhood of women revolutionaries in SaintAntoine, and revolutionary zealot. Many Frenchmen and women actually didchange their names to show their enthusiasm for the Revolution [35]

• Jarvis Lorry – an elderly manager at Tellson's Bank and a dear friend of Dr.Manette.

• Miss Pross – Lucie Manette's governess since Lucie was ten years old; fiercelyloyal to Lucie and to England.

• The Marquis St. Evrémonde [36] – cruel uncle of Charles Darnay

• John Barsad (real name Solomon Pross) – a spy for Britain who later becomes aspy for France (at which point he must conceal that he is British). He is the long-lost brother of Miss Pross.

• Roger Cly – another spy, Barsad's collaborator

• Jerry Cruncher – porter and messenger for Tellson's Bank and secret"Resurrection Man " ( body-snatcher )

• Mr. Stryver – Arrogant and ambitious barrister , senior to Sydney Carton .[37] There

is a frequent mis-perception that Stryver's full name is "C. J. Stryver", but this isvery unlikely. The mistake comes from a line in Book 2, Chapter 12: "After tryingit, Stryver C. J. was satisfied that no plainer case could be." [38] The initials C. J.almost certainly refer to a legal title (probably " chief justice "); Stryver is imaginingthat he is playing every role in a trial in which he browbeats Lucie Manette intomarrying him.

altafsheikh1988@gmail.comhttp://altaftheredmax.spaces.live.com

8/14/2019 Dickens's Art of Characterization

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dickenss-art-of-characterization 4/4

Altaf Ahmed Sheikh 4 M.A (Hons.) English Literature

• The Seamstress – a young woman caught up in The Terror. She precedes SydneyCarton, who comforts her, to the guillotine.

• Gabelle – Gabelle is "the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary, united" [39]

for the tenants of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. Gabelle is imprisoned by the

revolutionaries, and it is his beseeching letter that brings Darnay to France. Gabelleis "named after the hated salt tax" .[40]

• Gaspard – Gaspard is the man whose son gets run over by the Monseigneur. Hethen kills the Monseigneur and goes into hiding for a year. He eventually getsfound, arrested, and executed.

altafsheikh1988@gmail.comhttp://altaftheredmax.spaces.live.com