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                                                          Themes

     RESURRECTION : ( used interchangably with "recalled to life")
              Dr. Manette is recalled to life first when he is released after 18 years imprisonment, then when his
      daughter Lucie nurses him back to physical and mental health. When Darnay's true identity is revealed
       to him, such fearful memories are recalled to life that he suffers a mental relapse.He suffers another relapse
       when the contents of his journal are read in court in Paris, condemming Darnay, but Carton sees him
        fully restored in his vision of the future.
               Charles Darnay is recalled to life when he is aquitted at his treason trial; a guilty verdict would've
      resulted in his death. He is again recalled to life when he is tried, then freed, in Paris. This is short-lived
      because he is re-arrested that same night, retried the next day, and condemned. He is again resurrected
      from certain death by Carton.
               Sydney Carton's love for Lucie caused a resurrection of "whispers of old voices impelling me upward,
     that I thought were silent forever." He seemed to have died in spirit when he "followed his father to the grave".
      He is resurrected from a useless existence to a useful and purposeful life when he sets out to save Darnay. As
      he walks the streets of Paris, he repeats the words "I am the resurrection and the life...". He dies but lives
      on in the memories of those for whom he gives his life. He also lives on in the life of Lucie's son, who is
      named for him and "resurrects" his career, winning his way up so well that Carton's name "becomes illustrious
     by the light of his." Carton's story is kept alive for generations when Lucie's son tells his own son.
               Jerry Cruncher is a "resurrection man", digging up newly deceased bodies and selling them to science.
              Roger Cly is "resurrected" when he fakes his own death in England and resufaces in France.

SACRIFICE:
        Dr.Manette sacrifices his own feelings for Lucie's happiness when Darnay reveals to him his true identity.
            Darnay sacrifices a title and inheritance rather than "live on the overburdened people of France". He sac-
   rifices his personal freedom and safety in order to aid a faithful family servant in Paris.
           The tribunal expects  Dr. Manette to sacrifice his family, if need be, for the good of the revolution.
            Miss Pross is willing to sacrifice her life to protect Lucie. While trying to stop Madame DeFarge from
    seeing Lucie, they struggle, resulting in Madame DeFarge's accidental death and Miss Pross loss of hearing.
            Sydney Carton promises Lucie "I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you." He
    makes the ultimate sacrifice for Darnay.

REVENGE :
       Dr. Manette harbors feelings of revenge while he is imprisoned in the Bastille.
          Gaspard gets revenge when he murders the Marquis who killed his child.
          Madame DeFarge wants revenge for what the St.Evrémonde brothers did to her family.
          The lower classes take revenge on the upper classes during the revolution with arson, imprisonment and murder.
         The peasant boy swears revenge on the St.Evrémonde family when he says he will summon them on
     judgement day to answer for their wrongs.
         In Dr. Manette's prison journal, he condemns the St.Evrémonde family "to the last of their race".
          The revolution is personified in Madame DeFarge's assocoate known only as "the vengeance".

RAPE :
      Usually overlooked as a theme because it is not revealed until almost the end of the book when Dr. Manette's
 prison journal is read during Darnay's trial. This shocking incident sets in motion the chain of events upon which
 the whole story is based. As a result of this rape, the victim and her unborn child dies. Her brother dies trying to
 defend her. Her husband had already died, worked to death by the Marquis, for not giving his wife up to him. Her father died of a broken heart. Her sister was sent away, hidden beyond the reach of the Marquis. Dr. Manette was imprisoned for trying to report the rape to the authorities. In his prison journal he condemns the Marquis St. Evrémonde and all his descendants, unwittingly condemning Charles Darnay in the process. Darnay's mother's last wish to him was for him to find the hidden girl to pay compensation for the loss of her family. That hidden girl turned
 out later to be Madame Defarge, who would stop at nothing short of extermination in her quest for revenge against the St.Evrémonde family.

  VALUE OF LIFE :
         In London, the courtroom spectators are much more interested in the spectacle of a public execution than
  they are in real justice.
            Many of the nobility in France view the lower classes as being worth not much more than animals.
           When the Marquis runs over and kills a child, then throws a coin to the child's distraught father, his attitude
  is that of someone who has "broken some common thing and has paid for it".
           Darnay values the lives of the poor, telling his uncle that he would rather support himself in England than
  be supported by the overburdened people of France.
           Carton does not value his own life, saying that he has "no business to be". He refers to the years of a
  wasted life as being "so many curses". He values highly the lives of Lucie and her family and sacrifices his own
  life for their safety and happiness.

 SPYING :
      Jacques 1,2 and 3 spy on Dr.Manette in his garret in Paris.
         Young Jerry spies on his mother and tells his father if he sees her "flopping". He also spies on his father to
 see where he goes "fishing".
         Barsad and Cly are both paid to spy on Darnay and testify against him in London. They both later become
 spies against the revolutionaries in France. Barsad is a "sheep ,or spy, in the prisons in Paris.
        The woodsawyer spies on Lucie as she stands outside the prison, and is ready to testify against her on the
  false charge of a prison plot.

 PRISONS :
       Dr.Manette is incarcerated in the Bastille, Darnay in La Force. Tellson's Bank is likened to a prison
  with its barred windows and dark backrooms.
       Dr.Manette is in a literal prison for 18 years. He is imprisoned mentally by the experience, periodically
   lapsing into episodes of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
           Madame DeFarge is imprisoned by a secret past that fuels her desires for revenge.
           The people of France are imprisoned by a social and economic system from which they can escape only
   by the revolution.
           Darnay is literally imprisoned 3 times. He is figurativly imprisoned,or confined, by his mother's last wish,
 which sets him on a fruitless search. He "breaks out" of the imprisonment of his social class by rejecting his title and inheritance and moving to England.
          Carton is in an emotional prison, cutting himself off from close relationships with his comment "I care for
no man and no man cares for me." This self-imposed isolation results in an alienation as real as that of any
literal prisoner.

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