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- An accomplished French physician who gets imprisoned in the Bastille, and loses his mind. In his madness, Manette embodies the terrible psychological trauma of persecution from tyranny. Manette is eventually "resurrected"—saved from his madness—by the love of his daughter, Lucie.
www.litcharts.com › lit › a-tale-of-two-citiesDr. Alexandre Manette Character Analysis in A Tale of Two ...
An accomplished French physician who gets imprisoned in the Bastille, and loses his mind. In his madness, Manette embodies the terrible psychological trauma of persecution from tyranny. Manette is eventually "resurrected"—saved from his madness—by the love of his daughter, Lucie.
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Throughout the course of the novel, he is seen as an aspiring young doctor, a prisoner who craves revenge and who descends into madness, and a man who fights to regain his mind, his family, and his profession. His life after prison is a continual struggle against the shadows of madness and despair that are his legacy from the Bastille.
Doctor Alexandre Manette is a character in Charles Dickens' 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities. He is Lucie's father, a brilliant physician, and spent eighteen years "in secret" as a prisoner in the Bastille prior to the French Revolution. He is imprisoned because in the course of his medical practice he learns of abusive actions by two members of ...
- Sydney Carton
- Charles Darnay
- Lucie Manette
- Dr. Alexandre Manette
- Ernest Defarge
- Thérèse Defarge
- Jarvis Lorry
- Jerry Cruncher
- The Marquis de Sainte Evrémonde
- Monseigneur
Sydney Carton is an improbable hero who hides a noble and rather romanticnature beneath a carapace of hard-bitten cynicism. Carton is a barrister ofhigh intelligence and considerable abilities whose career has nonetheless beenunsuccessful, largely due to his lack of application and self-belief. He drinksa great deal and regards his life as worthles...
Charles Darnay is a French aristocrat, a member of the Saint Evrémondefamily, who has renounced his title and taken the name of Darnay in disgust atthe cruel and oppressive conduct of the other Sainte Evrémondes. Darnay isphysically very like Sydney Carton but psychologically quite dissimilar, as hischaracter is open, honest, and quite free from cy...
Lucie Manette is, in many ways, the archetypal Dickens heroine: young,beautiful, and so perfectly pure and good that she seems practically angelic.This is clearly the impression she makes on Sydney Carton, who loves Lucie butregards her as too far above him for him to think of marrying her. Lucie’scompassion and concern for Carton are a sign of her...
After eighteen years of unjust imprisonment in the Bastille at the instanceof the Sainte Evrémonde brothers, Dr. Manette is a physical and mental wreck,pitifully weak and perpetually terrified. The care of Lucie, the daughter henever met before his release from prison, gradually restores him to health andcontentment.
Monsieur Defarge is the former servant of Dr. Manette, who now keeps a wineshop in Paris. He is also a leader of the revolution, to which he has a strongideological commitment. Defarge is strong, brave, and principled. He hates thearistocracy, and the Sainte Evrémonde family in particular, partly out ofloyalty to Dr. Manette. Nonetheless, he is mor...
Madame Defarge, wife of Ernest, shares his commitment to the revolution,though her attitude is far more extreme and bloodthirsty than her husband’s.She is fearless and ruthless, and utterly implacable in her hatred of theSainte Evrémonde family. Madame Defarge is one of the leading tricoteuses, thewomen who sit placidly knitting as they watch the p...
Jarvis Lorry is an orderly, methodical, and slightly vain old gentleman ofabout sixty. He is a manager at Tellson’s Bank and takes charge of the Parisbranch during the revolution. Lorry is a loyal friend of the Manette family,providing them with practical, and eventually life-saving, help andsupport.
Jerry Cruncher is a messenger for Tellson’s Bank who also turns out to be abody snatcher (or “Resurrection-Man”). He is a rough, even violent character,though he shows loyalty toward Jarvis Lorry and his friends, the Manettes.
The Marquis de Sainte Evrémonde is Charles Darnay’s uncle, a haughty andcorrupt French aristocrat with a face like a sardonic mask. In his cruelty,arrogance, and complete lack of remorse for a lifetime of oppressiveexploitation, including assault and murder, the Marquis symbolizes everythingthat is wrong with the French aristocracy and which causes...
Monseigneur is a generic French aristocrat of a similar type to the Marquisde Sainte Evrémonde, though the two are not on good terms, as it becomes clearthat Sainte Evrémonde is out of favor in court circles. Monseigneur alsosymbolizes the extreme decadence of the French aristocracy and the luxury inwhich they live. He has four gorgeously-liveried ...
As Jarvis Lorry makes his way toward France to recover Manette, the narrator reflects that “every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” For much of the novel, the cause of Manette’s incarceration remains a mystery both to the other characters and to the reader.
Dr. Alexandre Manette An accomplished French physician who gets imprisoned in the Bastille, and loses his mind. In his madness, Manette embodies the terrible psychological trauma of persecution from tyranny.
Dr. Alexandre Manette: Manette is a Parisian physician who was imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years. If something reminds him too much of his imprisonment, it triggers memory loss and obsessive shoe-making, a skill he learned in prison.
