This week, Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay are united in marriage. Events happen surrounding this marriage that have left me wondering how long this relationship will actually last. Will Darnay have to leave Miss Manette because of his true identity, or will love surpass all other issues?
On the day of the wedding, Darnay and Doctor Manette are in the doctor’s room together. When the door is opened, Darnay emerges “deadly pale-which had not been the case when they went in together.” The look of death that overshadows Darnay symbolizes the fact that he told Doctor Manette his true identity. As stated earlier in the novel, Doctor Manette told Darnay to wait until the day of the wedding to reveal his identity because he didn’t really want to know the truth. After Darnay and Manette had the conversation about waiting until the wedding day to reveal Darnay’s true identity, Manette regressed psychologically and went back to making shoes. Similarly, after Darnay and Lucie were off on their honeymoon, Doctor Manette made shoes for the entirety of nine days and nine nights. The regression demonstrates how Doctor Manette’s mind has not fully healed the scars of his past; instead, he simply masks the pain with other problems, until he is reminded of his imprisonment.
When Doctor Manette returns to his normal self, Mr. Lorry questions him about someone who frequently goes back to the past in order to mask pain. Thinking that Mr. Lorry is speaking of just an ordinary friend, Manette tells him that, “I should hope that the worst is over” and there will be no more regressions. With more questioning, Lorry in a roundabout way convinces Manette that it would be best to take the “tools” used for the persons regression away. With Manette’s approval, Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry destroy all of Manette’s shoemaking tools and workbench.
Just hours after Charles Darnay and Lucie return home from their honeymoon, Sydney Carton arrives at their house to bid them congratulations. While visiting, Carton takes an opportunity to talk to Darnay in private. Carton sincerely apologizes to Darnay for all that he had done while intoxicated the night of the trial. At the end of their conversation, Carton asks for permission to “come and go as a privileged here; that I might be regarded as a useless (and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamented) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of.” Upon first reading this, I thought it was normal to ask permission to come over from time to time since Carton is trying to restore a ruined friendship. When I reread this part of the novel, I noticed the mention to the similarities in resemblance between Carton and Darnay. This makes me question if something will happen to Lucie that makes her fall in love with Carton over Darnay, since they are similar in looks. When Carton leaves, Lucie says to Darnay,
“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wound in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.”
With this statement by Lucie, and Carton’s statment in the earlier chapters that he would do anything for Lucie, makes me believe that at some point, the relationships between these three characters will change.
No comments:
Post a Comment