Essay Sample on Salvation in A Tale Of Two Cities

“What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin?” (95) In his famed novel, A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens portrays salvation as a sacrificial gift of God which transforms man and heals his brokenness. In order to accept salvation, man must first reject his life of sin, which is a wilderness of misery, for he can have no voluntary companionship with the evil which has harmed him. Dickens writes this view of salvation into the dualistic characters of Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Though quite similar in appearance, the two men differ vastly in personality and lifestyle, and most importantly, in their stories of salvation. 

It has been stated that renewal begins with renunciation of evil, and Charles’s renewal began in just this way, with the sacrifice of his mother. As all humanity after the Fall has been born into original sin, Charles was born into the oppression, extortion, and egotism of the aristocracy, which his dissenting mother begged him to amend and take leave of, “the last look of my dear mother’s eyes. .  implored me to have mercy and to redress. .” (94) In order to be saved, Charles must of necessity throw off the iniquities of his family. He is thoroughly disgusted by the  ways of his family, so he renounces the family name and inheritance before departing for a new life in England. As a marker of his interior transformation, Darnay’s way of life changes totally; whereas he previously depended on extortion to live, he now works for his bread: “I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day–work” (95) It is manifest to him that with the abandonment of his old life will come a certain amount of hardship, but this has little influence against his decision. Yet, it is not only revulsion, but also attraction which plays a role in his salvation. The compassion, beauty, and sincere pity of Lucie Manette draws him to her, and, by consequence, away from his old life. “He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice.” (99-100) In Lucie, Charles finds a love and purity which he has probably never encountered before, and it has a magnetic influence upon him. Darnay has witnessed the practices of his family, has participated in them, and has found them to be evil. He has had his fill of oppression and extortion. Finding in Lucie, and seeing by her light a “sacred object” to be pursued, he eagerly casts off his evil inheritance. 

Very different is the story of Sydney Carton from that of Charles Darnay. Whereas Charles’s evil life was one of inheritance, Sydney held great promise as a youth. However, he turned to the sins of sloth and drunkenness, and, having done so, found it too great a task to turn back from them of his own weak will. The transformative power of salvation is hinted at when Carton reveals his heart to Lucie: “Since I knew you, I. . have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent forever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, and shaking off sloth and sensuality.” (116) Lucie’s goodness and compassion have awakened in him a desire to reject his dissolute life, but he utterly despairs in his ability to actualize this desire. Sydney finds that resolve, however, the night before Darnay’s execution day. With a premonition that his life is drawing to close, he symbolically abandons his life of sensuality: “Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped”, “like a man who had done with it.” (237, 262) Carton’s repentance takes the form of denying himself that thing in which he used to indulge and wallow. Instead of surrendering himself to drunkenness, he pours the brandy into the fire as a vow that it shall never master him again. Later that same night, while wandering the streets of Paris, he meditates on the prayer spoken at his father’s funeral: “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” (243) Here, Carton’s despair in himself is fulfilled by belief in God’s power to save him. Still deeply aware of his blindness, wrongdoing, and error, he petitions God to consider them with mercy, and entrusts himself to Him Who is love and mercy itself. 

Carton is undoubtedly conscious of the fact that, because of his human weakness, he has not accomplished his own redemption; he has been saved through God’s freely-given gift of grace. Long ago, he had promised Lucie that he would make any sacrifice to keep a life she loves out of harm’s way. Now, her beloved husband, Charles, is indeed in harm’s way. He has fallen into Carton's former predicament, for he finds himself imprisoned and sentenced to death with no way of helping himself. “Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flattering delusion since he came to it. . In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him.” (269) Charles has resigned himself to his sad fate, since he has in himself no hope of salvation. Now, only sacrifice can save him from his physical predicament, just as only the acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice had been powerful enough to recall Sydney from his spiritual one. Resolved to give his life for Charles and for Lucie, Carton visits Darnay in prison and changes clothes with him in order to secretly smuggle him out and die in his place. “Take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine. . Change that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine.” (272) Herein the sacrificial aspect of salvation is revealed, for just as Christ took on the raiment of our human nature and suffered so that we might be clothed in His divinity, so Sydney Carton, a free man, changes attire with Charles Darnay, a condemned man, that he might live. To the purpose of changing places with Darnay, Carton induces him to “give up” his imprisonment by rendering him unconscious with a vapor, and has him taken out of the prison while unconscious. Sydney’s sacrifice happily reunites the family of Charles and Lucie Darnay, and enables them to live on to greater good. Just prior to his execution, Carton muses, “I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. .” (292) In giving up his life for the Darnays, Sydney Carton restores life and liberty to him, and attains peace for himself. 

In the characters of Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, both as individuals and in relationship with each other, Dickens wrote an exquisite ode to salvation. Salvation requires sacrifice, and must be accepted by the recipient if it is to be efficacious. Both men found themselves in dire need of salvation, and were saved by the sacrifice of another. Fulfillment of these saving acts was achieved by each man’s rejection of the evil life he had lived, which he found to be nothing but a wilderness of misery and ruin. Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton accepted salvation, and were restored and healed by it.