"Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickens Charles)

"double," Charles Darnay. For some readers, Carton is the more
memorable half of the Carton/Darnay pair. They argue that Dickens
found it easier to create a sympathetic bad character than an
interesting good one. Carton's own feelings toward his look-alike
waver between admiration and hostility. But see this for yourself,
by noticing Carton's rudeness to Darnay after the Old Bailey trial.
When Darnay has gone, Carton studies his image in a mirror, realizing
that the young Frenchman is everything he might have been--and
therefore a worthy object of hatred.

It's interesting that both Carton and Darnay can function in two
cultures, English and French. Darnay, miserable in France, becomes a
happy French teacher in England. In a kind of reversal, Carton, a
lowly jackal in London, immortalizes himself in Paris.

Carton and Darnay have one further similarity--the doubles may
represent separate aspects of Dickens. If we see Darnay as Dickens'
light side, then Carton corresponds to an inner darkness. The
unhappy lawyer is a man of prodigious intelligence gone to waste, a
man who fears he'll never find happiness. These concerns mirror
Dickens' own worries about the direction his career was taking in the
late 1850s, and about his disintegrating marriage. It's been
suggested that Dickens, though a spectacularly successful writer, had
no set place in the rigid English class system. Regarded from this
perspective, Dickens, like Carton, was a social outsider.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES: CHARLES DARNAY

Charles Darnay has many functions: he holds a place in the story, in
Dickens' scheme of history, and in Dickens' life. We can view him on
the surface as A Tale of Two Cities' romantic lead. We can also look
for depth, starting at Darnay's name.

St. Evremonde is Darnay's real name. He is French by birth, and
English by preference, and emerges as a bicultural Everyman. He's a
common, decent person, caught in circumstances beyond his control.
Darnay isn't merely caught in the Revolution, he's pulled by it, as
if by a magnet. He's at the mercy of fate.

Besides fate, a leading theme, Darnay illustrates a second concern of
the novel: renunciation or sacrifice. He gives up his estate in
France, substituting for his old privileges the very unaristocratic
ideal of work. Darnay's political liberalism and decision to earn
his own living (tutoring young Englishmen in French language and
literature) put him in conflict with his uncle, the Marquis St.
Evremonde. If you've ever disagreed with a member of your own
family, multiply your differences by ten and you'll understand the
relationship between Charles Darnay and his uncle. The two men live
in different philosophical worlds. Young Darnay signals the new,
progressive order (though you'll see that he's never tagged a