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A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

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Humanity is inherently flawed. Charles Dickens illustrates this in his novel A Tale of Two Cities as he writes about the lives of the Manettes and the people they draw around them. In this novel, Dickens uses Sydney Carton, a main character in the novel and the lover of Lucie Manette, to reveal his thoughts about the inherent nature of humanity. The characteristics of humanity change and mutate with the experiences of each person and the workings of their own mind, as illustrated by Mr. Stryver’s inhumane and thoughtless treatment of Sydney, the first time Sydney saves Charles Darnay’s life, and Sydney’s love for Lucie Manette. Mr. Stryver takes advantage of and uses Sydney Carton’s gifts for his own benefit, while filling Sydney with low self-esteem and self-doubt to such an extent that Sydney won’t stand up for himself. Sydney Carton selflessly does Stryver’s work for him, working late at night with wet towels wrapped around his head. He and Stryver were in school together and that is when his habit of doing others’ work for them started, as Dickens shows one late night: “‘The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewbury School,’ said Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, ‘the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and now in despondency!’ ‘Ah!’ returned the other, sighing: ‘yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own’” (Dickens 67). Sydney Carton

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