A Tale of Two Cities

In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, the character of Sydney Carton was presented as an alcoholic lawyer with very low self-esteem. He progressed as a character and changed slightly in appearance mainly in Chapter 20 of Book the Second. In the preceding chapters, Carton is merely described as a drunkard, frequenting tavern and downing copious amounts of wine. Charles Darnay used a sarcastic understatement, “I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton” (71) to highlight …

…who was an outcast, and it causes the reader to look at Carton a bit differently from that point forward. In conclusion, Carton was a drunkard lawyer with low self-esteem that was lacking in many ways, but had positive traits on the inside. He chose not to allow those traits to show very often, but they were still apparent. Sydney Carton is a very integral character to this book, showing a very dynamic personal change.