#Sydney Carton

[105nt]

I finished re-reading Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney in bed this morning. I think when I first read it, it was in a couple of sittings because of all contemporary authors I find her style the easiest to read and her stories interesting and these two things combine to "Oops, where did my book go?"

Then I must have dozed off and woke up thinking about the letter that Sydney Carton has Charles Darnay write to Lucy Manette, from the Conciergerie. Not just thinking about it really, it appeared word-perfect in my head, but minus all the little interruptions. I then had a strong urge to reproduce the letter. 😂 My handwriting is not up to it but to be fair, the man's in prison and being chloroformed as he writes.

[pureanonofficial]

I am going to [remembers suicide jokes badly impact my mental health] get guillotined in place of my unrequited love's husband.

[szyszkasosnowa]

There's no tumblr fandom for Sydney Carton? Sydney? Carton? Depressed alcoholic man? Sydney? Pathetic depressed disheveled man? Unrequited love Sydney Carton? Grantaire if he was British? Sacrifice out of love and self-loathing? No fandom? For Sydney?

[oscarwetnwilde]

James Wilby as Sydney Carton in “A Tale of Two Cities” (1989)

[mygentlehope]

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”  — Sydney Carton, A Tale of Two Cities • Charles Dickens

Edit for my most recently finished book.

Image source: Pinterest

[secretmellowart]

A rough Sydney Carton sketch. Some book club buddies recently reminded me of my high school phase of “desperately searching the internet for Carton fanart,” so here’s sad tragique Carton for all those who follow in my footsteps. (There are dozens of us, dozens! )

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 70: Assorted Performances IX

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.

[stickwalk]

sydney carton is low key such a boy failure like he’s an alcoholic he cries himself to sleep he’s pathetic he wastes all his potential on purpose he works for a boss that treats him like shit and is okay with that he begs to be friends with charles

[secretmellowblog]

It’s amazing how well Sydney Carton speaks to the Angsty Teenage Psyche. Thank you Charles Dickens for writing a character geared specifically towards the mindset of sad nerdy high schoolers. I spent so long in high school obsessed with Sydney Carton and it’s because Charles dickens accidentally (?) created exactly the kind of content that caters to that specific kind of soul. He made my teen self feel seen. Truly powerful.

[artist-issues]

How many times do we have to say:

Create characters with strength of virtue, not strength of skills.

I just finished A Tale of Two Cities with the character Lucie Manette, who "does" nothing but love the people around her and extend compassion toward everyone within her sphere of influence. She makes no "choices" that contemporary audiences would award the stupid badge of "giving her agency" to. She doesn't make a speech that saves Charles Darnay's life. She doesn't lead the victims of the French Revolution into a counter-revolt. She doesn't fight off the soldiers that come to take her husband, or beat up Madame Defarge when she threatens her child, or even come up with the escape plan to flee Paris.

She makes none of those kinds of choices. (You know who does? Madame Defarge. But the compare-contrast between those two can wait till another day.)

But she makes these kinds of choices:

She'll give her honest testimony in a trial for a potential traitor to the crown, and demonstrate her compassion and grief for a near-stranger, wearing that vulnerability on her sleeve in front of a huge court of people clamoring for blood.

She'll be compassionate toward Sydney Carton, even though he's rude, careless, and brings a bad attitude into her happy home.

She'll spend the energy of her life making that home happy.

She'll stand for two hours in any weather on the bloody streets of the French Revolution so her husband might have a chance of glimpsing her and getting some comfort from the prison window.

She'll trust the older men in her life when they ask her to.

She'll allow an old woman to care for her and go everywhere she goes, and treat her like a child, as long as it makes the old woman in question happy.

And what, WHAT is the consequence of these kinds of decisions, choices, that some ignorant people call "passive?"

That old woman is allowed to love Lucie Manette so much that she defeats the villainess in the climax of the story, holding Madame Defarge back from getting revenge with sheer strength that comes directly from that love.

Her father is allowed to draw strength from the fact that Lucie believes she can depend on him--because she chooses to let her father take the lead and do the work of saving her husband, Dr. Manette is fully "recalled to life;" he doesn't have to identify as a traumatized, mentally unstable victim anymore, because Lucie is treating him like he can be the hero.

Her husband does see her in the street, and does draw strength from that--just that--instead of losing his mind the way her father, starved for a glimpse of his loved ones, did during his own imprisonment.

Lucie's home is so full of the love and kindness that she fills it with that not only does her father return to remembering who he is after his long imprisonment--but Mr. Lorry, a bachelor with no family, can feel at home with a full life, there. Miss Pross, whose family abandoned and bankrupt her, has a home with a full life, there. Charles Darnay, whose life of riches and pleasure as a Marquis was empty, has a home with a full life, there. In Lucie's home, because she spends her life making it the kind of home others can find rest in.

Sydney Carton, a man whose whole life has been characterized by a LACK of "care" for himself or anyone else, suddenly cares about Lucie. When he thought it was impossible to. And he doesn't care about her because she's pretty. Her beauty was just a source of bitterness for him--one more pleasure he could've had but can't. Until he "saw her with her father," and saw her strength of virtue, of pity, of compassion, of self-sacrificial love--then he felt that she "kindled me, a heap of ashes, into fire." He started caring about life again, where it was associated with her, because she brought to life every good thing. Just by being a woman of good virtue. And we know what that inspiration led him to.

Without Lucie's strength of virtue, and the decisions that naturally came from that, none of the "active" choices other characters made would have happened. Sydney would not have been redeemed. Darnay would not have been saved. Her father never would've been recalled to life. Miss Pross and Mr. Lorry would've had no light or love in their lives. Even Jerry would've had no occasion to learn from his mistakes and resolve to stop abusing his family.

A character like Dickens' Golden Thread, who does what a woman should do, inspires the choices other characters make. That makes her more powerful, in her own way, than the heroes and any decisions they make. Because she's the cause. She's the inspiration. She's the representation of everything good, right, precious, worth fighting for.

Lucie Manette's not the only character like this. Cinderella. The original Disney Jasmine. The original Disney Ariel. Lady Galadriel. Jane Eyre. Amy March.

"Behind every great man is a great woman," indeed! Absolutely! Bravo!

Hang on! Hang on to those kinds of characters. Those a real "strong female" characters. The muses, the inspirations, the reminders of The Greater Good. The people who make fighting the dragons worth it at all. Who cares about fighting the dragon? That's not so great, without her.

Don't forget those kinds of characters! Reading Dickens just makes me desperate for our generation to keep up the reminder: make characters that the next ten generations can learn from: strength of virtue is much more important than silly little strength of skill.

[femmehysteria]

I'm doing a series of "Best Character Named X" polls where all the characters have the same first name but are from completely different media, feel free to send in name/charcacter suggestions, I'm posting one poll a day, check my pinned post for active polls

[mxcottonsocks]

Normal things to say while having a drink with a new acquaintance:

"I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I."

"Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of such sympathy and compassion?"

"Do you think I particularly like you?"

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

“describe your favorite book in the worst way possible” me:

[oscarwetnwilde]

James Wilby as Sydney Carton in “A Tale of Two Cities” (1989).

[cursemewithyourkiss]

Ronald Colman talking about Sydney Carton.

[aceofspades-sml]

Hiya my fellow classic lit people I have a small question for you

Does anyone know a good movie/TV/stage adaptation for Dickens's Tale of two cities ? I know there are a few but. well I have often been disappointed with adaptations of classics and I can see how it would be hard for a movie to convey the spirit of this specific one so. If anyone has any recommendations I am all ears