Lucie Manette Essay

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Melena Salitrik Tale of Two Cities Project January 10, 2013 Lucie Manette In Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, Lucie Manette who is titled the “golden thread”, symbolizes loyalty, compassion, love, and resurrection. Dickens described Lucie as being the perfect women both physically and mentally and possessing the power to recall others to life. He portrays her as a kindhearted, admirable woman who inspires great love and loyalty in the other characters. Although Lucie is technically a minor-developed and stale character, she is an important character and her role plays a big part in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Dickens uses the metaphor of the golden thread to emphasize the theme that only a very strong bond can give someone the will to be ‘recalled to life’. Lucie is compared to a “golden thread”, in reference to her golden locks that had first brought Doctor Manette from his semi-conscious state. Lucie is the only person who is able to keep Doctor Manette from going back to the shoemaker he was. She helped her father in improving from the shoemaker to the doctor. She guided him out of craziness after devoting herself to him. For example, her love was the only thing that could keep him from reverting to his old ways; “She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always.” (2.4.3). Lucie’s father was once a broken man but with Lucie as his golden thread he was able to forget about his past and start living in the present as a new person. He started to live his life through Lucie as she starts being his conduit to his own experiences. Although Doctor Manette is sometimes still haunted by his imprisonment and these episodes come over him “only his daughter has the power of
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