Character Analysis: Sydney Carton

Quotes from Tale of Two Cities that portray Sydney Carton's character traits.

By Katy Z.

Drunk, unsuccessful-

  “Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men” (dickens 89)

“Bring me another pint of this same wine” (pg 87)

“I am a dissapaited drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” (pg87)

“Why should you particularly like a man who resembles you…he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been!” (87)

“Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by the bumpers, looking at his friend” (140) (when stryver was telling carton about his idea of proposing to miss manette)

Passionate-

“think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” (153)

Holds grudges-

“’On the drunken occasion in question, I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it.’ ‘I forgot it long ago’” (205)

Pessimist-

“let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart top you, last of all the world; and that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity” (151)

“[I am] self-flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be” (150)

“heap of ashes I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.” (151)

Oh but what a passionate man Sydney Carton is! Poetic to the very last.

     

And our very respected writer:
Charles Dickens