A comparative study of Sydney Carton in Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, and Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet

Both author’s illustrate well, that a lack of love can have a profound effect on the behavior of a person. Whether a person has never experienced love by fortune or by design, the initial introduction of love into the personality can be intense. Dickens introduces Sydney Carton to us immediately after a tri

Each of the characters has done that. Carton gave his life for the lives of Lucie and her family, Romeo for Juliet and Juliet for Romeo. Is this true nature of love? Does it have to be so devastating in the end? The authors would have one believe it is so. That to truly understand the magnitude of effects of love on the human condition, one must be prepared to forfeit it all.

At first glance, the characters seem worlds apart. When in fact, they are each so similar in their final selfless acts of love, that one wonders if this is a true snapshot of being self-sacrificing. To give one’s life for the love of another…is this self-sacrifice or cowardice. We now see how love can open one’s heart and mind to wonders previously unimagined. We see that it can be a redeeming quality in an otherwise miserable existence.

al, speaking to his client. It is at this point that we get a glimpse of the character of Carton, "…who smelled of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober…" (Dickens, 100). Carton is so disillusioned with his own life, that he can’t even like his client [who looks like him], "Do you particularly like the man?’ He muttered, at his own image; ‘why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like…" (Dickens 103). Romeo Montague is no less desultory, but youth is his excuse, while alcohol and lifelong disappointment are Carton’s. Shakespeare has Friar Lawrence state [about Romeo’s multiple infatuations], "Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes" (1.3.67-68). Having not experienced life yet, Romeo does not yet understand the nature of love. He still sees it as a physical reaction, rather than emotional, "For beauty, starved with her severity / cuts beauty off from all prosperity" (1.1.227-228). Juliet is so immature and unskilled in the ways of love, that she shares

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