Closely connected to the theme of sacrifice is the promise of resurrection. Christianity teaches that Christ was resurrected into eternal life for making the ultimate sacrifice (his death) for mankind. Near the end of A Tale of Two Cities, Carton remembers a Christian prayer: "I am the resurrection and the life." As he goes to the guillotine to sacrifice himself, Carton has a vision of his own resurrection, both in heaven and on earth through Lucie and Charles's child, named Sydney Carton, whose life fulfills the original Carton's lost potential. Yet Carton's is not the only resurrection in the novel. After having been imprisoned for years, Dr. Manette is "recalled to life" by Lucie's love. Jerry Cruncher, meanwhile, works as a "resurrection man" stealing body parts from buried corpses, but by the end of the novel he gives it up in favor of praying for a holier resurrection of his own.
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The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Resurrection appears in each chapter of A Tale of Two Cities. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Below you will find the important quotes in A Tale of Two Cities related to the theme of Resurrection.
Book 1, Chapter 6
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If you hear in my voice … any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!
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Book 2, Chapter 4
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Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. 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.
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Book 2, Chapter 10
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He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him.
Book 2, Chapter 20
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My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.
Book 3, Chapter 8
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Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man.
Book 3, Chapter 15
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"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
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