Beginning of Essay
Sydney Carton dies on the guillotine to spare Charles Darnay. How you interpret Carton's sacrifice- positively or negatively- will affect your judgment of his character, and of Dickens' entire work. Some readers take the positive view that Carton's act is a tri ....

Middle of Essay
.... see Carton's dying in Darnay's place as Christ-like? It wipes away his sin, just as Christ's death washed clean man's accumulated sins. For readers who choose the negative view, Carton's death seems an act of giving up. These readers point out that Stryver's jackal has little to lose. Never useful or happy, Carton has already succumbed to the depression eating away at him. In the midst of a promising youth, Carton had "followed his father to the grave"- that is, he's already dead in spirit. For such a man, physical death would seem no sacrifice, but a welcome relief. Some readers even go so far as to claim that Carton's happy vision of th ....