Alexandre Manette
Encyclopedia
Doctor Alexandre Manette is a character in Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

' novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....

. He is Lucie
Lucie Manette
Lucie Manette is a character in Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities.-Overview:She is the daughter of Dr. Alexander Manette. She is wise beyond her years; unfailingly kind and forgiving of people's faults. Her compassion for her father is what first attracts Charles Darnay to her. She...

's father, a brilliant physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, and spent eighteen years "in secret" as a prisoner in the Bastille
Bastille
The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. The Bastille was built in response to the English threat to the city of...

.

At the start of the novel, Manette does nothing but make shoes, a pastime that he adopted to distract himself from the tortures of prison. He is clearly not in his right mind during this time; he speaks only when necessary, and has become so used to being a prisoner that he can hardly bear light or freedom. As he overcomes his past as a prisoner, due to his daughter's love and devotion to him, however, he reassummes his occupation as a physician in England, and proves to be a kind, loving father who prizes his daughter’s happiness above all things. He even blesses her marriage to Charles Darnay; the son of the man who was responsible for his imprisonment (Darnay has completely renounced his family's ill-gotten fortune and is a good fellow, unaware of the harm that his father once bestowed on his current father-in-law). When Charles Darnay is arrested in France during the French Revolution, Manette is his witness that he is innocent. Unfortunately, Darnay is arrested again, due to a diary that Manette wrote when he was in jail, which sends Darnay back to prison. Darnay is condemned for his uncle's sins, but Sydney Carton (out of love for Lucie Manette), disguises himself as Charles and takes his place in the guillotine and dies for him.

Analysis

Dickens uses Doctor Manette in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, to illustrate one of the dominant motifs of the novel: the essential mystery that surrounds every human being. As Jarvis Lorry makes his way toward France to recover Manette, the narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 reflects that "every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." For much of the novel, the cause of Manette’s incarceration remains a mystery both to the other characters and to the reader. Even when the story concerning the evil Marquis St. Evrémonde comes to light, the conditions of Manette's imprisonment remain hidden. Though the reader never learns exactly how Manette suffered, his relapses into trembling sessions of shoemaking evidence the depth of his misery.
Like Carton, Manette undergoes a drastic change over the course of the novel. He is transformed from an insensate prisoner who mindlessly cobbles shoes into a man of distinction. The contemporary reader tends to understand human individuals not as fixed entities but rather as impressionable and reactive beings, affected and influenced by their surroundings and by the people with whom they interact. In Dickens' age, however, this notion was rather revolutionary. Manette’s transformation testifies to the tremendous impact of relationships and experience on life. The strength that he displays while dedicating himself to rescuing Darnay seems to confirm the lesson that Carton learns by the end of the novel — that not only does one's treatment of others play an important role in others' personal development, but also that the very worth of one's life is determined by its impact on the lives of others. His daughter "recalls him to life" after he is rescued from his cell in the Bastille. At the end of the first book of Tale of Two Cities he is asked:
"'I hope you care to be recalled to life?'
And the old answer:
'I can't say.'" He is imprisoned because he knows a secret of the Evermonde family that they are afraid he will release, causing the end of their wealth, influence, and power.

Cinematic and Theatrical Portrayals

In the 2008 Broadway musical adaptation of 'A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities (musical)
A Tale of Two Cities is a musical with book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello based on the novel of the same name by Charles Dickens....

,' Dr. Alexandre Manette is played by Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman is an American movie, television and theatre actor.Edelman was born in Chicago, Illinois, attended Niles North High School, where he starred as Lil' Abner opposite future soap star Nancy Lee Grahn, and was trained at Northwestern University...

.
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