A Tale of Two Cities · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Mr. Jarvis Lorry
major
Also known as Mr. Lorry, Jerry, the innocent Mr. Lorry, the discreet Mr. Lorry, the gentle Mr. Lorry, the sagacious Mr. Lorry
Lorry is the trusted London agent dispatched to Dover and then Paris on Tellson's business, a man so identified with the bank that he speaks of himself in the plural and calls his work 'business.' His guarded, methodical temperament hides a deep well of loyalty and tenderness, especially toward the Manettes, whom he has served since before Lucie could walk. He is the steady hand that carries the plot's first secret and later becomes the family's most reliable ally in revolutionary Paris.
Charles Darnay
major
Also known as Mr. Darnay, Darnay, young Mr. Darnay, Charles, Mr. Charles, Charles Darnay, Evrémonde, Charles Evrémonde
Darnay lives in London as a teacher of French, having turned his back on the Evrémonde name and the cruelties attached to it. He loves Lucie from the moment she testifies at his treason trial, but hesitates to speak, weighed down by the shadow of his family's past and a promise he must keep to Dr. Manette. His choice to live honestly rather than inherit privilege places him between two nations and makes his fate a test of whether a man can escape the sins of his blood.
Sydney Carton
major
Also known as Carton, Sydney, Syd, dear Carton, Mr. Carton, poor Mr. Carton
Carton works as Stryver's silent legal mind, a man whose talents are wasted on drink and whose chief occupation is despising himself. He loves Lucie with a hopeless clarity, telling her plainly that he would only drag her down, and asking nothing in return but that she remember him now and then. His confession in Soho is one of the novel's most tender scenes, and it plants the seed of a devotion that will prove, in the end, to be the most selfless force in the book.
Lucie Manette
major
Also known as Lucie, the little Lucie, little Lucie, Manette, Lucie Darnay, Little Lucie, Miss Lucie, Ladybird
Lucie is the emotional center of the novel, the 'golden thread' who reunites with her long-imprisoned father and restores him to himself. She marries Charles Darnay and builds a quiet, orderly household in Soho, but when revolution tears her family apart she waits daily outside a Paris prison in all weathers, hoping for a glimpse of her husband. Her loyalty and steadiness are not passive; they are the moral counterweight to the novel's violence, and the reason so many characters are willing to sacrifice for her.
Doctor Manette
major
Also known as Manette, Dear Doctor Manette, the Doctor, the shoemaker, Alexandre Manette, Monsieur Manette, the Doctor of Beauvais
Manette was 'recalled to life' from the Bastille, a shoemaker by compulsion whose mind still retreats to his prison bench in moments of stress. Restored to energy and purpose in London, he becomes a respected physician and a devoted father, but his old suffering leaves him fitful and fragile beneath the surface. When Darnay returns to revolutionary France, Manette's influence and his buried history with the Evrémondes become the pivot on which the family's survival turns.
Madame Defarge
major
Also known as Defarge, madame, Madame, Therese Defarge, Therese
Madame Defarge sits in the Saint Antoine wine-shop, knitting names into a pattern only she can read, and when the Revolution comes she becomes one of its most pitiless agents. She tells Lucie that 'the daughter of your father' is her business, not the husband, hinting at a grievance older and more personal than politics. Her cold composure and her refusal to be moved by another woman's plea make her the novel's most frightening figure, a shadow that falls on Lucie and her child long before the Terror begins.
Monsieur Defarge
supporting
Also known as Defarge, friend Defarge, Ernest Defarge
Defarge runs a squalid Saint-Antoine shop that doubles as the nerve-center of a revolutionary cell, and he is the one who once retrieved a broken shoemaker from the Bastille's shadow. He moves with a publican's ease but speaks in subdued tones when the door is shut, deferring to his wife's colder certainty while nursing his own long patience. His careful, methodical recruiting gives the coming storm a human face and a paper trail.
Miss Pross
supporting
Also known as Good Miss Pross, Pross
Miss Pross keeps house in Soho with a fierce, comic possessiveness, treating Lucie's suitors as trespassers and her father as a sacred trust. Her one soft spot is a feckless brother, Solomon, whose reappearance under another name exposes old wounds and new dangers. In a story of quiet domestic threads and gathering foreign storms, she is the knot that refuses to slip.
Mr. Cruncher
supporting
Also known as Jerry, Jerry Cruncher, Mr. Jerry Cruncher, Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, Sounding Mr. Cruncher
Cruncher ferries errands and secrets between London and Soho, grumbling about his wife's 'flopping' prayers while slipping out at odd hours with a crowbar and a sack. He recognizes Solomon Pross in a Paris wine-shop and blurts a question that nearly undoes a spy's cover. His grubby, half-comic presence threads the bank, the Manettes, and the coming reckoning together.
Mr. Stryver
supporting
Also known as Stryver, Bully Stryver
Stryver bullies his way through the Old Bailey and the Temple, dragging Carton behind him like a towed boat, and grows rich on verdicts his jackal actually won. Encouraged by a courtroom triumph, he decides to marry Lucie Manette and is quietly, firmly refused. His blundering self-regard throws Carton's self-loathing into sharper relief and clarifies exactly what kind of man the story's heroine will not have.
Monseigneur
supporting
Also known as Monsieur the Marquis, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, Marquis
The Marquis St. Evrémonde glides through Paris in a gilded coach, tossing a coin to a grieving father as if grief were a toll. He is uncle to Charles Darnay, who has renounced the family name and its cruelties, and the two men's contempt for each other is mutual and absolute. His casual brutality in the early chapters plants the debt that the Revolution will one day collect.
Mr. Barsad
supporting
Also known as Barsad, John Barsad, John, Solomon, Solomon John, dear Solomon, John Solomon
Barsad testifies against Charles Darnay at the Old Bailey as a hired witness, then resurfaces in Paris as a jailer and spy — and as Miss Pross's long-lost brother Solomon. Madame Defarge records his description in her knitted register with a laugh at how accurate it is. His double-dealing makes him useful to nearly everyone and trustworthy to no one, a hinge on which several later rescues turn.
Young Jerry
minor
Also known as Jerry, the brisk Young Jerry, Master Cruncher
The curious son of Mr. Cruncher who follows his father's night work.
Jacques
minor
Also known as Jacques Three, Jacques Two, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques One, Jacques One Thousand
A collective name for the revolutionary conspirators in Saint Antoine.
Monsieur Gabelle
minor
Also known as Gabelle, the said Gabelle, Citizen Gabelle
The tax collector for the Evrémonde estate who is imprisoned during the Revolution.
The Vengeance
minor
Also known as Vengeance, The amiable Vengeance, little Vengeance
A fierce female revolutionary and companion to Madame Defarge.
Roger Cly
minor
Also known as Cly, one Roger Cly
A spy who fakes his own death to escape England.
Gaspard
minor
Also known as the poor Gaspard, poor Gaspard
A peasant whose child is killed by the Marquis's carriage.
Mrs. Cruncher
minor
Also known as Cruncher, the dejected Mrs. Cruncher
The pious and long-suffering wife of Mr. Cruncher.
Foulon
minor
Also known as Miscreant Foulon, This Foulon, old Foulon
A hated French official who fakes his death but is captured by the mob.
