A Tale of Two CitiesIn the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, he compares many characters by including similar and contrasting characteristics between a character minor and a major character. Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton are characters who illustrate this comparison because at the beginning of the novel Carton is portrayed as a drunken and carefree man while Darnay, on the other hand, is the example of what Carton should be, successful, polite and respectable. Although Darnay is considered a major character, he would be nothing without Carton who is physically similar but typically different. At the beginning of the novel, Sydney Carton is introduced as Charles Darnay's doppelgänger while in court because Darnay was being tried for treason. When a witness takes the stand to tell the court that he had seen Darnay before in England, Darnay's lawyer is informed that there is someone who looks almost exactly like him and asks him if he has seen someone who looks extremely like him. . When the witness tells him no, Carton is called in and it is pointed out to him how he and Carton are almost alike. “So like each other in features, so different from each other in manners - standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above them” (79 Dickens ). Because Carton was present in the courtroom, Darnay was acquitted. It seems that this chapter foreshadows the rest of the book as Carton saves Darnay by convincing the jury that they are alike. Their similar appearances will save Darnay again at the end of the book when Carton sets up to die for him. But even throughout the book, many comparisons and contrasts are made between the two characters, the example being their shared love in the middle of a paper......e. Darnay did something heroic, which was to return to France after receiving a letter from Gabelle telling him that he needed help because he had been taken prisoner by the revolutionaries. “I was seized, with great violence and indignity, and I made a long journey. on foot to Paris” (243 Dickens). Darnay goes to help Gabelle, but it ends up backfiring on him, as he had also been arrested for being an émigré. At this point in the book it would seem that Carton is the protagonist because his character has been built up and changed considerably while Charles has not changed as much as Sydney. Because Sydney changed so much in the book, Charles wouldn't have changed. been the character he had been because if Sydney hadn't helped him, Charles would have died a long time ago and would never have married Lucie or become part of her family.