The Orphan in A Tale of Two Cities

In Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities, we again encounter the figure of the orphan in the form of Sydney Carton. Carton is presented as a drunk, so dishevelled in his appearance that even though he looks like Charles Darnay no body at first look would think the two alike. He is thus never set up as an ideal figure to carry out functions that the orphan in other English novels, for example in Jane Eyre, carry out, that is the consolidation of the English domestic. In Jane Eyre, Jane is the figure that ultimately saves Mr. Rochester from the non-British elements in his homes, which include the colonies (in the form of Bertha Mason) and the European Continent (in the form of the multiple affairs Mr. Rochester has and educating Adele). Sydney too ultimately serves a similar purpose, when at the end of the novel he takes the place of Charles Darnay at the guillotine he saves the English domestic from the effects of the French rebellion that threaten to destroy it.