Lucie Manette, and why does everyone fall in love with her?

Why do Darnay/Carton/[Stryver] fall in love with Lucie? We're not shown anything except her being sweet, dutiful, golden-haired, and obedient. Does she have good qualities I've overlooked? It takes away from believability that they're not shown. The rest of the novel's like that too: stuff happens, but it's not character-driven. Too much happens without the reader seeing any reason for it, like a film reduced to precisely two hours for Hollywood. I found myself flicking back a page and wondering 'oh, how many years passed in that otherwise uneventful paragraph?'.

It's more like a history than a novel. I wish Shakespeare or someone had lived long enough to sieze the storyline, which is compelling; it's just not well told.

Dare I mention how none of the characters seem particularly multi-dimensional? They command interest because the story's interesting, but we don't see anything of them beyond what's required for the plot. It's more story notes than a novel, with too much description.

Tell me why I'm wrong. :)

I think Lucie is beloved because she is sweet, caring, pretty, and dutiful. She brightens the room around her. Men really do love feminine women.

Let's look at who really loves her. Her father loves her because she brings him back to life, and of course she's his daughter. Father's love their daughters. Charles Darnay falls in love with her because she is beautiful, she is strong, patient, kind, and loving. When people are unselfishly loving to another, as Charles saw of her during the trip from France to England, you can imagine that this character trait would be desirable and compelling. When individuals are that good, it's natural to be attracted to them. She's also very brave and honest, as he saw in the courtroom where she was forced to testify. It's no stretch to see that he would be attracted to her, and that Sydney Carton would be too, because he saw her in the courtroom too. You can't count the other lawyer, Stryver, because he doesn't really love her. She was there in a courtroom full of men, she stood out for her beauty, and that's all he cares about. Basically, Darnay and Carton fall in love with her, but not all at once; they spend time with Lucie and her father; the more they see of her, the more they realize that she is a woman of depth. That's not farfetched or unrealistic at all.

I hate how the characters are only one-deminsional! It would be so much more interesting if the characters had more inner conflictes. I was wondering myself why everybody falls in love with Lucy, she seems like a boring person from what I have read. Also I hate how Dickens writes a paragraph out of one sentence and its about one thing. It is hard to read his book due to the fact that he never gets to the point and he doesn't put in vital details about what is going on and why. At any rate I'm almost through with the book and I will never have to read it again :D

A Tale of Two Cities is centered around the plot, around the struggle; it's about the times, about the history, about the evil that exists in extremes. To say that the characters are shallow is almost redundant, they are but vehicles for ideas. Dickens paints a realistic picture of life in extremes, he makes out both the aristocracy and revolutionaries to be evil; he uses Darnay and Dr. Mannette to show the effects of the past on the present, as well as to further slander the aristocracy. So yes, the characters are shallow, but that was what Dickens wanted.

For all of those questioning Dickens' way of describing everything in such detail, read the following. At the time that Dickens wrote the book, he published the writing in small sections each month. Think of it as a monthly magazine. If every month he could only write so much, he had to make sure to pack as much in as he could.

I think this novel is well written -- i find it hard to put down! The revolution and defarges are very compelling/interesting. I don't like Lucie either as she is so perfect - i wish she would have slapped carton as he declared his love, or maybe was overwhelemed by passion/repulsion and kissed him. But alas! then she would not be her perfect self.
Also, think how few novels are set directly in the revolution, in the 'center of the hurricane' as Dickens says. He has many many balls in the air, time being one. and really, he could have stretched this novel on forev.e..r... as he is very capable of doing (see little dorrit, etc.). I think it much more consice and well paced than his other novels and I really enjoy his more poetic phrases.

in the first place you have to remember that lucie is a character which dickens had created and as we all know all dicken's novels have abig amount of reality so i think dickens had met someone like lucie in his real life and he tried to recover her in his mind even if she wasn't a real character and you are welcomed<email:[email protected]>