I finished Tale of Two Cities last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Each character seemed expertly crafted to fulfill some kind of purpose toward the end. Miss Poss had her scene with her brother, and the final showdown with Madam Defarge. Mr. Lorry was useful and interesting throughout. Even Mr. Cruncher had a couple fantastic redeeming monologues at the end, and though the book seemed to want me to dislike him through most of the novel (and I did) I ended up very much liking him after all.
But Stryver seemed to drop off the face of the novel. The whole chapter of his advances toward Lucie seems totally pointless, and never went anywhere. I was expecting his acceptance of the fact that Lucie wouldn't marry him to be a ruse. That he actually hadn't accepted the fact, and was going to try again in some nefarious way later in the novel. But that never happened.
Maybe every character doesn't need to have a major purpose. Maybe being Sydney's boss, and the guy who says a couple mean things to charles at Tellson's was enough of a purpose for him. But even then, his advances on Lucie weren't necessary. Maybe those were there just to show that Lucie is desired by everybody, but that still just doesn't seem necessary. Is it possible that, since he wrote and published the book chunks at a time in a paper, that he meant to do something more with him but never did? Am I looking at this the wrong way in expecting there to be more than there is? Or did I miss some point, purpose, or meaning somewhere?
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