After reading · Part II · Chapter 5
Part II · Chapter 5The Lion and the Jackal
Reading boundary
Start: Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard.
Stop after: resigning himself to let it eat him away.
Summary
Stryver’s legal reputation is rising, but Carton supplies much of the analysis behind it. Working through the night, Carton extracts the essential points from case papers while Stryver reclines, drinks, and accepts the finished material. Their lion-and-jackal arrangement repeats a pattern from school, when Carton did other boys’ work and neglected his own.
Stryver lectures him about ambition. Talk of Lucie makes Carton deny her beauty, though his attention to her in court suggests otherwise. At dawn he briefly imagines an honorable, purposeful life, then returns to his neglected room and weeps over abilities he cannot direct.
Who’s who
- Sydney Carton — A gifted but self-defeating legal assistant.
- Mr. Stryver — The successful advocate who profits from Carton’s thought.
- Lucie Manette — The witness whose image disturbs Carton’s indifference.