Student Question
Justify the title "Jackal" given to Sydney Carton in chapter 5 of Book II.
Quick answer:
Sydney Carton is labeled "Jackal" in Chapter 5 of Book II due to his role as a cunning and resourceful assistant to C. J. Stryver, much like a jackal in nature. He scavenges through legal briefs, rewriting them in a way Stryver cannot, and excels in manipulating court situations, akin to a trickster. The metaphor of the jackal to Stryver's lion highlights Carton's cleverness and essential support role in their legal partnership.
A jackal, portrayed in Indian folklore as a trickster, is an animal that scavenges and is able to exploit different foodstuffs. In biological terms, it is sympatric, a term that denotes two or more animals whose geographic ranges overlap. Since Sydney Carton of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities works in the same legal office with C. J. Stryver, and he reads through and digests the legal briefs, rewriting them in terms that Stryver cannot comprehend, and he is clearly a trickster in the courtroom, Carton is aptly called "The Jackal" in Chapter 5 of Book the Second.
After their night of drinking, Carton reads through Stryver's legal briefs:
At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selection from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both.
The metaphors of jackal and lion are appropriate to these characters.; Stryver simply takes from Carton what Carton has figured out. In the courtroom, Sydney Carton demonstrates the characteristic given to his nomenclature, the mythical jackal: He gets Charley Darnay acquitted based upon the confusion of his identity. Because he and Darnay look very similar, witnesses cannot positively identify him.
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