The chapter you want to look at is Chapter Four of Book
the First, which reports the conversation that Mr. Jarvis Lorry has with Miss Lucie
Manette when he reveals to her that her father is still alive. What is key to note is
the physical response with which Lucie greets this news and how it reveals what a
typical Dickensian heroine she is:
A shiver ran through her frame, and from it
throgh his. She said, in a a low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it
in a dream,
"I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his
Ghost--not him!"
The complete
shock and silence with which she greets this news reveals the tender nature of her
character, and how she is presented as a weak female figure in need of support from
other characters, as the swift arrival of Miss Pross to restore her amply demonstrates.
Interestingly, Dickens pictured Lucie Manette as the perfect female, and the way she
exposes her vulnerability and weakness in response to the news of her father's existence
illustrates this, and also Dickens' rather chauvanistic notions of what a "perfect
female" constituted.
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