- Folks drank a lot in those days.
- Unsurprisingly, Mr. Stryver drinks a lot. So does Carton.
- Here’s the difference, though: when Stryver gets drunk, he becomes worthless.
- Come to think of it, Stryver’s often worthless.
- Carton, on the other hand, can down a few and still be on top of his game.
- For reasons that no one can figure out, Carton and Stryver are thick as thieves. They’re BFFs.
- Okay, they’re not exactly friends: Carton can’t stand the fact that Stryver’s a big jerk.
- Nonetheless, he spends most of his nights solving Stryver’s cases for him.
- Stryver, in the meanwhile, gets very, very drunk and mumbles to himself.
- There’s a good reason why Stryver calls Carton "Memory": he’s the brains behind all of Stryver’s operations.
- Dickens starts to have some fun with the relationship between Carton and Stryver.
- Stryver’s sort of like a lion…he’s at the top of the food chain. King of the hill.
- And if Stryver’s a lion, then Carton is…a jackal.
- Lions are hunters; jackals are scavengers, scooping up the leftovers after animals like lions bring home the prey.
- Hmm…does something seem off here?
- For one thing, Stryver’s the guy who’s getting spoon-fed legal insight from Carton.
- For another…well, the first one was all we had, actually.
- But you get the picture. The metaphor doesn’t quite fit. Could Dickens be using a little bit of irony here?
- Stryver gets pretty happy on his punch and, after a while, he begins to reminisce about his past.
- And Carton’s past, come to think of it.
- They’ve been together since school.
- Back in the old days, Carton used to write Stryver’s term papers. Now he’s writing Stryver’s legal briefs.
- Some things never change.
- As Stryver pours himself another drink, he wants Carton to drink to the "pretty witness" who came to court today.
- Carton gulps for a second, and then he mutters some unpleasant things about Lucie.
- Okay, they’re not that bad. But he does call her a "golden doll."
- Stryver’s taken aback. He was sure he caught Carton staring at Lucie for most of the day.
- Carton insists that Lucie means nothing to him. Nothing. Seriously.
- Falling back into a drunken stupor, Stryver heads to bed.
- Left by himself, Carton ponders why his life is so unhappy.
- He imagines love and happiness for a brief moment, but then his masochism sets back in.
- He could never win Lucie.
- Depressed, he settles back in for another drink.