“When you start being enthusiastic about whatever it is you like, that is the golden age for you.”
Michael Winterbottom
Great literature should do more than entertain us. It should provide a roadmap to improving our lives.
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens introduced readers to Sydney Carton, one of literature's most compelling and deeply flawed characters. Dickens also gives him an unusual title: the Jackal.
His struggles raise questions that remain relevant today.
Are we defined by our past mistakes? Can we overcome our weaknesses? What separates the people we are from the people we could become?
Lessons From the Jackal is a 25-day character study exploring these questions through Sydney Carton’s life, decisions, relationships, and personal development.
This is not a traditional course on A Tale of Two Cities. Our reading assignments will focus specifically on Carton, with sufficient background provided to understand his story. No previous knowledge of the novel is necessary.
Each day will feature selected readings, historical comparisons, reflection questions, discussions, and practical challenges ...
In today's reading, we learn that Lucie and Charles Darnay have experienced the death of their young son. For families living in eighteenth-century England, childhood mortality was a tragic but familiar reality. Diseases such as smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough claimed thousands of young lives each year. Modern antibiotics did not exist, vaccinations were extremely limited, and physicians frequently lacked effective treatments for serious infections.
Even wealthy families were vulnerable. Access to better food, housing, and medical attention could improve a child's prospects, but wealth offered no guarantee of survival. Even though childhood death was much more common than it is today, parents still experienced profound grief. Surviving letters, diaries, and family memorials reveal the emotional suffering that accompanied the loss of a child.
Dickens introduces this tragedy with relatively little elaboration. Yet one detail stands out. As the young boy approaches death, ...
