rachelmargolis1
'The Resurrectionists', Messrs Cruncher and son
"Resurrection" is a central theme of A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens in 1859. The opening section, entitled, "Recalled to Life," refers to the unfortunate Dr. Manette, who spent nearly twenty years languishing in the Bastille—effectively "buried alive," as even his daughter believed him to be dead. He is recalled to life when she retrieves him and helps him begin his life anew in England. The novel continues to explore the themes of life, death and resurrection as the ever-present threat of execution follows the characters through the years leading up to the French Revolution.
The most concrete imagery of bringing the dead back to life is afforded by the "resurrection man" Jerry Cruncher, pictured here with his son, Young Jerry. Hoping to observe his father's "honest business," Young Jerry sneaks out one night and follows Cruncher to a graveyard; when the bodysnatchers begin to hoist something from the grave, he runs away in terror, imagining that a coffin is chasing him all the way home. Terrified but fascinated at the same time, he innocently tells his father the next day, "Oh, father, I should so like to be a resurrection man when I'm quite growed up!" The two look how one might expect bodysnatchers to look: course, malicious, lower-class.
But Dickens points out that the crime is not class-specific; it is the medical profession that creates the market for corpses. By day, Cruncher works at a prestigious bank, a position that is threatened when his employer learns of his nightly activities. Cruncher protests that bodysnatching has "two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his fardens—fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens—half fardens!" These doctors, who deposit their illegal earnings at the very bank where Cruncher works, are deserving of blame as well, "For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander." The class consequences of the cadaver market would be amplified when, in the 1830s, the primary source of fresh bodies shifted from the graveyard to the workhouse.
Though the story is set in the late 18th century, A Tale of Two Cities can tell us quite a bit about perceptions of resurrectionists during Dickens' time. In the context of the 19th century, these kinds of resurrections would have seemed even more appalling, as unearthing the dead would have been seen as equivalent to unearthing the miasma that emanated from them. We also see a romanticized understanding of death, perhaps most evident when one of the main characters sacrifices his own life for his friends, in stark contrast to the horror of exhuming dead bodies; death is far more appealing in theory than in its grisly reality. The resurrections of Dr. Manette, "buried alive"; of Sydney Carton, the Christ-like hero; and finally of the oppressed people of Paris, would all lend poetic and religious symbolism to the story. And yet, the art of resurrection, as practiced by Jerry Cruncher, is both irreligious and abhorrent.
Ball, J.M.. "'The Resurrectionists'." Europeana. wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0001670.html.
Dickens, Charles. A tale of two cities. London: James Nisbet, 1902.
'The Resurrectionists', Messrs Cruncher and son
"Resurrection" is a central theme of A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens in 1859. The opening section, entitled, "Recalled to Life," refers to the unfortunate Dr. Manette, who spent nearly twenty years languishing in the Bastille—effectively "buried alive," as even his daughter believed him to be dead. He is recalled to life when she retrieves him and helps him begin his life anew in England. The novel continues to explore the themes of life, death and resurrection as the ever-present threat of execution follows the characters through the years leading up to the French Revolution.
The most concrete imagery of bringing the dead back to life is afforded by the "resurrection man" Jerry Cruncher, pictured here with his son, Young Jerry. Hoping to observe his father's "honest business," Young Jerry sneaks out one night and follows Cruncher to a graveyard; when the bodysnatchers begin to hoist something from the grave, he runs away in terror, imagining that a coffin is chasing him all the way home. Terrified but fascinated at the same time, he innocently tells his father the next day, "Oh, father, I should so like to be a resurrection man when I'm quite growed up!" The two look how one might expect bodysnatchers to look: course, malicious, lower-class.
But Dickens points out that the crime is not class-specific; it is the medical profession that creates the market for corpses. By day, Cruncher works at a prestigious bank, a position that is threatened when his employer learns of his nightly activities. Cruncher protests that bodysnatching has "two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his fardens—fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens—half fardens!" These doctors, who deposit their illegal earnings at the very bank where Cruncher works, are deserving of blame as well, "For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander." The class consequences of the cadaver market would be amplified when, in the 1830s, the primary source of fresh bodies shifted from the graveyard to the workhouse.
Though the story is set in the late 18th century, A Tale of Two Cities can tell us quite a bit about perceptions of resurrectionists during Dickens' time. In the context of the 19th century, these kinds of resurrections would have seemed even more appalling, as unearthing the dead would have been seen as equivalent to unearthing the miasma that emanated from them. We also see a romanticized understanding of death, perhaps most evident when one of the main characters sacrifices his own life for his friends, in stark contrast to the horror of exhuming dead bodies; death is far more appealing in theory than in its grisly reality. The resurrections of Dr. Manette, "buried alive"; of Sydney Carton, the Christ-like hero; and finally of the oppressed people of Paris, would all lend poetic and religious symbolism to the story. And yet, the art of resurrection, as practiced by Jerry Cruncher, is both irreligious and abhorrent.
Ball, J.M.. "'The Resurrectionists'." Europeana. wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0001670.html.
Dickens, Charles. A tale of two cities. London: James Nisbet, 1902.