Coping Skills

Mr. Lorry and Mss. Pross kept the news of Doctor Manette’s relapse a secret from Luci. They did this in a sly way; “Miss Pross was to write, describing his (Doctor Manette) having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post” (207).  Should Miss. Pross and Mr. Lorry have done this?  Did they have the right too?  I do not think they had the right to conceal this information from Luci.  Luci had been through so much with her father and had brought him mentally so far that she deserved to know his condition, she deserved to know his mental state especially if she played a role in it.  If Luci had been informed about her Father she may have been able to bring him back by walking up and down the hall with him like she frequently did, or just by her presence. But instead with out Luci’s assistance Doctor Manette reverted to the pointless activity or shoemaking for nine days, which is clearly unhealthy and unproductive.  Miss. Pross and Mr. Lorry ended up destroying Doctor Manette's shoe making tools using a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer.  They did this only for the wellbeing of Doctor Manette.  But in the long run was this the best thing to do?  Once again I think they made the wrong decision.  We can infer that if Doctor Manette relapses again Mr. Lorry and Mss. Pross will once again keep it a secret from Luci, because they don’t want upset or disappoint her.  Their devotion, admiration and love to her is so strong “Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; “and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me!” (199).  In this case Mr. Manette will be without his two essentials to cope with; his beloved daughter and is shoemaking kit.  From this we might infer that he will find a new coping skill but Dickens suggests something else. 

Dickens left us with thick foreshadowing at the end of chapter 19; “while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime” (214).  Dickens doesn’t add this passage in for no reason I think he is giving us insight on what is too come.  I predict that "innocent" Mr. Lorry and Miss. Pross are indeed taking away Doctor Manette's life by destroying his cope. The metaphor Dickens is using is physical death, one might infer that it is being compared to the shoemaking tools, but in reality I believe its being compared to the mental death of Doctor Manette.