In Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities, we learn about Carton's childhood—describe it, and what Carton blames for his miserable life....

In Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two
Cities, the reader is introduced to Sydney
Carton.

Sydney
Carton is a dissipated English lawyer who spends a great deal of his life drunk.
Although he has a brilliant legal mind, his alcoholism keeps him from becoming a
success.

Of himself Carton
admits to Darnay:

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I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no
man on earth, and no man on earth cares for
me.

Carton and Stryver spend
a great deal of time together, having known each other since their school
days.

C. J.
Stryver is the quasi-law partner of Sydney Carton. He makes his living by exploiting
Carton's legal mind. Unlike Carton, Stryver is motivated and active, but he is also
unprincipled...

In the
discussion between the silent partners, Stryver brings up their past at school. We
discover that during Carton's childhood he never had much ambition, and though he gives
off an especially careless attitude about a great many
things.

Stryver draws to Carton's attention his changeable
moods in school, positive one day and dismal the
next:

“The
old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said Stryver, nodding his head over him as
he reviewed him in the present and the past, “the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute‚ and
down the next; now in spirits‚ and now in
despondency!”

It is apparent
now that the law of motivation found in Carton has been his since his youth. Nothing has
changed. He would be full of life one day, but depressed the next. He never dedicated
himself to anything with fervor or passion.

Carton admits
that while he did little of his own work (exercises), he rarely did his own. It is in
this way that he still operates with Stryver. Stryver uses Carton's quick legal,
intellectual acuity for his own cases, but Carton has never applied himself to his own
career or success, and so assists quietly and drinks a great deal; and while he "would
never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal." Stryver uses Carton in this way, and
Carton is satisfied with his lot in life, or so he wants others to
believe.

Stryver sums Carton up at the end of their
conversation, and he seems to know Carton as well as the man
himself:

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“Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at
him with a bullying air...and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney
Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, “your way is, and always
was, a lame way. You summon no energy and
purpose.

Sydney Carton had
responded earlier to another question that requires much the same
answer:

'Ah!'
returned the other, sighing: 'yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then I did
exercises for other boys, and seldom did my
own.'

And...

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[Carton to Stryver:] You were always in the front
rank, and I was always
behind.

The conversation
continues, and Carton, half-heartedly, blames Stryver for his own
situation:

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'Even when we were fellow-students in the
Student-Quarter of Paris...you were always somewhere, and I was
always—nowhere.'

'And whose fault was
that?'

'Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not
yours. You were always driving and riving‚ and shouldering and
pressing, to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and
repose.'

Carton's childhood
was filled with a lack of direction, seemingly his own fault, though he humorously
blames Stryver. It seems he knows he is the
problem:

'God
knows. It was my way, I suppose.'