Dickens’ most brutal female character is Madame Defarge, and her downward spiral from advocate to beast does not occur until Book the Second. The truculent manner she adopts from other revolutionaries forms an uneasy feeling amongst the audience. The reader views her at first as a thoroughly thought out insurgent to someone who is willing to kill children to Mme. Defarge’s lack of control as the book progresses, is symbolic to the control that the oppressed population lose as the French Revolution continues. Madame Defarge’s opposite, Miss Pross does not change her attitude on the misconducts of other, but learns to forgive, which is something Madame Defarge forgets to do. Their opposite personalities allows Dickens to compare the strengths …show more content…
Characters like The Vengeance, the group of Jaques, and the revolutionaries, enable Mme. Defarge’s cruel and ruthless actions. However, Monsieur Defarge is the first ally of Mme. Defarge that the book introduces, and the audience does not recognize him as an enabler for Mme. Defarge’s barbarity (at least not in Book the First, before her cruelty appeared), but as an ally in marriage. Monsieur and Madame Defarge’s first few interactions are unspoken, but coordinated, they still understand that the other wants notice or acknowledgment. Once in Book the Second, M. Defarge begins to realize that his wife is becoming restless. He encourages his wife to keep herself controlled and wait to strike the system of oppression “ When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained-not shown-yet always ready” (Dickens 173). Unlike Mme. Defarge’s other allies, her husband motivates her to be a self-controlled revolutionist; someone who thinks through their actions and the consequences before committing them. Defarge’s other allies are wild, savage, and bloodthirsty, they help facilitate her new character, but not as stably. These other allies’ actions show her that she does not need to accept the limits that surround justice and the punishment for wrongdoings. That belief makes her character sink into becoming a cold killer, and her lack of a moral compass allows her to punish even the innocent who benefit off of oppression. These people only share a few similarities, most revolving around the desire to exemplify the highest groups. When Mme. Defarge attempts to convert a road repair-man into a revolutionary, she shows her grotesque obsession with murdering the
In the first book of the novel, the goal of Madame Defarge includes exterminating the noble race. She is constantly knitting in the wine shop she owns. The knitting shows a passive way to express her hatred towards others. “Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick” (Dickens 55). The quote shows how even in her first showing in the book, she is knitting. Her knitting and constant plotting brings frequent fear to her husband, Ernest Defarge, and all other wine shop patrons. Considering even her own husband is afraid for his life, Defarge keeps death in secrecy and shows extremely negative qualities. Defarge knits a register for the intended killing of the revolution in secrecy to show her hatred towards certain people. She has negative characteristics in regard to the loss of her family and her plot to kill all of her enemies. Madame Defarge lasts as the leader attributed to all women fighting in the revolution and
Madame Defarge was taking out her anger on the whole family, which she thought had killed her sister. So Madame Defarge was going after all of the Marquis, no matter if they had anything to do with the murder or not.
She plays the Force of Evil, as she plots against Darnay and those around him, despite occasional disapprovals from her husband. “‘One must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still where?’ ‘At extermination,’ said Madame’” (263). She’s described as a, “ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination… but, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress” (281). Madame Defarge did what she thought was right in order to try and compensate for the damage done during her childhood, “that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sisters husband, that unborn child was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father”
Monsieur Defarge is a revolutionary disguised as a mere bartender. He communicates secretly with his fellow revolutionaries in the bar and helps to orchestrate the plot to overthrow the French aristocracy. Despite the power he holds, he is overshadowed by his ruthless wife, Mrs. Defarge. Mrs. Defarge is a very powerful woman with a lot of influence, and she is ultimately the driving force behind the revolution’s plot. She decides who to kill and knits their name into a coded list. Monsieur Defarge is cooperative and submissive to her, as seen when he agrees with every part of the story she tells without being prompted. Monsieur Defarge is a masculine character with a lot of influence, but his relationship with his wife is not reflective of what was typical during the time period of the French revolution. This is used by Dickens to show that society’s attitudes towards masculinity and femininity are
In book the first, Madame Defarge in book one is described to the reader. She is a leader, and seems to always look like she has control, but also confident of her role. Madame Defarge is a static character. She plays a big part in leading the revolutionary. Madame Defarge is revengeful and concerned with getting justice for her family.
was no then they had to change for the better as no one wants to be
This was clearly seen through the character Madame Defarge. She led the revolutionists in trying to free the common people. However, after the raiding of the Bastille not much had changed. This was due to the fact that Madame Defarge was more focused on exacting her revenge on the Evremonde family. In book the third, Madame Defarge unjustly accuses and arrest Charles Darnay after learning of a letter where Dr. Manette had condemned the Evremonde name.
The blue flies, Madame Defarge’s knitting, and the sea are just three of Dickens’ many symbols that develop the theme of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man in A Tale of Two Cities. Although Revolutions are not particularly humane in themselves, the individual characters and the majority of the peasantry in this book took inhumane to its extreme. Because the revolutionaries follow their ruthless leader, Madame Defarge, they do not question the humanity or morality of the massacre of the aristocracy. In a Revolution meant to free peasants, peasants should be last on the list of those being murdered, and this injustice should be realized. In the French Revolution as well as A Tale of Two Cities, the oppressed become the oppressors and the main cause behind the revolution is lost.
One way Dickens portrays a good and evil character contrast is with Sydney Carton and John Barsad. Carton being the good and Barsad the evil. For instance, when Carton tells Lucie he would "do anything for her" it is a promise that he keeps until the end. Carton is a very trustworthy man and would do anything for someone he cares about. Anything including giving up his own life. Barsad, on the other hand, is a spy that doesn't care what he does or whom he hurts. Barsad is definitely not trustworthy for the simple fact that he has dedicated his life to deception. Also, he would do anything to save his own life. This is one way that Dicken's contrasts good and evil using characters.
Although Madame Defarge’s hatred is initially fixed solely on the Evrémondes brothers, the revolutionary atmosphere extends this hatred to Lucie and her family. Dickens portrays Madame Defarge’s enemies, the Darnays, as the protagonists of the novel by provoking sympathy from the audience. As a result of Madame Defarge’s struggle to deal with her family’s death, the conflict between the opposing forces arises. Originally, Madame Defarge’s goal was to bring justice to the guilty. Due to the rise in the Revolution, her motives become based more on executing cruelty without
The most prevalent example of characters that are foils is the pair of Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. These two men are extraordinarily similar, and yet they are also polar opposites. When Darnay and Carton are both introduced for the first time in the courthouse scene in Book the Second, Dickens immediately ensures that the reader is aware of the comparison. Darnay is acquitted of treason simply because the witnesses are unsure of their testimony after seeing Carton’s near-identical features. In addition to virtually sharing a countenance, the two also tend to dress alike throughout the novel. However, these similarities are merely the backdrop by which to accentuate the key differences between the characters. These are also recognized early on, even by the dim-witted Jerry Cruncher: “so alike each other in feature, so unlike each other in manner” (80). Carton is a relatively poor Englishman, while Darnay is a privileged French aristocrat. Although they have similar capabilities, Darnay uses his situation in life to his advantage, and Carton develops a disrespectful attitude and alcoholism. When the characters themselv...
Many people in life turn to hope to keep them going and inspired to push forward. Without hope, people tend to have a type of behavior that drives them to get what they want and that eventually turns to violence. Charles Dickens shows how many major characters find a way to get what they were wanting with the loss of hope. In A Tale of Two Cities, the author Charles Dickens reveals the truth that spiritual lives of all people depend upon the hope of renewal through the events of Madame Defarge seeking revenge on the Evremonde family, Sydney Carton giving up his life, and the rebellion caused by peasants to illustrate the theme “Without hope, people lose what makes them human and resort to violence and cruelty.” At the beginning of the book Madame Defarge was introduced to the reader as kind of sneaky and what she says goes.
Early within “Book the Third” Defarge arrests Darnay and says to him, “My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you” (Dickens 447). Defarge’s commitment to the revolution is his loyalty to his wife, he does exactly as she says despite it being against morales. This can be seen later when Monsieur Defarge does not feel the same amount of anger as his wife upon discussing his guilt from using Doctor Manette to help sentence Darnay to death: “‘Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,’ said Defarge, rather troubled; ‘in general, I say nothing against it.
Here we can see Madame Defarge waiting for her chance to strike, and as she became “suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife—long ready—hewed off his head.” (Book 2 Ch.21) Dickens goes on to display the bloodlust and cruelty of the revolutionaries when Madame Defarge and all passersby mindlessly “trod on the body to steady it for mutilation.” (Book 2 Ch.21) It is obvious that this scene is intended to show how desensitised the lower class has become, and how low they are willing to stoop in terms of brutality to achieve revenge.
The revolutionaries have been angered so greatly by the news of the prisoners treatment, that they decide that the Evrémonde family in its entirety should be killed. One Jacque acknowledges the knitting of Madame Defarge. Monsieur Defarge responds with the following, “‘Jacques,’ returned Defarge, drawing himself up, ‘if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it—not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge.