Human nature is a difficult subject to define. After all, different people have different natures. Can all men have one single nature that drives them to do all things? In Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities, a story of love versus hate set in the French revolution, he does not believe so. He introduces characters such as Miss Pross, Madame Defarge, Sydney Carton, and Lucie Manette, who all have with different motives driving them. Some are motivated by love, some by hate, and some by both. Due to this, he asserts that all people have different natures. The only thing that unites all of the character’s motives is the fact that every different nature is flawed. In fact, each specific nature directly causes a person’s flaws. Dickens believes …show more content…
However, her hatred for them is justifiable at first. The nobles treat the peasants horribly and show no remorse for doing so. But since Madame Defarge’s animosity towards the aristocrats continues to grow as the revolution progresses, her intense nature of hatred, once useful and respected, is now too vicious to justify. It mars her virtue and takes away any pity that she ever has. For this reason, her hatred is her character’s flaw. In the beginning of the book, Ernest Defarge and Madame Defarge are given the knowledge that their friend Dr. Manette’s daughter, Lucie Manette, has married a nobleman, Charles Darnay. Though Defarge asks his wife keep Darnay off of her register of people who are to be punished, she refuses. He is not too perturbed by this, as he does not believe the couple will be in France while the revolution goes on, and says of his wife: “ ‘A great woman,’ said he, ‘a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!’ ”(II.16.188). Though Madame Defarge will not show mercy to Dr. Manette and his family, Defarge respects and admires her. But as the revolution rages on, Madame Defarge’s hatred grows and corrupts her. After the epoch of the revolution, she succeeds in placing Darnay in jail and sentencing him to death. She is still not satisfied. Now her dearest wish is to execute Lucie and her child as well, due to their relation to Darnay. Her husband argues with her: “ ‘And you have observed, my wife,’ said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, ‘the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him!”(III.12.345). He disapproves of her extreme bloodlust and implores her to show pity to Doctor Manette and his family. Repeatedly he asks her to change her mind, to look past her prejudice towards the nobility. It is clear he is in favor of the revolution, as he is one of its leaders, but he
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
The Evremonde family had ruined her life when she was a child; the marquis had raped Madame’s sister, Madame’s father died from grief, and her brother died attempting to avenge his dead sister ("Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities"). This tragic series of events in Madame’s life is what fueled her aristocratic hatred and philosophy that children should suffer for the “sins of their fathers.” Madame’s hatred for the marquis is still heavily prevalent following his death and she transfers it all to Darnay after hearing that he is alive and to marry Lucie. This aforementioned event is what transforms Madame into the antagonist of the novel, and thus also seals her fate as she chases down a way to ruin Darnay and the Manette’s. In the end, a simple and highly justified desire to avenge her family kills Madame Defarge and with her dies the threat of the novel and one of the most thought out and developed
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 every great novel there is a theme that is constant throughout the story. One of the better known themes portrays the fight of good verses evil. Different authors portray this in different ways. Some use colors while others use seasons to show the contrast. Still others go for the obvious and use characters. But what makes them all so different is the authors point of view. In Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities, he portrays good and evil in somewhat of a unique way. Dickens shows this difference by using characters, although we sometimes have to think about the difference between the good and the evil and wonder if they are not the same in the long run. Good and evil differs with the characters in this novel, yet sometimes coincides.
...to revenge. She turned into this cold killer to kill the entire Evermonde family for what they had done to her family. She uses her power in the revolution to take revenge on the Evermonde family. Madame Defarge loses her true self and becomes someone who disregards the lives of people include hers. Dickens’s theme of how history repeats itself appears again when Madame Defarge kills innocent people similar to what the Marquis of Evermonde did.
In A Tale of Two Cities author Charles Dickens uses literary techniques throughout the novel such as doubling and repetition. One way Dickens utilizes doubling is through the characters such as Lucie Manette and Madame Defarge who are complete opposites. Dickens choice to create doubling among characters not only creates opposites throughout the novel, it also reveals many hidden patterns the eventually unravel to readers as the novel progresses. An example of these hidden connections is revealed with Madame Defarge’s vengeance towards Darnay and his family.
In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens explores the concept of rebirth (physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally) through the exploits of Doctor Manette, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carton. Some major keys in his ideas of being resurrected are physical and mental recovery, escaping an unworthy past for a worthy cause, and the nobility of sacrifice.
This was years before the French Revolution but it was all a build up. People were tired of the unfair social and wealth between classes and in efforts to fight back, the French Revolution began. The story begins with Jarvis Lorry traveling to Paris to reunite Lucie Manette with her father Dr. Manette, who has been imprisoned for eighteen years. Throughout the novel Lucie finds herself marrying a man named Charles Darnay who gets caught in some unexpected trouble and being saved by Sydney Carton. The characters all try to save their family and their own lives and the outrage causes many problems to occur. Charles Dickens’ relates this novel to his own personal experience with The Frozen Deep. In the play, Dickens plays the roll of a man who falls in love but cannot be with the woman who he loves but can not be with because she is married. He sets out to kill the man but ends up saving him and puts his life on the line so the woman he loves can be happy in life. Similarly, in the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton is in love with Lucie Manette. But, Lucie is in love and marries Charles Darnay. Carton strives to have Lucie but in order to make her happy he risks his own life to save Darnay. Charles Dickens starring in The Frozen Deep led to an intriguing novel, inspired the story
In his “A Tale Two Cities”, Charles Dickens uses the characters of Lucie Manette and Madame Defarge as two strong women that contrast against the rather manly group of characters. These women are both driven to do what they believe is right. Although Lucie and Madame are strong willed and independent, they both use these strengths differently. Lucie is a woman who is driven by love and affection. Whereas Madame Defarge is driven by hate and rebellion. Both these women, although similar, have such significant differences.
In A Tale of Two Cities there is much cruelty because of heart struck my hate, the scene of the guillotine the analogy of the blue flies and Madame Defarge’s hate led to many deaths. The guillotine beheaded many people at the joke of the peasants but expense of the aristocrat. The blue flies were also very avid in the quest for blood and last but not least the hate Madame Defarge has towards the upper class. In A Tale of Two Cities there are many examples of mans’ inhumanity towards fellow man. This book shows us we should learn from the past.
both positive and negative traits that they hold. Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens’ A Tale
Dickens is often held to be among the greatest writers of the Victorian Age. Nonetheless, why are his works still relevant nearly two centuries later? One reason for this is clearly shown in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. In the novel, he uses imagery to sway the readers’ sympathies. He may kindle empathy for the revolutionary peasants one moment and inspire feeling for the imprisoned aristocrats the next, making the book a more multi-sided work. Dickens uses imagery throughout the novel to manipulate the reader’s compassion in the peasants’ favor, in the nobles defense, and even for the book’s main villainess, Madame Defarge.
The characters in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, despite the criticism of others, are fully developed at the completion of the novel. At the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, the characters are somewhat nebulous, not really formed, and it is often hard to see how these characters could possibly play pivotal roles in the novels. For example, Sydney Carton the resident town drunk and wastrel, was illustrated quite negatively at the beginning of the novel, “this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it happened to light on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanor, not only gave him a disreputable look…” (57). However, at the end of the novel Sydney is held as the quintessential human, after all, “man hath no greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friend.” The critics most likely have a problem with the way Dickens brings a character to the forefront, only for them to slip away from view and return a hun...
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is a story set in the year 1775 and through the turbulent time of the French Revolution. It is of people living in love and betrayal, murder and joy, peril and safety, hate and fondness, misery and happiness, gentle actions and ferocious crowds. The novel surrounds a drunken man, Sydney Carton, who performs a heroic deed for his beloved, Lucie Manette, while Monsieur and Madame Defarge, ruthless revolutionaries, seek revenge against the nobles of France. Research suggests that through Dickens’ portrayal of the revolutionaries and nobles of the war, he gives accurate insight to the era of the Revolution.
...human nature” makes for a bare-bones human existence, replete with crime, immorality, greed, and as especially demonstrated in Louisa’s case, unhappiness. Mr. Sleary’s compassion gives voice to Dickens’s hope for a more unselfish perspective on human motivation. His critique concludes that the success of government lies in realistically evaluating humanity in all of its general and idiosyncratic tendencies. As Nussbaum says in her essay, Dickens does not call for a “relativistic” approach to governance but one more in touch with the realities and complexities of being human.