Madame Defarge Character Analysis

During the Victorian era (1837-1901), there was a specific image that women were expected to conform to. This image was called the “Angel in the House,” named after a poem by Coventry Patmore. The poem detailed how the ideal woman should act; submissive, loyal, and pure. This ideal is shown through certain characters in A Tale of Two Cities. Lucie Manette, for example, is almost an exact replica of the Angel. Miss Pross, though she does deviate from the ideal, also represents the Angel. Madame Defarge, on the other hand, is the inverse of the Victorian ideal. By modeling the key female characters in A Tale of Two Cities after the Victorian Angel, Charles Dickens is trying to say that all women should seek to impersonate the Angel.

The

perfect “angel” in A Tale of Two Cities is clearly represented through Lucie Manette. From her first appearance in the novel, Lucie is described as docile and pure. She was described as having “a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes...” (Dickens 24). Lucie’s blonde, “golden” hair is a symbol of innocence, and, throughout the novel, Lucie and her hair are referred to as ethereal and having almost superhuman qualities. As stated in chapter four of Book the Second, “Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that united [Doctor Manette] to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery” (Dickens 81). The “golden thread” is referring to Lucie’s hair in a figurative sense. This excerpt details Lucie as being able to pull her father out of his “black brooding” due to some sort of power. The Victorian Angel was thought to be a sort of divine being that was able to guide her family onto a virtuous path that essentially brought them closer to God. Though Lucie is not guiding her father along a religious path, she is bringing him out of a negative, harmful state and into a healthy one with her “power”. Lucie Manette bears the closest resemblance to the Angel out of the three crucial women in the text. By giving her the closest resemblance, Dickens is saying that women should try to act and be like Lucie.

The Angel is also visible through Lucie’s faithful friend and servant, Miss Pross. Although Miss Pross is not a true representation of the Angel, with her outspoken and sometimes wild manner, she still has certain characteristics of the Angel. The Angel has to be selfless, and Miss Pross is certainly very selfless. She is described to be, “beneath the surface of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures—found only among women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives” (Dickens 97). Lucie is the youth and “bright hopes” that the passage is describing. Miss Pross bound herself “slave” to Lucie and cared for the younger girl like Lucie was her own child. Miss Pross’ mannerisms could often seem masculine and against the way of the Angel; however, “Miss Pross is masculine only in a superficial sense; in terms of her spiritual nature and moral sensitivity, she is another feminine angel” (Robson). She may not be a nearly exact replica of the Angel, as Lucie is, but Miss Pross still held multiple key qualities of the Angel. Dickens gave Miss Pross the main qualities of the Angel in order to convey that she is another character that women should model themselves after.

Madame Defarge is the absolute opposite of the Angel.

While Miss Pross and Lucie Manette both had qualities of the Angel, Madame Defarge has little, if any, similarities. The Angel was supposed to be tranquil, polite, and submissive to her husband. M. Defarge defies the Angel’s traits, and occasionally is the more dominant between her and her husband. The novel states, “Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. ‘Tell the Wind and Fire where to stop; not me!’” (Dickens 339). Men were typically the stronger, more stubborn half of a relationship, while the women were passive, merciful, and “weaker”. However, Madame Defarge and her husband seem to switch roles, making M. Defarge the tougher, more masculine of the two. Madame Defarge’s masculine traits are much clearer when she is in battle. During the fall of the Bastille, she proclaims, “‘To me, women!’ cried madame his wife. ‘What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!’ And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge” (Dickens 213). M. Defarge’s viciousness and savagery go against everything the Angel stands for. Dickens uses Madame Defarge’s intense nature to show the way women should never

act.
The Victorian “Angel in the House” ideal has a direct influence on the main women in A Tale of Two Cities. The Angel is clearly imitated in the innocent, virtuous Lucie Manette. Miss Pross also possesses traits of the Angel, though not as many as Lucie. The evident opposite of the Angel lies in the brutal, somewhat masculine Madame Defarge. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses Lucie, Miss Pross, and Madame Defarge to declare that women should model themselves after the Victorian ideal of women.