Omar Calderon
Mr. Arieas
H English 10
11 January 2015
A Tale of Two Cities Essay Throughout the novel, A Tale of Two Cities, there are many characters with different personalities and traits. However, there is one character that stands out by the end of the novel and the reader feels sympathetic towards. Her name is Madame Defarge; to the reader she seems to be the bad person throughout the novel. Even though Madame Defarge is very ruthless and never knows when to draw the line, the reader feels sympathetic towards her by the end of the novel. She had a very horrific past, having to deal with losing her brother and sister when she is just a young girl. Madame Defarge grows with anger and the thirst for blood which leads to her part in the revolutionary. Madame Defarge does alot horrific acts but the reader then understands and feels sympathy for her once learning about her past. In the novel Madame Defarge knits and to the reader, it seems useless and a, “Pastime,” said Madame” (182 Darnay), but later into the book the reader finds the true meaning behind the knitting. She is knitting a list of the names of people the revolutionaries are going to kill, most of which are aristocrats and spies. Then once the revolution is in full force, she and the Vengeance seek to kill their targets and all of the counterrevolutionaries. These acts show the reader that, “She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her”. With Madame Defarge losing her respect for others, she turns into something else and can’t turn back. Madame Defarge says, “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph” (180 Darnay), this shows that she will not stop for anything and will always in her eyes triumph. Defarge becomes ruthless and uses the revolutionaries to her advantage, which lets her do anything to anyone who gets in her way in reaching her ultimate goal, even taking the lives of others. Madame Defarge throughout the novel tries to get revenge for what happened to her in the past. Madame Defarge says, “I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing” (180 Darnay), this quote tells the reader that her revenge cannot stop and she will only be getting closer to her goal rather than father. The first thing Defarge needs to do to finish what she had started is to arrest Lucie and her family. Defarge goes to an apartment thinking that Lucie and her family will be there to arrest them for mourning the death of Charles Darnay. However, she only finds Miss Pross in the apartment and they start to argue with each other. Madame Defarge asks if Lucie is in the room but Miss Pross refuses to say anything and they start to fight. Madame Defarge gets desperate and even goes as far as trying to kill Miss Pross just to see if Lucie is in the room or not. Instead, Miss Pross actually gets hold of the gun and shoots it. Once the smoke clears from the gunshot all that was left was, “the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground” (360 Darnay). Madame Defarge didn’t know where to draw the line and wanted to kill everyone close to Darnay even though Darnay and his family weren’t directly involved with what had happened to her family. All she wants is to get revenge and others to pay, which as a result leads to her death. However, Defarge’s past makes the reader feel sympathy towards her, even after all she has done. By the end of the novel the narrator finally shows us what drove Madame Defarge’s anger and her thirst for revenge. The narrator tells us that Madame Defarge as