In the novel Tale of Two Cities, author Charles Dickens defines character Madame Defarge’s symbolism of knitting as an expression of how it weaves its way in the themes of fate and duality. Throughout the novel Dickens uses knitting in a way of affecting other people’s lives, for instance, the Evremonde family, related blood Charles Darnay with wife Lucie, and their daughter. It affects especially in Lucie Manette’s character, for she is the one who knits the lives of all the characters with her “golden thread” expressing her ability to create a knitted circle of family and friends. To Madame Defarge’s knitting represents her element of fate, her ability to express her vengeance for the misfortune of her family 's fate. The symbolism of Madame Defarge’s knitting is the ability to share the duality with Lucie’s “golden thread” revealing the duality between their two characters, for instance, Lucie’s nurturing pleasant nature, compared to Madame Defarge’s ruthless villains like composers. The symbol knitting is used in representing two things in the novel. The first is to represent the vengeance that Madame Defarge wishes to take upon the aristocracy and their bloodlines, and the second is the duality it helps tie between two individual characters. Madame Defarge knits the names of her victims, she is constantly seen knitting in her husband’s wine shop. Madame Defarge has the ability to be the main antagonist in the novel. She uses knitting as a death list for her victims,
by chance. Coincidences are a main factor in the book and play a great role in the fallout of the
Justice is one of the main theme from this book, as each character tries to get justice. In this book we see the distress and agony that Madame Defarge suffers with. Mainly because of her sister’s deaths and family suffering, due to the Evremonde brother’s, Charles Darnay’s father and uncle. Ever since that happened she’s wanted justice for her and her family. The justice that Madame Defarge wanted later turn into retribution, which lead her to a path of darkness, making her wanting the death of Charles Darnay and his family. At the same time, she was fighting for justice for France, which made her want more lives to be dead for the good of her people. those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me!’… “Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” … “but don’t tell me.” (Dickens 339) Many readers might portray her as the “villain” of this book, but she really is not. All she wanted is justice for what was done
Part 1: The Devil in the White City is a true crime novel that takes place during the building, during, and aftermath of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. There are 2 main narratives,the first is Daniel Burnham, one of the main architects and designers of the World 's Fair. This plot line shows the extreme stress that all of the Architects experienced, as the construction was slow to start, slow to build, and was filled with shortages, deaths, and awful communication. The second narrative is centered around H.H. Holmes, one of America’s first notorious serial killers. His narrative takes place in his “Murder Castle” and shows his complicated history and his numerous credit scams, identity scams, and most importantly,
“Still, our first impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring. The officers were billeted in private homes, even in the homes of Jews. Their attitude toward their hosts was distant, but polite. They never demanded the impossible, made no unpleasant comments, and even smiled occasionally at the mistress of the house.” (5)
Tenement life was tough in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century, as portrayed in the historical novel, City of Orphans. This portrayal depicted an immigrant family that was living hand to mouth in a tenement. This depiction is very accurate to the harsh reality that many families had to come to face. It was tough from the conditions, lifestyles, and space. Maks ' family was barely living off their earnings and was susceptible to disease and fraud. The immigrants were easy targets for poverty and sickness, and all too often fell through cracks in the floor. Their lives, as bad as they were, were not as bad as the ones they led in the countries they fled from to escape prosecution and to seek a better life.
Karen Abbott, a New York Times Bestselling author of “Sin in the Second City” and “American Rose”, Abbott reveal in her book “Lair, Temptress, Solider, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War” was published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins in 2014 contends that four major powerful women had endangered their lives to become a soldier spy during the Civil War. Karen Abbott analyzes based on a true story of how women 's roles are portrayed to accommodate political work, used primary sources including dairies, letters, newspaper. The author describes the individual women in varied personality in a way of lair, temptress, a solider and a spy who all shared the same challenges that involves in risk-taking decision in America history.
Her knitting is a register of people that need to be killed, this important because the Defarges are a part of the resistance. During the early parts of the story I thought of Madam Defarge as her husband’s helper but I was surprised to learn that she was ruthless and the person in charge. There was a point when Monsieur Defarge was looking down and out and
Madame Defarge is the wife of Monsieur Defarge, a wine shop owner and a revolutionary of the French Revolution. They are known for believing that the aristocracy is corrupt and bad and that society has to change. When we read the chapters involving Madame Defarge, Dickens writes that she is always knitting. Later on we learn that she is actually knitting the names of the aristocrats who she thinks should die for the revolutionary cause. This is very significant to the book because this was a huge part of the French Revolution, and in this book Madame Defarge plays a big role.
A Tale of Two Cities Jarvis Lorry, an employee of Tellson's Bank, was sent to find Dr. Manette, an unjustly imprisoned physician, in Paris and bring him back to England. Lucie, Manette's daughter who thought that he was dead, accompanied Mr. Lorry. Upon arriving at Defarge's wine shop in Paris, they found Mr. Manette in a dreadful state and took him back to London with them. Mr. Manette could not rember why he had been imprisoned, or when he was imprisoned. He was in a state of Post Tramatic Stress Dis-order.
One might believe that because capital punishment plays such a large role in Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities, that Dickens himself is a supporter of it. This just simply is not true. Dickens uses capitol punishment as a tool to define the evil embodied in both the French ruling class, and the opposing lower class during the French Revolution; as well as comment on the sheep-like nature of humankind.
Charles Dickens utilizes doubles and contrasts to enhance the plot of Dickens uses parallels in characters, social classes, and events that compliment each other to strengthen the plot. Its themes of violence in revolutionaries, resurrection, and sacrifice also help support the story.
A connection between characters and their struggle to survive is a study on the human condition. In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens a messenger leaves Mr. Lorry to tell Lucie that her father, presumed dead, is actually alive, and just released from prison. Lucie travels with Mr. Lorry to the Defarge’s wine shop to meet with her father in order to recall him to life from his poor state of mind. Madame Defarge, the owner of the wine shop, secretly knits a list of names of aristocrats who she will later kill. She is obsessed with revenge and vows to eradicate those who are guilty of causing the commoners of France poverty and oppression.
While the Victorian people called for romantic intrigue and petty drama in the literature of their time, Dickens’ added complexity to his novels not to satisfy the frivolous needs of Victorians but to further the theme of irony in his novel. In A Tale of Two Cities, irony is an ever-present theme and is woven into the plot seamlessly by author Charles Dickens. Coincidence is a complementary theme to irony in this novel. Dickens’ constant implementation of situations of coincidence and chance leads to a greater sense of irony throughout this book. Dickens adds complexity to the plot and further enforces the theme of irony in the novel through circumstances of coincidence, including the indictments of Charles Darnay, the life and associates of Dr. Manette, and Madame Defarge’s need for and path to revenge.
The French Revolution mainly took place in the city of Paris during the late 1700’s. The Revolution did not only affect the people of France, but also the citizens of England as well. The French Revolution is known as one of the most brutal and inhumane periods of history. If one studied the beliefs and views of the people involved at the time, one would see a reoccurring theme of “ being recalled to life”. Born from the world of literature, Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities takes a deeper look at the culture of the late 1700’s, in both England and France. Dickens uses the character of Lucie Manette to further examine one of the major themes presented in the novel, consisting of the belief of one being
Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in order to enlighten the average Briton about the events of the French Revolution. The novel compares and contrasts cities of London and Paris, which represent French and British society, through the eyes of Dickens’ human characters. The two cities play such a large part in the novel that they become characters themselves, and the contrasting societies of the two cities become a conflict. In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities, the individualistic society of London champions the first feudalistic and later socialistic society of Paris.