Madame Defarge Quotes

Dickens says, “The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child.” (Dickens 277). This quote brings to life the darkness of Madame Defarge and how she affects the feeling of the rooms she enters. Although Dickens presents Madame Defarge in a terribly dark way, readers can understand why she acts the way she does because they know her background. Through the extreme differences between Lucie and Madame Defarge’s upbringings it is no shocker that they are extremely different. By seeing the large contrast in these characters readers are able to understand better why Madame Defarge is so cruel. Dickens uses foils not only to gain sympathy for the revolutionaries, but also for the upper class, including Charles Darnay. Charles Darnay is a noble man and he comes from a family of wealth, and has money himself; however, he uses his money and power completely different from his uncle Marquis Evremonde. Although these men are related they are complete opposites. Darnay shows compassion towards lower class members and even risks his own life to help a servant, Gabelle. Unlike Darnay, Marquis Evremonde treats those lower than him terribly. Dickens uses the foil of these two characters to show

6. How does Defarge's part in getting Mr. Lorry and the Manettes out of Paris indicate his knowledge of the workings of the acienne regime?

Madame Defarge is portrayed as the condemner of death; she lurks the corners, as she continues to knit an endless kill list of all who have exasperated her. Dickens reveals Madame Defarge’s true intentions when Monsieur Defarge mentions, “To be registered, as doomed to destruction,”(p.7). Furthermore, Monsieur Defarge declared that Madame Defarge will never forget who is on the kill list. Madame Defarge holds an undeniable grudge against Charles’ father, thus meaning that Charles poses a threat to the Defarges, due to the fact that he is guilty by association. In Madame Defarge's eyes, murder is a virtuous necessity, in order to clear out the hazardous individuals who have in any way “wronged” her.

Through the use of strong imagery of the descriptions of the seven prisoners and guards, Dickens emphasizes the shift in power among the French aristocracy and the commoners. As Madame Defarge leads the mob to seize the guards in Bastille and free the prisoners, the ironic contrast formed within the actions truly depict the power altering between the two distinctive social classes. The seven dead guards were portrayed as, “seven gory heads on pikes” and “impassive faces, yet with a suspended—not an abolished—expression on them”(170). The powerful imagery thoroughly proves their defeat against the mob, since after the seven prisoners were released, the power became of the commoners. Thus, this is a substantial event to the start of the revolution,

Timidity plays a big part in the first portion of the novel. Clara Lemlich seems to be nothing more than a timid young girl working in her family's shop, but she proves to be more than what meets the eye. Clara is full of aspiration and yearns for an education, but she learns to keep these hopes and dreams to herself due to her severely stern parents. On page 14, Clara expresses herself by saying “How can I tell Mama who toils sunup to sundown to be a good mother a good wife that this life (her life) is not enough for me, that I dream instead of words ideas a life that stretches far beyond the bounds of this shtetl?” Clara seems to be torn between disappointing her beloved parents, and showing them who she really is, but most importantly

These individuals with extreme power were defeated partially because of the lower-class females, a group of individuals who had never before taken control over the people, as they were viewed as incapable. Lastly, Madame Defarge’s constant obsession with killing all who have hurt her personally and her class, is repeated multiple times in the novel. As the novel progresses, Madame Defarge becomes more obsessed and blood thirsty until she reaches one man , who she believes is worth killing after she simply “[observes] his face”(263). She goes on to demand that her husband allow her to “take care of his face.”(263) It is clear that Madame Defarge has reached a point of hysteria that makes her an extremely bloodthirsty individual, constantly searching for victims. Dickens uses Madame Defarge once again, to explain the extreme amounts of killings that were due to a woman’s decision. Through Dickens’ repetition of these phrases however, the reader can understand the power that women were able to execute over other females and the men, as the idea of a powerful female is visited multiple times throughout the

In " Tale of Two Cities" revenge is a one of the main themes of the novel. It is shown that the French revolutionaries are always seeking revenge averse to aristocracy. The symptoms of revenge appear clearly in Theresa Defarge, who

Humanity is a spectrum. There is no one person who is unequivocally bad or good. Every individual is ambiguous, and merely has the strength of their character and the choices they make. In some cases, these choices are influences by external factors that push fundamentally good individuals to commit deplorable acts. One of the most interesting of these factors is the concept of revenge, and the lengths to which humans will go in its pursuit. Throughout A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens is deliberate in his portrayal of the deleterious effect that a desire for revenge can have on even the most unimpeachable of characters, especially in the lives of Dr. Manette, Madam Defarge, and Gaspard.

Olivia Miller Ms. Farmer Honors English 10 December 2016 Madame Defarge and Hatred Madame Defarge functions as a symbol of vengeance and hatred throughout A Tale of Two Cities. When she first appears on page thirty-five, she is described as being “a stout woman of about [her husband’s] age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and a great composure of manner.” Although she is built to be a strong figure, she is unassertive throughout the first book and seems to take the surrounding actions into account without looking from her knitting. Hatred (in any instance) boils under the surface before it is exposed; it is revealed in an attempt to modify the course of

Madame Defarge is first introduced as a stern woman with a rather ominous habit of knitting, with no indication of her bloodthirsty habits. However, it is later noted that Madame Defarge is actually knitting the names of the victims of the Revolution, and we find out that she wants to eliminate the aristocracy because the Marquis and his brother raped her sister and stabbed and killed her brother-in-law. She eloquently describes her destroyed childhood to the Vengeance and her husband at the tavern.“Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn child was their child, that father was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me (346)”.

Furthermore, the knitting of Madame Defarge was shown to be a register of targets for the revolutionaries, completely contradicting the denotation of knitting. Nevertheless, Dickens begins to portray Madame Defarge as “a Missionary” (Dickens 7). The attribute is ironic as the denotation commits that she is the leader of the revolution and ultimately a missionary of death. Her sinister job as the judge of who lives and dies contradicts the positive connotation of “missionary”. Later in the passage, Monsieur Defarge characterizes his wife, Madame Defarge, as “a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!”

Throughout the entire novel, one is introduced to characters and how their past dramatically affects the people they are now. When we first meet Madame Defarge she was busily knitting away, seemingly feminine and harmless. According to Dicks, she “knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing” (Dickens 42), depicting a submissive wife who did not take interest in political or social issues. As her character develops, however, the reader learns she is deeply involved in the plot due to the injustice served to her family in the past. Madame Defarge’s knitting serves both the Revolutionaries’ goal and her personal vendetta against the aristocrats, more specifically the Evrémonde brothers (Wilson 374). Her seemingly harmless

Dickens writes that anyone who feels oppressed will seek out revenge: “Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will certainly yield the same fruit according to its kind” (347). However, Dickens’ intention is to warn his audience the effects of vengeance by illustrating the crowd’s actions in a gruesome manner and what can happen because of it. Madame Defarge is brought to her end by her own gun, and reflects how suffering will return to the person who caused it. Her unremitting need for vengeance embodies the attitudes of those during the Revolution for a desire for change. All she really does is become more hateful than the aristocratic class she intended to seek vengeance from.

Madame Defarge, one of the main revolutionaries, loses all sympathy and compassion during the war. Fighting to overthrow the upper class, she cares for nothing else. When Lucie begs her for her husband’s life, Madame Defarge does not react; her actions are shown, “Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant” (273). Defarge does not accept Lucie’s pleas and remains stoic and cold, instead she answers, “Is it likely that the trouble of one… would be much to us now?” (273).

Dickens’ novel showcases a different power in the natural world. Where floral landscapes and meadows were equated to wholeness in Forster’s work, Dickens uses the rose as a symbol of power. In the same section that Mrs. Wilcox is introduced in Howards End, she is seen smelling a rose. Dickens allows Madame Defarge to place the same flower into her hat, which signals to the masses the power she holds. “She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her rose in her head-dress…It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the wine-shop” (Dickens 172). Dickens uses the rose as a symbol of the power Madame Defarge wields over the revolution. It is later revealed in the novel that Madame Defarge is the cruel one, the mastermind behind the workings of the revolution and not her husband. Dickens emancipates her from the traditional gender roles, providing a direct contrast between her and Lucie Manette.