Revenge+and+Violence

Julie Wright

Throughout the novel "A Tale of Two Cites," revenge and violence is a key theme. Many characters show violence and revenge, but a lot of the cruelness occurs with Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge can be portrayed as being "cold" and even evil, which is an example of this theme. First, she knits the names of people going to be killed. She seems to be after Lucie the most, which frightens the sweet, innocent young woman. Also, she has a "register" in her head of people who are to be killed next in the revolution. These names include Lucie and the rest of Lucie's family. She precedes to kill her brother, sister, and father as well because of the rape of her sister. She brought it on and it was her fault this happened by Darney's family members. Her sidekick, "the Vengeance," helped her with her tasks during the revolution. Her pursuit of vengeance while committing these crimes eventually leads to her death. Miss Pross actually kills Madame to simply get revenge on her. That shows revenge and violence at the same time. She is also a good example of revenge when she wants to get back at on her dead father, brother, and sister by getting rid of any noble descent. She goes ahead and beheads the governor during this process. The character Madame Defarge would be classified at the most violent in the novel.

At the storming of the Bastille, the violence is being told as powerful imagery giving the imagination a passage way to what exactly was going on during these destructive times. "As a whirlpool of boiling water has a centre point, so, all this raging circles around Defarge's wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar"(p.211)

The violence in Paris with the revolutionaries is intense because the poor is rebelling against the nobles. They are tired of being silenced and told to eat grass when they are hungry. Their acts of violence were quite scary. The mob preceded to kill the governor "with a rain of stabs and blows." (p. 209) They not only portrayed violence, but also revenge. France's whole system of government was corrupted when they took on this act because they took "getting revenge on the nobles" to the extreme. They decided to enact the guillotine and go ahead and kill whomever they would like. "And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzles hangman, powered and good-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!" (p.105) This is showing the ignorance of the nobles foreshadowing the peasants revolutionary behavior about to begin. Also, this next quote is representing that the impoverishment and unfairness while always continue if violence and injustice carry on. "Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind" (p.362) Dickens is trying to say this manner will always go on, even past the 18th century.

This depicts the violence of the revoltion on the streets in Paris, France during the 18th century, according to Charles Dickens.