Death And Oppression In The Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

When discussing his popular work the Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens explains the main theme that “Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself” (Dickens). Death and oppression often go together, with oppression resulting in death or death resulting in oppression. However, they differ in that death can result in something positive, such as the life of another person being saved while oppression only results in more oppression. Specifically, in The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, the character Madame Defarge evinces this point because her childhood trauma affects her decisions as an adult. Like Madame Defarge, Queen Mary I of England, the mistreated and unwanted child of King Henry VIII, also emphasizes …show more content…
Madame Defarge showed no remorse in her conviction of Charles Darnay because she was “imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hate of class, [...] She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.” (Dickens 367). Queen Mary also experienced negative effects related to the past actions of her family “for Mary, having succeeded by false promises in obtaining the crown, speedily commenced the execution of her avowed intention of extirpating and burning every Protestant” (Foxe). Both women, despite their different pasts, share the same sense of vengeance to right what they define as wrong. This type of vengeance can often be blinding, causing people to act without thinking and to turn to violence instead of trying to decipher their feelings. Madame Defarge and Queen Mary exhibit the effects of this “blindness” as they take the lives of others so that their beliefs might continue to thrive. Madame Defarge tries to kill Charles Darnay and his family in order justify the deaths of her family at his family’s hands, while Queen Mary I persecutes and kills Protestants in order to avenge her hatred for the Protestant faith, provoked by her family forcing her to become a Protestant. In each of their situations, the women feel as if they must make up for the destruction that …show more content…
En route to accuse Luci of illegal acts, Madame meets her match, Miss Pross, who in the midst of a scuffle turns Madame’s gun on her and kills her, finally serving justice: “As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground” (Dickens 374). While Queen Mary did not die in battle, she died with the only true care in her heart declaring “When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Calais' lying in my heart” (Nix). A true rebel can be defined by whether or not they died with their beliefs on their heart. Whether the beliefs that Madam Defarge and Queen Mary held were right or wrong, they died for their cause, showing their true commitment. Madame Defarge died as she tried to serve her own interpretation justice on the family who had inflicted pain so much pain in her life, while Queen Mary died with “Calais on her heart” which meant that she died thinking of the city of Calais, the last city in Europe in English possession before the French captured it. In other words, she died thinking of the well-being of her country. The idea of fighting to the death for one’s beliefs may confuse ordinary people, but people such as Madame Defarge and Queen Mary, who been hurt so deeply that they feel that they need to give their lives to serve justice, truly illustrate the effects