Madame Defarge Character Analysis

Readers tend to be quick to judge characters without first considering all the relevant information. In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge is often thought of as a ruthless villain who is willing to use any means to satisfy her desire for vengeance. However, her willingness to combat injustice around her with force does not justify her classification as a villain. In actuality, Madame Defarge, while she is by no means a perfect person, has good reasons for her actions and fights for a noble cause, but her circumstances necessitate that she use unappealing methods.
Many cite Madame Defarge’s desire to kill Charles Darney to warrant her categorization as a villain; however, this desire, while perhaps not completely justifiable, is not unreasonable. Dickens indicates that this dislike of Darney stems from his relation to a traumatic event in Defarge’s life, specifically the murder of her family, whom she sees when she sees Darney. “It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins …show more content…
To the modern reader, her actions are barbaric; however, desperate times call for desperate measures. Given that people were beheaded in masses, the poor were constantly starving, and children were run over in the streets with carriages, it is reasonable to claim that the story takes place in a harsh world. Although Madame Defarge’s methods are far from ideal, they are necessary to stop injustice. She has had personal experience with the violence of the aristocrats in the past and experiences the oppression of the French rulers on a daily basis; this compels her fight for liberation at any cost because she knows the harms that come from complacency. While Defarge knows she may cause injustice along the way, in this scenario, the ends – the liberty of the French people – justify the