The inhumanity of the 'revolutionaries' is unbelievable. It is exemplified by Jacque three when he states, talking about Lucie being put to death by the guolltine,"She has a fine head for it, I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they look charming when Samson held them up." This is a woman, a wife, a mother they are speaking of, how can they be so heartless??
In this final part we see, and are told, how utterly horrific Madame Defarge has become. She does not even trust her own husband anymore, and thus decided to exclude him from her plan of condemning Lucie and little Lucie. Although the Evermondes changed her life greatly as a young girl, it is sad to see someone become so consumed with something that happened so long ago that their life is revolved around nothing but hate and revenge.
I believe that Madame Defarges plan is to condemn Lucie and little Lucie by accusing them of making a plan with Darnay while he was in prison by standing outside his tower and supposedly 'signing' words to him. This all comes from the wood sawyer, the man Lucie was always cordial to and gave drinking money to.
Although it goes unsaid, Miss Pross is also alot like Sydney Carton, she would do anything for Lucie. In fact, she also sacrifices for her, by shooting Madame Defarge. She didn't sacrafice her own life, but I believe she would if she had to, but she did sacrafice her piece of mind for she will always be haunted by her killing of Madame Defarge.
Once again, Miss Pross brings comic relief in to the story by never hearing anything again after the gun shot.
I like the way Dicken's ended the novel with the thoughts of Sydney Carton even though he was dead. It gave an insight into what he was thinking just before his death. Carton knew that what he was doing would be remembered by the Evermondes for generations to come. He knew his acts would be cherished by Lucie and Darnay and that the Doctor could like a long life as he should; and I think as long as Carton knew he gave all these other people a "life they loved" he had lived a fulfulling life himself.
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3 comments:
I think that Miss Pross shot Madame Defarge on accident because Defarge had the gun in her hand and I think Miss Pross bumped it and it fired. I also think that she literally did lose her hearing, though it seemed to be symbolic in a way that when Defarge died, the sounds of the violence died too. (I'm sure there could also be some other symbols for it). I guess that personally, I didn't think of it as comic relief when she went deaf except for when she was talking to Cruncher...but that's just how I took it. Come to think of it, it was somewhat amuzing and light.
I also think that Miss Pross became deaf. I think that it may be a symbol for something, but at the same time she really did lose her hearing. A gunshot actually is very loud and some people actually have gone deaf from the percussion from a gunshot so why couldn't Miss Pross. I didn't understand it though when Miss Pross was able to answer Jerry Cruncher back when she was deaf. How was that possible?
I agree with what you said about the inhumanities. The people back then talk about all they want is a better life yet all they think about is killing and torture. They don't make sense in that way.
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