Similarities Between Madame Defarge And Sydney Carton In The Tale Of Two Cities

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Madame Defarge and Sydney Carton in The Tale of Two Cities both act out of their own self interest because their sacrifices were made so that they could be satisfied and have a purpose. Madame Defarge is determined to hunt down all the aristocrats in their society and send them off the the Guillotine to be killed. One reading the story might think that she is doing this simply because she doesn’t like how they have been treating the lower class in the past. However, later it is shown that she is doing all this work to have a purpose in her life. Before the French Revolution she was just the wife of Defarge, but as the revolution begins we see her use what to knows how to do to give herself a purpose. Without a purpose people tend to just wander aimlessly, however one will stop wandering once they find the perfect purpose that they both love and satisfies their need to be someone’s hero. …show more content…
“‘My faith!’ returned madame, coolly and lightly, ‘ if people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price’” (140). Later, while talking to the same man with opposing views “Madame Defarge poured [his requested drink] out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over it” (141). Madame Defarge did not like the man’s political views and she used knitting as a way to express her anger by knitting people’s names into a hitlist. She needed a purpose so she took her judgmental opinions of people and use them to kill off people that had done wrong to the citizens. When a person needs a purpose, they sometimes create one for themselves. Similarly, Sydney Carton makes the choice to give up his life in order to supposedly reunite Lucie and Darnay. In reality, Carton does this in order to be Lucie’s hero and for her to finally recognize
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