双城记中体现的狄更斯的矛盾

The Analysis of Dickens’ Conflict in

A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract: Charles Dickens is one of the greatest authors of England in the 19th century. A Tale of Two Cities which he claimed to be his best work as most of his other works falls on the category of critical realism. Dickens, by creating the character Madame Defarge, shows that there is some conflict between revolution and humanism.

Key Words: A Tale of Two Cities, conflict, Madame Defarge

中文标题：《双城记》所体现的狄更斯内心矛盾分析

摘 要：查尔斯·狄更斯是十九世纪英国一位伟大作家。《双城记》是他的一部批判现实主义作品。狄更斯通过对典型人物德发奇太太的塑造，反映了他的性与人道主义精神之间存在着一定的冲突。 关键词：《双城记》 冲突 德发奇太太

Body: Known as one of the top novelists of that age, Charles Dickens is well worth of his fame. All his life is devoted to his works and all his works are closely related to his living age. He uses his writing to expose the greed, hypocrisy and cruelty of the upper class and capitalists and to show his deep sympathy for the people toiling for a living. He is both against the oppression of the unfortunate

people and the violent revolution to fight the violence back. Such standpoint is clearly shown in this novel A Tale of Two Cities. By his description of that chaotic society, we know that the ruling class is destined to come to an end. But also we can see his compassion for the moribund class. This forms the conflict in this novel. And Madame Defarge is a symbol of such a conflict.

The cruelty of Madame Defarge: Madame Defarge is from her first appearance unusual. She is a complicated, frightening woman. Nobody can predict what she is capable of doing, and it seems that she can kill anyone without a blink if she wants to. However, she is also a genius revolutionist. She covers her strong desire for revenge under the deathly calmness. She, for the most part in this novel keeps silent and keeps knitting the names she wants to take revenge on into the name list. She always sits in the bar still and peacefully, but under the peacefulness, there is the attic faith for revenge. When the revolution finally breaks out, she sheds her camouflage and becomes the blood-sucking beast, leading the women to do whatever they want and try to wipe out who they hate, even the innocent wife and baby. Dickens wrote in the novel” It was nothing to her that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself, If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe tomorrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who

sent her there.” All she desires is to destroy. She is so cold blooded, and wants to kill as men. Madame Defarge has a curious power. She talks little, but nobody can ignore her presence, some even fear her. She has many followers who always listen to her order and actually no one of them dares to disobey her, not even her husband. As for Lucie, the almost perfect character in this novel, we can

understand more easily why Madame Defarge can cast such a shadow in her life. Even Mr. Barsad, the spy is afraid of her. Obviously, she cast shadows in

everyone’s life, and everyone can tell her difference and the evil power hidden heart.

The tragedy of Madame Defarge: Though her action of revenge in the revolution verges on craziness, her hate is not born with, but is imparted to her after the endless suffering. The tragedy of her family is credited for mercy. Dickens in the novel gives a thorough description of her family background and how her family members are one by one forced to die in the successive oppression. No one after reading this part will not pity her for the unfortunate life she has experienced, and after such persecution her strong desire to revenge seems very reasonable. Her being so cruel is closely related to her living environment. She pities no one for she has never been pitied for. Since her childhood, she sees nothing other than poverty, coldness, hunger, sickness, and all other forms of suffering. These are the social conditions which lay base for the formation of Madame Defarge’s character. In Dr. Manette’s letter, readers know that her family die under the torturing and insults of the Evrémonde brothers. And she, as the youngest of the family is sent to a fisherman for protection. Thus she has no warmth of family in her childhood. So it is imaginable she has no happiness in her childhood memory.

And when she grows up, she bears the burden of revenge. All in all, she is a poor character. And Dickens thinks that her cruelty arises from the wrong done to her in her childhood. “Imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress,” writes Dickens. It is reasonable to say that Dickens has great sympathy for this unfortunate woman.

The contrast in Dickens’ heart: By creating the character of Madame Defarge, Dickens shows the conflicts in his own heart. On one hand, he has deep commiseration for the sufferers under the cruel reign. In the former part of the novel, Dickens gives a detailed description of the intensity of the suffering pressed upon the “rabbles.” “Cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence—nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook.” That is the scene in Dickens’ eye. And for the rich, they live a luxurious life, squander wantonly and take no heed of the life of the poor. Even serving the Monseigneur his chocolate will take four people. Readers could imagine to how large the gap between the rich and the poor is. Dickens also gives a vivid description of how the baby is run over by the Monseigneur and how he shamelessly wants to buy the baby’s life out by his few coins. This proves the atrocity of the nobles and their hearts are beastlike. Under such circumstance, people cannot survive the oppression, and they have no choice but to rise up to

drown their inflictors in the wave of the large enraged masses. In this part Dickens points out the necessity and possibility of the revolution. On the other hand, he is against the violence that Madame Defarge takes advantage of for her revenge. Madame Defarge is a symbol of fighting against the ruling class, but she is characterized as a woman who is blinded by the desire for vengeance, and thus comes into an ecstasy for torturing, killing and retribution. To compensate for the infliction of her early age, she spares no one and even tries to involve the innocent in. From this perspective, she is a woman that should be condemned. He writes, “There were many women at that time upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets.” And he hopes that this world will not produce such kind of people, the people that suffers and desires to makes other suffer. So at the end of the novel, as a punishment for her

ruthlessness, Madame Defarge is killed by her own gun. We can see clearly that when people live in the lifeless abyss of coldness and poverty, Dickens has great sympathy for them, but when they rise up to fight the violence and injustice back, his sympathy changes to antipathy. So is with Madame Defarge, when she is left alone in the world tasting the bitterness of life and feeling no warmth of family, she is arranged to survive, but when she grows strong enough to fear nothing she needs to die. And such conflict is just the conflict in Dickens’ own heart, both pitying the poor and also against the violence in revolution.

Conclusion: A Tale of Two Cities is set in the French Revolution. It gives readers a clear view of the contradictions of the society. Dickens from the point of humanism hopes that people can be delivered from sufferings, but he thinks that

violent revolution is not the solution. He is against the infliction the ruling class throws on the common people, but he does not advocate overthrowing it. This inevitably shows his conflict in his heart between humanism and revolution.