The Final Confrontation — A Tale of Two Cities

Madame Defarge's bloodlust reaches its peak as she plots the destruction of the entire Darnay family, including innocent Lucie and her child. Her husband's mercy toward Dr. Manette disgusts her, she sees it as weakness that threatens her mission of total revenge. Armed with pistol and dagger, she heads to the Manette lodgings to ensure no Evrémonde escapes the guillotine. Meanwhile, Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher frantically prepare to follow the escaped family's coach. When Madame Defarge arrives demanding to see Lucie, Miss Pross realizes the doors are open, revealing signs of flight. In broken French and English, neither woman understanding the other's words, they square off in a battle of wills. Miss Pross, the plain English governess, faces down the revolutionary fury with nothing but fierce protective love for her 'Ladybird.' Their physical struggle ends when Madame Defarge's own pistol discharges, killing her instantly and leaving Miss Pross permanently deaf. This climactic confrontation represents the collision between personal devotion and political fanaticism. Dickens shows how love, even from an unlikely hero like Miss Pross, can triumph over hatred when it fights to protect the innocent. The scene also demonstrates how revolutions can create monsters who lose all humanity in their quest for vengeance, ultimately destroying themselves.

The Knitting Done In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. 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. Forbid it as we shouldn’t all flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal risk! Cruncher’s conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one.