m that Darnay was being tried in, Dickens portrayed the crowd to be “blueflies” – flies that feed on dead bodies. This simile implies that the mob finds joy in death, regardless of the innocence or guilt of the person being hanged. His view of mobs is also evident when Jerry Cruncher joins a mob of people following Roger Cly’s body, and riots with them for fun. Through these various portrayals of French life, Dickens illustrates his own opinion on the French Revolution, which is that because of the incredible oppression of the French lower-class by the French upper-class, the revolution was inevitable.It is in this way that revolution, order, and the conflict between the two are major themes of A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens personifies the revolution in the form of Madame Defarge, the wife of a storeowner in the poor Saint Antoine section of Paris. She is described as a cold, malevolent woman who knits the names of people she wishes to see die when the revolution comes, into her register. Defarge also represents revenge and the mob mentality. This is apparent in the lines of Dickens where he says “So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, couting dropping heads.”Miss Pross, on the other hand, is the personification of order, justice, and peace; she is the antithesis to Madame Defarge. Pross was the caretaker of Lucie, and the one who single-handedly raised her. She is described, through the eyes of Lorry, to be a tough woman who is devoted to Lucie. The conflict between Pross and Defarge towards the end of the novel represents the conflict between order and revolution. When Madame Defarge goes to the Manette’s Paris apartment in order to catch Lucie in the act of mourning a convict, she encounters Pross, alone, there. A fight ensues and Defarge dra...
