Character Informstion

“The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.”

The blurring between wine and blood in this quote allows both to function as liquids for which the citizens of France lust. Like wine, the blood which spills in the streets intoxicates the population.

“But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained, not shown, yet always ready.”

Madame Defarge shows restraint where her husband shows passion. At the moment, this seems like a good strategy; it also foreshadows her heartless treatment of the Manettes later in the novel.

“The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful.  Its deplorable peculiarity was that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago.”

Doctor Manette’s time in prison has robbed him not just of time but of his ability to re-enter the world, as well. Even his voice seems to have been forgotten.

“It's a dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think.”

Mr. Lorry sees how terrifying the thought of prison still is for Doctor Manette. The lack of control that Doctor Manette once had over his own life becomes a present fear, tracking his days and nights

“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. The mill which had worked them down was the mill that grinds young people old.”

Society becomes an impersonal, programmed force which the poor of France cannot control. They’re no longer citizens of the nation: they’re grist for the mill which mixes up the poor.

“My husband, fellow citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.”

Madame Defarge’s loyalties are more complicated than the sort of family-centered loyalties we see in the Manettes. Sure, she likes her husband and the revolution. She cares more, however, about her own revenge.

“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence.”

Sydney Carton, unable to gain Lucie’s love in this lifetime, settles for the epic faithfulness that he imagines her family giving upon him in the future.

“I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away.”

Sydney’s loyalties seem to be for everyone but himself. Even his name will be better when it belongs to someone else.

"I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost, not him!"

Although Lucie almost immediately gives her life over to the protection and care of her father, her early horror indicates her own suffering in this situation, as well.

“The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur.”

Not only is Monseigneur unthinkable, but his followers are inhuman. They’re described as worthless people.