"A Tale of Two Cities" Passage Analysis

            A Tale of Two Cities takes place in 1775 at the start of the French Revolution in Paris, France.  The book follows both the lives of people who are at the height of the aristocracy as well as people who are starving French peasants.  Against the backdrop of this time period, Dickens explores many different themes, one of which is revenge.  The following passage about a woman named Madam Defarge, a French Revolutionary, illustrates how revenge is an evil that can completely consume an individual's whole life and mindset.

          "There were many women at the 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.  Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances.  But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress.  She was absolutely without pity.  If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.

          It was nothing to her that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefather; 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 to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling that a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her there." (Book the Third, Pages 365-366)

            As shown in the passage above, Madame Defarge is a woman who has absolutely no pity for anyone or anything.  As a child, her sister was raped and her brother killed by the Marquis St. Evremonde.  In this part of the novel, she is walking down the streets of Paris on her way to denounce Lucie Mannette Darnay, wife of Charles Darnay, the nephew of the Marquis St. Evremonde.   Lucie's husband, Charles, has been accused of being an enemy of the Republic, arrested, and sentenced to the guillotine that day.  Madame Defarge suspects that Lucie will be at home grieving for her husband, and it will therefore be the opportune time to arrest her.  She plans to use the excuse that Lucie is grieving for an enemy of the republic and is therefore guilty of treason and should be sent to the guillotine.  Madame Defarge is determined to exterminate as many Evremonde family members as possible.  She has completely lost her mind, and all she cares for now is revenge against the Evremondes.  She will do anything in her power to get back at the family that made her life miserable as a child.

          The imagery in this passage is so clear that the reader can picture her "great determination" as Madame Defarge moves down the streets of Paris.  Dickens describes her as a "tigress" stalking her "natural enemies and her prey," the aristocratic Evremondes. She is depicted as being "ruthless," having a "shrewd sense and readiness," and an "inveterate hatred."  These powerful adjectives demonstrate to the reader her evil character.  She is a heartless woman whose virtue "ha[s] quite gone out of her."

          This lack of virtue is also portrayed in the dark tone that Dickens uses in this passage.  His harshly descriptive words and phrases convey an overall sense of cruelty and viciousness.  Through Dickens' tone, the reader feels the brutal nature of Madame Defarge's desire for vengeance.        

          Though these two paragraphs are but a small part of A Tale of Two Cities, they represent the theme of revenge.  Dickens seems to suggest that not forgiving another can tear a person apart.  Failing to forget past mistakes can become more than just wanting revenge.  In the case of Madame Defarge, this lack of forgiveness becomes the purpose of her life.   Her character conveys to the reader the all-consuming nature of spite.  As demonstrated in this passage, Dickens' novel seems to warn the reader against getting caught up in the need for revenge.

Romeo and Juliet

I've always loved learning about Shakespeare. When I was in sixth grade, I had the opportunity to be a part of a play at my elementary called,"Snippets from Shakespeare." Each class in the sixth grade performed five different scenes from Shakespeare's plays. I played the part of Laertes in the "Hamlet" fight scene. Back then, I remember I really enjoyed reading Shakespeare's works. It's really fun to decode the complicated writing figure out what it means in modern day English. When you first look at a passage from his writing, it looks so deep, and you think that there is no possible way that you could ever understand it. Then if you use your brain a little bit, and figure out all of the metaphors in the writing, it isn't too hard to decode. Shakespeare has so many great things that are written in his plays, and once I could understand what in the heck he was talking about, I learned some really cool things.

One of the days while we were reading Romeo and Juliet, we looked at many different quotes for our "Quote of the Day" in Mr. Thompson's class. Almost every little saying had some great advice that we should all learn to follow. One of my favorite ones said, "A light heart lives long." You wouldn't think that something this simple could have so much truth in it. There were many other great quotes that gave good advice about honesty and other life choices.

I feel like my writing has gotten much better since we started reading Shakespeare. His plays make you realize that you can create a masterpiece with words that we use every day of our lives. Of course, there are also some really great insults added into his writing. It can be difficult to make it rhyme at times and to make the words fit just right. After a lot of rearranging and changing up some words, I wrote a sonnet for my wiki assignment. I decided that I didn't want to write a letter or a journal entry because I knew everyone would do that, and I wanted mine to be different. Once I made a word pool of words that rhyme, I chose to speak from Friar Laurence's point of view, and I got the general idea of what I wanted to say, it wasn't so hard to put the words down onto paper. So, here is my sonnet that I wrote from the point of view of Friar Laurence about trying to decide whether or not to marry Romeo and Juliet.


                                                      Friar Laurence's Sonnet 

"He's mad," thought I, when Romeo first crossed my door,
Real love? Is it conceivable whilst meeting but last night?
Could Romeo without his Juliet consider himself poor?
In the sight of God, could the love they share be right?
One from the house of Capulet, the other Montague,
Their young love discovered, would not their parents please.
If conjoined in matrimony, lethal would be the feud.
Young lovers, their minds held captive, do not think of things like these.
I could believe this love is true, but how with endless woes?
Doth youthful passion possess the power to overcome such strife?
The Montagues, though warring, must accept the House of Rose,
Or else this life-long prejudice could turn them toward the knife.
Though Juliet is but a girl, and Romeo just a young boy,
Perhaps the union of these two could bring about some joy.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In Mr. Carter's class, we are learning about the Middle East. It is a little coincidental that we are learning about it when there is all of the conflict happening over there right now. There are so many problems in Egypt, Libya, and of course there is always trouble happening in Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on ever since 1948 when Israel was officially made a country, and the Jews were given the land. Both groups of people believe that the land rightfully belongs to them, and there are definitely two different sides to the story. The Israelis believe it is theirs because they were promised the land as the promised land. The Palestinians don't believe it is fair that the Israeli people can come and take over their land after they have been living there for centuries. There is always conflict between the two groups over the tiny little country of Israel. There have been many attempts at how to solve the problem, and there have been many different ideas about how to end the fighting. This is my paper that I wrote about the solutions to the conflict.


                
                Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

There have been so many attempts for peace for the tiny piece of land in the Middle East. There has been fighting going on for more than 60 years for the country of Israel, when it became a country in 1948. The Israelis and the Palestinians both believe that the country belongs to them. The Palestinian people have lived there ever since the Diaspora. Then when the United Nations created the country of Israel, they told all of the Jews that they could come live there because it had been promised to them.

        The two groups of people both have reasons to believe that it is rightfully their own land. It seems obvious that if both of these people are fighting over the same piece of land, they should just split it right down the middle and give half to the Israelis and half to the Palestinians. This method of splitting the country in half is called the "two state solution." However, it is not quite that simple because both groups cherish the city of Jerusalem and do not want to give it up. This is one solution that could possibly work for solving the conflict.

        Another way that they could solve the problem is by moving one group completely out of the country. This would be a very difficult solution because it would nearly be impossible to move an entire group out of the country. It is not likely that any of the surrounding countries would be willing to let the Israelis or Palestinians come in and invade their land. All of countries that surround Israel hate the Israeli's guts, and it is not likely that their opinion will change anytime soon.

        There have been many different ideas for ways to solve the conflict over the tiny little country of Israel. It would be very difficult to make both groups of people happy, but maybe there will be a time when the issue will be solved. It would be hard to make it fair for both sides of the conflict.

The shrieking sounds that are often heard at the Sargent household

It seems like whenever someone asks me to write anything about a certain person I always end up choosing my little sister Kate. I remember in English at the beginning of the year, Mr. Thompson asked us to write something about an interesting person that we knew well. Kate somehow pops into my brain when I think of people that are interesting and definitely unique. Then again she came into my thoughts when we wrote poems in English about a month ago. I made the decision to write my poem about my uncommon sister that I have the opportunity to spend time with each and every waking hour. I spent some time coming up with words that rhymed, and then wrote it out into poetry form. My dad helped with some of the rhyming patterns one night, and Kate came up and asked us what we were doing. Don't worry, we were pretty sneaky, and I don't believe she suspected anything, and she probably never will. That's just the kind of person she is; once she know that is has nothing to do with her, she's not interested and completely checks out and clues back into her own world. She is very adorable at times, but you will now see why she can be a tad difficult to share the same space with this little girl.

My deafening little sister Kate,

 You could never call her a bore.

She's been shrieking every second

Since the moment she was born.

Kate is weeping and she's wailing

About every little thing.

Since she's making noise so often,

Simply, we've stopped asking.

She roars when she if full of rage,

At times she weeps in sorrow;

No matter what the crisis is,

It won't be fixed tomorrow.

What to expect from a 7-year old?

She rarely thinks rationally;

Sometimes things make sense in her head,

If not, she's heard nationally.

I would cry too if I dropped my spoon

 Well doesn't it make sense?

"She doesn't shriek when it's time to eat,"

 It's been said in her defense.

Although she often causes problems

And stirs up a mess each day;

Her blonde curls and blue eyes are charming

And in your heart she will stay.

Not only does she shriek about a lot of things, but she can also be heard around the house while she is singing to her High School Musical. She loves to exercise her strong vocal cords especially with her beautiful singing voice. I'm convinced that she will be the next Hannah Montana with her voice and acting abilities. 

As I'm writing this right now, what do you think she's doing? You got it, she's yelling at the top of her lungs at my sister, who still hasn't heard her after five minutes of constant shouting. However, even though she can be the biggest pain in the world at times, I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. When she isn't busy whining about something, she is so sweet. She leaves me darling little notes all around my room that brighten up my day. What can I say, our family just wouldn't be the same without Kate.

Revenge

After answering the discussion question about revenge this week, I kept thinking about revenge and the awful things that it can cause. I have now finished "A Tale of Two Cities," and there are so many great examples of revenge in the book. The character of Madame Defarge becomes so caught up in repaying the aristocracy of France that she turns herself into an evil, bloodthirsty woman who cares about nothing else. The want to have revenge on the noblemen completely overtakes and consumes her to the point where she only wants to kill everyone that has anything to do with that class of people. I have found some great quotes about revenge and what can happen if we do not forgive. After each one I will explain what they have to do with Madame Defarge and and what the price of revenge can be.

 “Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools.”
-Juvenal

  Throughout the book, Madame Defarge tries to convince herself of this statement and that her life will be happier if she takes revenge on the aristocracy of France. She is turned into a fool by thinking this is true.

“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
-Josh Billings

 This quote is so true, but Madame Defarge is too proud to realize that forgiveness might be a better option for her bitterness. She has buried herself so deep into the revolution that she thinks it is much too late for forgiveness now. She is not willing to forgive the children of the people that were awful to her family. Even though Charles Darnay is innocent, she can't see past the fact that he is a descendant of the Evremonde family.

 “By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing over it, he is superior.”
 -Unknown

This quote tells us that we can be the bigger person if we forgive and forget the wrong things people have done to us. Madame Defarge is not in the least bit willing to forget the things that the Evremonde brothers for the pain that they caused her to suffer as a young girl. She would rather become even with her enemies by causing them to die rather than become superior to them by forgiving them.

 “Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves.
-Phaedrus

There isn't a quote that could come closer to resembling what happens to Madame Defarge at the end of the book. She is so caught up in causing other people to fall that she never thinks twice about the fact that she could be killed herself. She is consumed with taking revenge and so like this quote says, she falls herself from being shot by Miss Pross.

Reading "A Tale of Two Cities" has really helped to see how revenge can kill just as strongly as a gun shot. The revolutionaries in the book want to take revenge so badly that they are driven by repaying the aristocracy, and they can't think about anything else. The French Revolution is an event in history that I hope we can learn from, and that we won't be so bloodthirsty for revenge that it will take over our lives. 

For Good

          Last November, my mom, my sister, and I took a girls trip out to San Francisco to see the Broadway play, "Wicked."  It was not only a really fun trip because of all the fun things that we got to do, but it seemed that after walking out of the theater, I felt changed in a way. The whole play has many different lessons that it teaches us, and I learned a lot of things while watching it. I have to say that there is one song it particular, "For Good," that taught some very important lessons.  The lyrics have some very important messages to share. I found them and have now copied them down onto this page:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good


It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

Because I knew you
I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

Because I knew you

I have been changed for good

I have thought about these lyrics over and over again in my head. It isn’t just about the similes, the rhyming words, and the bitter-sweet phrases that it contains. This song tells us many important things about choosing our friends and how to treat them if you want to keep them. At the beginning, it has some important lines, including the following, “I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them,
and we help them in return.”

          I believe that certain people are put into our lives for reasons. A lot of those people are here to teach us the lessons that we need to learn in life. This may be true, but I think that it’s hard for us to realize that these people are here to help us. We may get annoyed by these individuals who want to make us better and teach us what we should do, especially when those people are our parents. It also says in those lines that we will only grow if we help those people in return. I think that we all could do a better job of realizing what people do for us each and every day and giving back to those who sacrifice for us.

          I also like the very last lines that read, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” These words have so much that they can teach us. I hope that we can all try to do a little better at being nice to people and helping them out. I know that I want people to be changed for the better because they knew me. I think that we can all want to be better each and every day, so that we can change other for good. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco and see this amazing musical because it reminds that I can be better every day.

Biology Essay

In my wonderful biology class, one of the options for our term projects is to write four essays on scientific magazine articles. This option sounded better to me than finding science comics and writing a paragraph about each. It also sounded more enjoyable than reading a book about a disease that made people have giant sores and gaping holes everywhere on their bodies. This sounded like the best option to me, so this is one of my fantastic science essays that I have written. It may not be perfect, but then again my biology teacher will take one glance at it and if it looks like it has five paragraphs, I will probably get a perfect score.

October 2010                  

Amber Angelle

Hurricane News

            Can you believe that the wind can travel over 150 miles per hour? All over the world, places get completely destroyed from these winds that come from the sea called hurricanes. Hurricanes can be extremely dangerous and can demolish hundreds of miles of our earth's surface. Scientists have been studying the ways that hurricanes start, what happens while they are happening, and possibly some of the factors that cause hurricanes to start.

            The scientists that have been researching this topic of hurricanes have found many different things. They have learned about the eye, which is the center of the hurricane and is in the middle of everything that's happening. The next part outside of the eye is called the eyewall. The eyewall is actually much more powerful than the eye itself because the eye is in the middle and does not carry much force. The eyewall is full of heavy rains and extremely fast winds. Scientists have also been studying whether the temperatures of the earth have any affect on how frequently hurricanes occur. They have found that heat will not cause more hurricanes, but when they come they will be much more powerful than normal.

            I believe that it is very important that we have recorded some of these facts that will help us to learn more about the danger of hurricanes and how serious they are. This information could help us with safety in the future when hurricanes are going on around us. If we learn more and more about them, then it will be easier to protect ourselves and fight against them. There are some very interesting things that have been found in this research, and some of the stuff is things that we should know.

            There are things called Cyclone Cylinders that are found in the eyewall and they stir the hurricane up to be bigger and more powerful. It gives the winds an energy-boost and when Cyclone Cylinders are helping the hurricane, the storm can be intensified to become a category 5. It is very interesting that the eye of the hurricane isn't the strongest point, but that the eyewall is much more powerful and can do more damage to the area that it is destroying. I hope that we can use this information and learn even more in the future.

             This new information from scientist's research can help us immensely with our knowledge about hurricanes. We can't stop these terrors from coming, but now we know how they work and what their plan is.