Charles Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities" presents two entirely opposite personalities in the characters of Lucie Darnay and Madame Defarge. Although both women share French descent, they are otherwise at exact opposites with each other in terms of family, social position, temperament, and even fate. From his 19th century standpoint, Dickens shows us the upper middle class feminine ideal in Lucie Darnay. In the character of Madame Defarge, he presents his version of an individual who embodies the very antithesis of 19th century feminine ideals. In Madame Defarge, Dickens offers us the character of a woman of the type, as he puts is, "such as the world would do well never to breed again" (186).

In his "insistence on the female as the gentler, purer sex," Dickens never allows Lucie to depart from Victorian convention (Robson 313). As Lisa Robson states in her essay "The Angels in Dickens' House," Dickens implies that Lucie is a "redeemer " of feminine values. Robson states that in "A Tale of Two Cities," Lucie acts most noticeably as a redeemer by reclaiming her father, Doctor Manette "from his mental abstraction, b

By defining Lucie as the "golden thread," Dickens alludes to what Robson calls "the traditionally female activities of spinning and sewing." Thus, Dickens emphasizes "the domesticity of feminine figures in their roles as preservers and reconcilers of the family" (314). Never does Lucie appear to be other than "a dutiful daughter and wife." Robson reminds us that Lucie remains constantly submissive to her father in that she is even "unwilling to marry her greatest love [Charles Darnay], should her father disapprove." She is also faithful to Charles, "standing by her husband with level-headed practicality and emotional fortitude when he faces the French Tribunal," and she is praised for "always maintaining a beautiful home, whether in Soho or in Paris" (Robson 314). And, according to Victorian standards of femininity, Lucie is "everything to everyone; she is innocent child to her father, loving yet pure and non-sexual) wife to her husband." To "those who love her," Lucie is "compassionate friend and moral inspiration." Robson states that by characterizing "such feminine virtue, charitable love and self-sacrifice," Dickens gives us Lucie Darnay and her Victorian conventions as "alternatives to the violence and inhumanity which dominate his representation of the French Revolution" (314).

Madame Defarge is an exact opposite of Lucie Darnay in social standing and physical appearance. By so being, Madame Defarge "appears to avoid some of the restrictions placed on other women in the novel," as Lisa Robson notes (322). While Lucie's husband is "established in England as a higher teacher of the French language," Madame Defarge's husband is nothing more than the keeper of a wine shop and a former servant to Doctor Manet

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