*Tale of Two Cities--Week Five.

“Echoing Footsteps “is the motif in Chapter 21, in which Lucie consistently hears throughout the days. The resonance of the footsteps “upset” Lucie, as she is caught between “fluttering hopes and doubts.” Within the footsteps, Lucie hears the “sound of footsteps at her own early grave” as sadness is all the echo of the footsteps brought her. The footsteps that Lucie hears foreshadows the soon coming Revolution, footsteps that are “not easily made clean if once stained red” with blood, which the reader is introduced to in the following chapter.

The reader sees that all of the turmoil and Revolution stems from the Defarge’s wine shop. They all meet at “Defarge’s wine-shop” where Defarge was already “begrimed with gunpowder and sweat” as he “issued arms” out to people to begin war. The secret symbol for the Jacques is a “red-cap” which the reader sees in chapter 1 of book 3 when Darnay is imprisoned by the people in the red-caps and is sentenced to be kept “in secret” which means that Darnay will be isolated in a prison cell just as Dr. Manette was.

Lucie’s child, Lucie Jr., shows aspects of Lucie and her father Darnay, in that she speaks the “Two Cities of her life.” Speaking English from Lucie, and the French of Darnay—the part that Darnay’s family does not know of. Perhaps further on in the reading, Lucie Jr. will be forced to choose her father’s heritage or her mothers. Or perhaps Lucie will be a symbol that England and France can intermix and be created into one.

As the Revolution begins, the reader is introduced to a new character, “The Vengeance” who is Madame Defarge’s “lieutenant.” The Lady’s name epitomizes what the Jacques are about- “inflicting injury, harm, humiliation, and revenge.”

Chapter 22 embodies the violence during the late 1700’s. The sadistic pleasure that the Defarge’s and the others feel from the “hanging,” “beating,” and “murdering” of the wealthier population and the celebration of “dancing” that they feel portrays the unruliness of what the Jacques aim to accomplish. The irony in all of the killing is that the Jacques thought violence would better their own lives, yet they were all left with “children wailing and breadless,” empty “bakers’ shops,” and “scanty insufficient suppers.” However, the work that the Jacques accomplished made the “human fellowship” infuse some “nourishment into the flinty viands” which produced “sparks of cheerfulness” within the people. The people thrived on violence as their source of “nourishment.”