A Tale of Two Cities

Thérèse Defarge is knitting in nearly every scene in which she appears, and it eventually becomes clear that this knitting serves a very practical purpose: through a code made up of different stitches, Madame Defarge keeps track of individuals slated to die once the aristocracy is overthrown. It’s significant, however, that Dickens chooses knitting in particular as a symbol of the future that awaits the French nobility, because it links Madame Defarge to the Moirai, or Greek goddesses of fate; in classical mythology, the control these three goddesses wield over each person’s destiny is symbolized by the threads they spin, measure, and cut. By associating Madame Defarge with these figures, Dickens makes her an almost superhuman villain, while also underscoring the inevitability of the aristocracy’s downfall; the historical forces that bring about the French Revolution are so powerful that they function like fate.

The image of a golden thread is the counterweight to Madame Defarge’s sinister knitting. It first emerges as a reference to Lucie Manette’s blonde hair, which itself symbolizes her purity and kindness; during her reunion with her father, for instance, the narrator describes “his cold white head ming[ling] with her radiant hair, which warm[s] and light[s] it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him” (48).