The Futile Effort of Vengeance

The Futile Effort of Vengeance From the beginning of human life, the effort of vengeance against others has caused countless horrible things to happen. Every act of terror has been caused by someone revenge, or an attempt of justifying a wrongdoing done to a group of people or an individual. These things have caused millions of deaths throughout human history. This is presented in the novel Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens. Throughout the entire novel there is a continual indignant tone towards the nobles of France and England. Dickens uses the violent scenes in Tale of Two Cities to demonstrate three things: nothing is attained through revenge, one will lose sight of original goals trying to get revenge, and efforts of revenge bring out barbaric and animalistic qualities in humans. Nothing is really gained in revenge; what may seemed to have been gained is surely temporary. This is demonstrated all throughout Dickens's novel Tale of Two Cities. Early in the book, the arrogant Marquis kills Gaspard's son by trampling him over with his horse and carriage. As Gaspard weeps in the loss of his son, the marquis throws a coin as his retribution for killing a boy. Not long after, the marquis is found murdered by Gaspard with a note reading, "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques"(Dickens 182).By doing this, Gaspard associates himself the revolutionaries. A group whose sole purpose is to exact revenge on the aristocrats. In the end Gaspard is caught and sentenced a horrible death, "hanged there forty feet high-and is left hanging, poisoning the water"(Dickens 190). His rotting body poisoning the water of the village is almost a sign of how nothing is gained through revenge. Dickens also uses the violent scenes in Tale of Two Cities to demonstrate that in an effort of revenge, one will lose sight of the original goals previously set. Madame Defarge is a perfect of exaple of this. Driven by the the murder of her family, she ruthlessly seeks