Towards the end of the novel we see a break in the very
foundation on which the revolution rested: the doctrines of Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity no longer held any weight. The most poignant representation of
this break is the execution of a poor seamstress in the very guillotine that
was used to execute extravagant and corrupt aristocrats. She was someone of no
real political power or significance, and had merely been found to be a voice
of dissent in the senseless bloodshed that had become the norm. For this reason
she was found to be a royalist sympathizer and was thus sentenced to die. Accused
of plotting against the revolution, she states that “Heaven knows I am innocent
of any… who would think of plotting with a poor, weak creature like me”. The
innocence and anguish with which she says these words truly indicate the
failure of the revolution: it seems to seek to weed out the very notion of
individual liberty in its quest for collective liberty. Just before her
execution she says to Carton: “I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I
have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the republic which is to do so
much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can
be, Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor, weak creature”. This is indicative of a
certain desensitization and dehumanization of the revolutionary class in France,
such that it was incapable of seeing the difference between a helpless poor
seamstress and a corrupt nobleman. With her execution there is a certain death
of innocence pointing towards the very injustice that was talked about in the
first chapter that was to be corrected by the revolution. The tragedy of the
seamstress and her unusually harsh punishment reminds us of the boy who had his
tongue torn out and body burned alive. Thus, Dickens uses the seamstress to
remind us that the revolution failed to a large extent as it was unable to
champion the rights of liberty of the individual as opposed to those of the
community.
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