What Does Miss Pross Symbolize In A Tale Of Two Cities

In the novel “A Tale of Two Cities” written by Charles Dickens, we find that several characters have strong ideals and are driven to take the path that they do. Dickens gives credible motivation to each of his characters to explain why the characters are doing the thing that they are. Two characters with exceptionally strong drive throughout the story are Miss Pross and Madame Defarge. Miss Pross is a symbol of love in the story and we find that all of her love and dedication is driven by Lucie. On the contrary, Madame Defarge is a symbol of hate and that is derived from the horrendous things that the Evrémonde brothers had committed to her family. Despite their differences symbolically, they both progress throughout the plot to show the true extent of what they are willing to accomplish with their motivations.

She had taken Lucie in and, obviously, had become very attached to her because she spent all those years with Lucie and came to see her as a daughter figure. Later on, in a much darker setting, we see how far Miss Pross is willing to go for Lucie when the vengeful Madame Defarge is looking to kill Lucie and her daughter. Miss Pross protects the room where Lucie and her daughter would have been staying if they were not already escaping. On page 336, Miss Pross states to Madame Defarge that, “ anything for her to have a few more seconds” She completely disregards her own safety and fights with Madame Defarge after she tries to leave when she realized Lucie wasn’t in there anymore. In the end, Miss Pross’s motivation to save her Ladybird causes her to shoot and kill Madame Defarge as well as sacrifice her ability to hear for the rest of her life. Driven by her love for Lucie, we can conclude that Miss Pross was truly willing to do anything for her no matter the cost to help