Madame Defarge Informative Speech

Thank you for being here today.

I want to quickly thank everyone in our large, anxiety-filled community that is the French slums. You all cared so much for our family of revolutionaries and carried on Madame Defarge’s vision to rid France of the oppressive Marquis and their relatives.Your help, your passion, your executions, and your knitting lists have kept our community strong during this time of grief.

Madame Therese Defarge. What did you call her? Madame Defarge? Sister? Revolutionary? Deliverer? Sisterhood leader? Justice Bringer? Wife? Hero to the Starving? Lifeline of the revolutionaries? Something else? She was called so many things by so many people. I was lucky enough to be a part of the Vengeance where we knew her as the leader

She had multiple loving brothers and sisters. But then, disaster struck when her brother, sister, and father were killed by the cruel, vicious Evrémonde family. Though it seemed hopeless for her, she remained strong and determined to complete her life goal to avenge her family. She once exclaimed, "Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!" (3.12.36). She never gave up her dream to protect the ones who can’t help themselves. Just as one doesn’t stand at the barrel of a gun, you would never be able to divert her attention to the mission at hand. Few had her focus. But even fewer in our day have the fire in their eyes that she did when she spoke of bringing justice to our once hopeless and starving villages. But we were more than just starving for food. We had a craving that we never even knew about without her. A craving for unquenchable vengeance- no pun intended with the name- that could only be corrected with the violence necessary to protect ourselves.

Many called our ways violent or without cause, but Madame Defarge saw, as we do, that sometimes when no one is listening it is easiest to scream- ironic since she hardly rose her voice much. Her scream encompassed all of our own and helped us see through the clouded judgement that it would all be better one day and realize that that day could be today. She saved us from a worse enemy that the abusive rich, our own