A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

Of the extraordinary amount of literary devices available to authors, Charles Dickens uses quite a few in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, which is set during the French Revolution. One of his more distinctive devices is character foils. The five sets of foils are Carton and Darnay, Carton and Stryver, Darnay and the Marquis de Evremonde, Madame Defarge, and Mr. Lorry and Jerry Cruncher. Dickens uses foil characters to highlight the virtues of several major characters in order to show the theme of personal, loving relationships having the ability to prevail over heartless violence and self-consuming vengeance.

Charles Dickens, author of A Tale of Two Cities, utilizes the literary devices of syntax, diction, and simile to produce a foreboding and sinister mood and foreshadow the nature of the French Revolution.

In the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, a wine cask spills onto the a street of Saint Antoine. In response, many witnesses had stopped what they were doing and collected the red wine in any way possible. The road had begun to be stained a brilliant red from the wine, and someone had “scrawled upon a wall with [a] finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood” (Dickens, 35). Those who did go after the spilled wine “had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth” and had their hands stained a blood red. Not only does this scene show how desperate the people in France were, but Dickens makes sure the reader understands that he is foreshadowing the French Revolution that is on the rise. This scene is a great example of how Dickens uses foreshadowing to keep his audience hooked on the story . He does this by using creative word choice, imagery and creating a beautiful scene that pulls the reader in. Later on in the story this scene is revisited. However, it would no longer be wine that is flowing through the streets of France, but blood.

2. How does Dickens indicate the severity of social conditions in both France and England?

A Tale of Two Cities, a book written by Charles Dickens in 1859, describes the situation of France and the French Revolution. At the end of Chapter Six, Dr. Manette, Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Miss Pross are at a Tea Party. A turbulent storm occurs and incites an eerie mood within the characters. Charles Darnay starts telling a story about a paper he found. After telling the story, Dr. Manette begins to feel ill. Following this is a section which contains multiple literary elements. In Chapter Six, Dickens utilizes descriptive literary devices, such as imagery, personification, and anaphora, to foretell the French Revolution and set the mood of the passage.

In this quote, Dickens uses imagery to describe the wine spill. People "darted here and there" to try to sip up any wine, before it dried up. Dickens wanted us to see how big this is to the people, because then everyone was so poor they couldn't afford wine, so the wine spill turned into a huge party. Everyone trying to get as much as they could and enjoy it.

Today many violent scenes are used for their shock value and for the sake of including violence. However, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, has violent scenes to illustrate the time period of the French Revolution. Scenes such as Foulon being paraded through the city and murdered, the Storming of the Bastille, and the fight between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge emphasize the violence of the time through graphic detail and imagery. These scenes add to the novel’s legitimacy by expressing the immense violence of the time and truly showing the horrors of the revolution.

The literature that came out of the French Revolution often shares common themes of death, rebirth, and destruction. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is much the same way. Throughout the novel, Dickens clearly supports the revolution but also depicts the brutality of the revolutionaries. Dickens uses powerful metaphors of a sea to symbolize the revolutionaries destroying old France and the belittling name of “Jacques” to depict the narcissistic views of the French aristocracy to show his support for the revolution.

In the book, Dickens portrays the people as having the hatred necessary for mob violence. Immediately, the book shows us an example how such hatred was created. When a youth’s hands were chopped off, “tongue torn out with pincers” and “his body burned alive” it shows the violence and torture that led to the French revolution. The youth represents the weak in French society

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, narrates the frustrations of the common people toward Foulon, a French magistrate. The people rejoice when Foulon is imprisoned since he treated them awfully. The nature of the French Revolution is the common people’s elation at the downfall of the aristocracy. Dickens utilizes personification, motif, and symbolism to describe the relationship between the common people and Foulon.

Dickens' Use of Language and Structure to Build Up a Picture of the Joy of Christmas Present

Dickens uses the wine cask being spilled in chapter five of book one to foreshadow the coming revolution. Dickens says, “The wine was red wine and had stained the ground of the narrow street...one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy-wine-less-BLOOD. The time was to come when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.” Here Dicken’s is alluding to the French Revolution and the blood that will be spilled upon the streets later in the book.

The French Revolution was difficult to escape on the grounds that the aristocracy abused poor people, making them rebel. Tyranny on a large scale results in anarchy, and anarchy fabricates a police state. One of Dickens' most grounded feelings was that the English individuals would flare up at any time into a mass of bloody revolutionists. It is understandable today that he was wrong, but the idea was firmly planted in his mind, as well as in the minds of his peers. Dickens also feels bad for the poor but he does not agree with the violence that was used during the war.

The novel’s opening words (Book 1, Chapter 1) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . .” Provided, Dickens conveys the

In the sociopolitical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens analyzes the events of one of the bloodiest revolutions in history, the French Revolution, characterized by its violence after no less than 40,000 people were sentenced to death. The violence of the revolution put irreversible change into motion, helping to bring greater equality between French citizens as a result of the upheaval, and causing political changes that affected millions. Through his changing tone, Dickens conveys that rebellion is necessary to amend the ever-growing divide between the social classes, but the mindless nature of the violence, as a result of mob mentality, is excessive, and blood is unnecessarily spilled.