A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

First, in a scene in Saint Antoine, a large cask of wine was dropped and broken on the streets. Everybody stopped what they were doing and went to drink the wine on the ground. Peoples’ hands, clothes, and the roads were all stained. The word, “BLOOD,” was also written on a wall with wine (Dickens 20). The wine in this scene symbolizes the blood of the revolution and foreshadows the entrance of the revolution. While the cask spilled, happiness and the thought of change went through all the minds of the poor in Saint Antoine. The mob formation of all the peasants to get wine or, “blood,” shows us the hatred they have for the wealthy class and how much they want the revolution to come. Later on in the book, Dickens uses echoing footsteps to foreshadow the upcoming revolution. As Lucie sits in the corner of a parlor, as she had done for six years, she hears footsteps from people downstairs, but she also hears echoes coming from far away. She wonders if the echoes are about her or her family, but then she says, “There were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising(Dickens 164).” Echoes of happiness and family were around; however, there were also

At the time when the American continent had just been discovered, the British thought it would be perfect to settle there. The English men decided to settle, but not everyone had the same motives. Two leaders who settled in the new colony were Captain John Smith and William Bradford. Both men had their ups and downs in their fight for survival. At a time when the world lacked technology and knowledge, a trip on across the ocean could be a gamble. Not every person completed the trip. Disease and starvation were two of most merciless killers. But these men managed to reach the new continent, despite their ignorance. It was not over yet. Life in the new colonies was not so easy. The new settlers were still battling starvation. Captain John Smith

Liquor became a very popular substance in this time period and people began to see that drunkenness from over drinking was tearing families apart. According to Document H, there was 9 steps of drinking called, "The Drunkard's Progress". What the artist is trying to portray is that drinking is bad if it gets out of hand. One or two drinks is good but once a person reaches 3 to 4 it is hard to stop continuing. Drinking in moderation was not the problem, it was an overdose of alcohol and recklessness of the individual that caused the problem.

Dickens uses the needs and wants for people to get an image in their head about what life was really like before the French revolution. "Cold, dirt,

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

Have you ever heard of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The show aired in the early and mid 1990s and was very popular. It was a big hit then and is a big hit with me now. I started watching it when i was 8 land liked how funny it was and also liked the storyline.

The use of suspenseful imagery allows for a descriptive foreshadow of the French Revolution. At the end of the chapter, Dickens compares people to the storm by showing “a crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them too” (109). The Third Estate is depicted as rowdy and very thundering by means of their rush and roar. If the people linger to this extent for a Revolution, this rowdiness can cause a massive war. Soon enough there was “a great hurry in the streets, people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke” (107). The storm, being synonymous with the Revolution, will cause a great hurry to the Third Estate due to their unpreparedness. Civilians, speeding away, try to get to shelter before the revolution starts to become too brutal. In the night a “storm of thunder

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.

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.

Every year 88,000 deaths are caused by alcohol consumption, and 2.5 million lives are put in potential danger according to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. In the short story of “The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe displays the gothic elements of omens, high overwrought emotion, and setting in a castle to reveal that foolishness and folly can cost his or her their life. Fortunato, a crazed wine fanatic, makes the terrible mistake of insulting Montresor. He knows Fortunato is proud of his “connoisseurship in wine” so Montresor tricks drunken Fortunato into tasting and critiquing some wine, which really lead Fortunato to his death in the “damp ground” of the catacombs. Drinking alcohol can lead to folly decisions which can result in the loss of one’s life.

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 relationship between poverty and aristocracy through the use of parallelism, paradox, and other poetic techniques. In addition to, Dickens's technique functions not only to draw opposites, but to reveal hidden parallels.

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

Dickens begins the novel with a pro-revolutionary tone. His regard for the idea of the upcoming and inevitable revolution in a positive light is reflected by the atmosphere he sets for the reader. Dickens is able to make his readers pity the peasantry and sympathize with them. Through inclusion of detail, Dickens portrays the plight of the lower class writing, “gloom [gathers] on the scene that [appears] more natural to it than sunshine” (21). This allows the reader to imply that the suffering of the lower class has fallen into a continuous pattern, and they can understand the need for revolution. Additionally, Dickens uses anaphora with the phrase “Hunger [is]” (21). This gives the reader a sense of how much hunger dominates and defines their lives, effectively making their

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

Although Dickens clearly supports the revolutionaries cause, through metaphors of water, he highlights the sometimes animalistic nature of the revolution. In Book one, “[T]he sea did what it liked and what it liked was destruction.” Dickens acknowledges the inevitable nature of the revolution by comparing the sea to the French mob. And the mob, much like a sea,