Symbolism of Alcohol in A Tale of Two Cities

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.

The People of France in the last part of the 18th century were experiencing severe food shortages, increasing the cost of living, and political leaders who were doing very little to fix the state of chaos in which most people found themselves. In both rural and

Vodka is a motif of Theo’s growing indulgence throughout the novel. Firstly, Tartt reflects Theo as having “started to say yes, to impress him” but rejects the vodka, reflecting his naïvety and good-faith at the start of the novel. However, later on, it is revealed he takes “a post-dinner shot of vodka, a habit I soon picked up from him (Boris)” conveying how his childhood sweetness has been eradicated by Boris’ slavic lifestyle. The sharp juxtaposition between the anxious to casual nature shows a change in Theo’s morals, normalising excessive amounts of alcohol. There is a similar motif in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ where Wilde conveys Dorian as having “taken too much champagne” which is Wilde mocking the Victorian’s aristocratic world of indulgence, deliberately portraying him as arrogant. Tartt’s image of vodka and Wilde’s champagne clearly reflects the class different between the two protagonists. While Wilde’s novel is set in a bourgeoise class in society, Tartt’s character belongs to the proletariat class, to give it a Marxist

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.

Drinking is another item that is symbolized in the story. The drinks that the American

the plot.The recurring imagery of blood is used as a symbol to demonstrate the constant feelings of guilt. The blood imagery impacted the play and the characters into making decisions. Without the bloody imagery, the story line would not have went the way it did which is is characterized by not only guilt but also by all the deaths and which was present during the play.

Mr. Raymond’s “liquor” bottle helps conveys the theme of the story because the bottle is actually Coca-Cola but the town believes it to be alcohol just because it is in a brown paper bag. The bottle conveys

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 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

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” one of the main details involved in the plot is alcoholism. Fortunato thoroughly enjoys good wine and drank a lot. Not only did he drink often, but he also was extremely knowledgeable about “fine wines” as Poe writes. Fortunato liked to think of himself as a judge of whether a wine was good or not. Based on all this, Montresor decided to tap into this weakness of Fortunato’s to seek his revenge after Fortunato mocked Montresor’s family name. Montresor then caused Fortunato to become drunk. In this and other stories, alcoholism and drug usage are very prevalent in Poe’s writing, but the references always seem to reflect his own life addictions and show us how truly depressed he was.

We see that Charles Dickens recognizes the poverty in the people. He describes the people as “… men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous

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 beginning of A Tale of Two Cities a wine cask spills onto the streets of France. The people had then stopped whatever they were doing and collected the wine in any way they could. Those who did go after the spilled wine “had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth” and had stained their hands. After the wine was gone and the people had left the streets; the road was then stained a brilliant red, and someone had “scrawled upon a wall with [a] finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—blood” (Dickens, 32). Not only does this scene show how desperate the people in France are, but Dickens makes sure the reader understands that he is foreshadowing that the French Revolution is on the horizon. When Dickens uses this scene to create foreshadowing he makes sure he keeps the reader hooked on the story. He does this by using creative word choice, imagery and creating a beautiful scene that drags 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.

The symbolic events in A Tale of Two Cities foreshadow upcoming obstacles and give insight into the hardship of the townspeople. Charles Dickens uses the symbols to indicate the terrible events that occur in the following years. The peasantry is being treated unfairly

Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in order to enlighten the average Briton about the events of the French Revolution. The novel compares and contrasts cities of London and Paris, which represent French and British society, through the eyes of Dickens’ human characters. The two cities play such a large part in the novel that they become characters themselves, and the contrasting societies of the two cities become a conflict. In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities, the individualistic society of London champions the first feudalistic and later socialistic society of Paris.