Symbolism In A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

You might be thinking,”What is Dickens’s hint of magic.” Well, in the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, written in 1859, Dickens uses symbolism to give the readers a hint about what will come later on in the story. Charles Dickens had written this book with the setting during the French revolution. During this period in the book France was against its unequal hierarchy; mostly stated by the peasants who couldn’t earn money and poor who hated the rich because they thought the rule of being born into a class was unfair. The Revolution initially started when the Bastille, a prison where Dr. Manette was first imprisoned by the Evremonde brothers because Manette could have spread the word about their wrongdoings, was taken down.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens uses the concept of direct opposites to contrast pairs of object and people several times. One significant instance of this can be seen within Dickens’ use of the time skip from the years before and then during the revolution. Before the start of the revolution, Paris, overall is a regulated city with laws still present. The peasants of the city at this point are profoundly oppressed and regarded as the lowest members of society. While the aristocrats are given the ability to enjoy luxurious lifestyles and control the the lives of the peasants at their own whim. This can be seen through the Marquis’ heartless response to his vassals, “I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the

The novel, A Tale of Two Cities, was written by Charles Dickens and was published in 1859. A Tale of Two Cities is a historical fiction based during the French Revolution. As two groups of people who both live in London and Paris find themselves in a situation that affects all of them, which ends with some deaths and suffering. Charles Dickens purpose for writing A Tale of Two Cities was to inform and amplify the readers mind on human nature. Throughout the book Charles Dickens uses many themes and characteristics, that bring out human nature in all his characters, to broaden the view of the readers.

While the Victorian people called for romantic intrigue and petty drama in the literature of their time, Dickens’ added complexity to his novels not to satisfy the frivolous needs of Victorians but to further the theme of irony in his novel. In A Tale of Two Cities, irony is an ever-present theme and is woven into the plot seamlessly by author Charles Dickens. Coincidence is a complementary theme to irony in this novel. Dickens’ constant implementation of situations of coincidence and chance leads to a greater sense of irony throughout this book. Dickens adds complexity to the plot and further enforces the theme of irony in the novel through circumstances of coincidence, including the indictments of Charles Darnay, the life and associates of Dr. Manette, and Madame Defarge’s need for and path to revenge.

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.

Charles Dickens had a way of writing amazing characters. He was known for his passion in writing and his way of words. A man once said that Charles was the greatest story writer of all time. He was able to craft fully make a character that was both memorable and taught you a valuable lesson on how to be a better you. In this book I spotted a few characters that stood out to me. It was either their courage or loyalty that stuck out the most. The biggest lesson I wish to share from these characters that I learned in this novel is that it is important to study a person and get to know them before you make assumptions on their life based on their outward appearance.

death. He also warns him that he too wears a chain larger than his and

During the French Revolution the two social classes, nobles and the peasants, clashed with each other because the peasants felt treated unfairly by the nobles. Dickens tells a story of both sides of the Revolution and emphasizes the fact that both sides endured hardships. Charles Dickens in his novel A Tale of Two Cities gets readers to sympathize with both sides of the revolution through character foils, flashbacks, and the theme of suffering by portraying both sides as victims.

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.

In the novel “Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens starts of the book with multiple parallel structures to introduce the theme throughout the rest of the book. The parallel structure is identified by each phrase starting out with “it is” and following those two words with a certain time. The 10 parallel phrases are further split up into 5 groups with each group sharing the same type of time: time, age, epoch, season, spring and winter. This use of parallelism creates a steady rhythm conveying the idea that good and evil, light and darkness, and wisdom and folly stand equally matched against each other in this time of struggle. Furthermore, by introducing the contradicting ideas in parallel structure, Dickens is able to hint at the novel’s prominent

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, it uses duality throughout the story. Duality often refers to having two parts and is usually used with opposite meanings. Charles Dickens wanted us to know about duality by the very first paragraph of his novel. One of the dualities has to deal with the two cities of the title, London, England and Paris, France. Also, some of the dualities show us opposite parallels dealing with two or more people. The two emotions love and hate also have something to do with the theme. I think the use of the doubles is significant

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.

The French Revolution mainly took place in the city of Paris during the late 1700’s. The Revolution did not only affect the people of France, but also the citizens of England as well. The French Revolution is known as one of the most brutal and inhumane periods of history. If one studied the beliefs and views of the people involved at the time, one would see a reoccurring theme of “ being recalled to life”. Born from the world of literature, Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities takes a deeper look at the culture of the late 1700’s, in both England and France. Dickens uses the character of Lucie Manette to further examine one of the major themes presented in the novel, consisting of the belief of one being

Authors have often uses natural phenomena to comment on what is happening among the characters. Dickens wrote a book called, “A Tale of Two Cities” which was about the French Revolution and how life was like in the 1800’s. Natural phenomena are things from nature that Dickens uses for the characters in the book, for example, animals, the weather, flowers, and anything that occurs in nature that will fit what is happening among the characters, and the book. He also uses symbols, themes, he creates the atmosphere in the beginning of the book, and an outlook of what is about to happen in the book. We’re about to look at the different types of natural phenomena that Dickens uses in his book. On Chapter 5, Dickens uses an example of natural phenomena, which was when during the summer thunderstorm at the Manettes’ house in Soho. Dickens’s use of nature to mirror human emotions is effective.

The wine cask and the scrawling of blood indicate the rise in tensions between the two classes. "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" (Dickens 33). This statement foreshadows the upcoming struggle and the vengeance of the peasantry. The liquid smears on the peasants' hands, feet, and faces foreshadow the approaching chaos.