A Tale of Two Cities

Analysis: Literary Device; foreshadowing

Dickens writing is thick with literary devices. One imparticular was used quite well in the beginning of the novel A Tale of Two Cities. Through his metaphorical writing, he foreshadows the French Revolution early on in his book. Many other literary devices were used through this foreshadowing, such as the use of metaphor, descriptive language, and repetition of the word hunger.

The scene where the peasants are lapping up the muddy wine from the streets shows great poverty and desperate measures. The impoverished people are drinking the muddy wine from the streets, almost like animals. This shows how bad things have gotten in France and that the standard of living is so so low that the people have to start acting like animals in order to survive. This scene is then followed by a paragraph with the repetitious word of "Hunger." This paragraph produces even more of an idea of the poverty that is going on, but mainly portrays the people's hunger for wanting more than what they had. They were not yet satisfied with their standard of living and hints to an overthrow.

The author also metaphorically uses red wine and mud to represent the blood that will be shed in this revolution. The red wine is not only trying to satisfy their physical hunger, but also their political hunger for change. The blood stains the streets as well as the peoples hands and faces. This represents the people who are marked to die during this bloody revolution that will occur. Blood will be poured in the streets, and the people will use that actual blood to satisfy their hunger for political change, rather than the muddy wine to satsify their physical hunger.

Passage Analysis: Book One, Chapter 3

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every eating heart in the hundreds of thousand of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"

This passage contains such a wonderful thought: that everyone has their own secrets. It is again bringing forth a bit of humanity that gets lost when talking about large numbers of people such as a town. The author immediately pulls you into one house, one beating heart, and the secrets that may never surface out of it. But at the same time, he takes us to absolutely every house in that town.

He hits upon an important issue: how some peoples secrets may never surface to the public. They never are fully understandable by outside minds. Everyone's secrets are unique to themselves and cannot be interpreted 100% accurately to an outside mind. This is evident in Manette who begins to have physical problems as a result of his private secrets (almost like a Dimmesdale character.)

Opinion:

This book was alright. I feel like I can appreciate how the author wrote and why he wrote like he did. I do believe I could have enjoyed this book further if I was not so pressed to read. My new understanding is that Dickens is something that one must stumble upon sometime in their life, but must have it happen at their own pace. Using my new understanding, this may not have been the right time in my life to read Dickens, but the reading was still slightly rewarding.