Tale Of Two Cities

“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; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us” (Dickens 3). Charles Dickens opens one of his most famous books with these words, which foretell how the entire novel is laid out and how conflicting viewpoints in the era were soon to be the causes of revolution. A Tale of Two Cities is historically important because it tells of life during the French Revolution, how people can change from a “civilized” society into a bloodthirsty army, and teaches the

Dickens illustrates how quickly this change can occur with the city of Saint Antoine. In the beginning, Saint Antoine is just a poor slum suburb of Paris, but it quickly becomes a hub for revolutionary ideas and plots to take over France. “Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shriveled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off” (Dickens 246). Here Dickens describes how fast one small group of civilized people can become an army ready to attack anyone that wrongs them. A Tale of Two Cities truly captures how a “civilized” world is not really “civilized” since it can transform from a calm group into an army in the blink of an eye if a new influence presents itself. Dickens captured the true aspects of the French Revolution as the small groups took over the larger population with new ideas to seize control of France. This is how A Tale of Two Cities illustrates how people can change from a “civilized” society into a bloodthirsty