Symbols of Inhumanity

Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities during his time of fascination with the French Revolution. The French Revolution was a time of inequity. There are many occasions in the novel where the problems of the Revolution are displayed. The human race is shown at its worst. Throughout the novel, man’s inhumanity towards fellow man, whether from a different social class or their own neighborhood, is shown through the metaphors of wine symbolizing blood, water symbolizing life, and blue flies symbolizing townspeople buzzing around death.

Dickens uses wine to represent the blood to be spilled in the war as well as to show how divided the classes are. Through the depiction of the poor rejoicing over spilled drops of wine against the backdrop of the aristocratic town of St. Antoine, Dickens is able to evince the polarity of rich and poor existent at the time. Dickens describes the scene of the broken wine cask, “When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the woman who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away to descend again; and a gloom gather on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine” (Dickens 21). The townspeople run to collect, drink, and play in the wine. The aristocrats are living lavishly while these townspeople are celebrating over a few drops of wine. He further describes how a townsperson, Gas...

... middle of paper ...

...lier the townspeople were compared to them. The townspeople’s similarity to the flies is emphasized because the people walk by Gaspard hanging in the square, by the guillotine, and witness many deaths without any remorse. Then at some point, they are eventually killed too. The blue-flies are a prime example of humans at their worst.

The symbols of wine, water, and the blue flies express Dickens’ theme of man’s inhumanity towards fellow men. A Tale of Two Cities chronicles human displays of cruelty at the time of the French Revolution. Inhumanity seems to be universally human as inhumane actions still happen today; people find entertainment in others’ pain and death. Whether in different social classes or in the same neighborhood, human kindness can be found to be lacking.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Unabr. ed. Mineola: Dover, 1999. Print.