Tale of Two Cities.

Authors Avatar

Tale of Two Cities essay

Dickens´ work powerfully evokes a sense of place time and atmosphere. Study in detail the passage in A Tale of Two Cities which describes the storming of the Bastille. Write about the ways in which Dickens uses language to bring this event to life and consider the ways in which he has prepared the reader for this moment right from the beginning of the novel. How effective is the passage? What do you feel as you read it?

In this passage, Charles Dickens does evoke a sense of place, time and great atmosphere when describing the events that happened in the French Revolution during the storming of the Bastille. He conveys this in the language used and in the way he prepared the reader for the event.

Dickens repeats the word "footsteps" In the first paragraph of the passage to suggest the many people that will at sometime enter the life of Lucie and her family.
"Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody´s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window."
The reparation could also signify the pacing of Dr. Manette when in his relapses or the shoes he makes, but more importantly, it gives the impression of marching that is an omen of what is happening in Paris. This is followed up when the colour red is mentioned, which refers to blood, and ending the sentence with returning to the people in London, this infers that they are connected to what is happening in France at that time.

A metaphor is used to show the poverty of the people in Saint Antoine at the time.
"A vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro."
Like scarecrows, they are stick-like figures because they are so poor they cannot afford to buy a lot of food. This was how the rich looked upon the poor and Dickens uses this to get the reader to feel sympathy for them.

Dickens portrays hope in the situation for the peasants
"With frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun."
The gleams of light represent the gleams of hope that the poor have for their future and they are going to achieve it with the weapons that they have acquired.

Personification is used to emphasize the number of people involved in the storming of the Bastille.
"A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine."
It shows that the people of Saint Antoine are united together as one in the action they are about to do, that their anger is in action now.

He uses a grotesque image to give a visual image of what the body of people looked like.
"A forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon."
The simile in there helps to strengthen this desolate image. Alliteration is used, first to achieve a sound like the wind with the soft w´s, and then the hard c´s shows the desperation of the people to get anything that looks remotely like a weapon in order to be able to take part in this.

He uses a simile to give the impression of light again, and heat.
"Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning."
Onomatopoeia are used to give a greater sense of the weapons being waved crookedly, which is also like fork lightning when it comes down, it strikes with great force and energy which is what the peasants are going to do to the Bastille.

A list of the weapons that are being handed out gives a rhythm that also gives the sense of something that is unstoppable and it emphasises the preparation that the peasants have gone to for this event.
"Muskets were being distributed-so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their of places in walls."
This also shows that because the odds were so against them being victorious in the battle that they were using anything in their desperation to win.

Join now!

A metaphor is used to convey the intensity of the time with heat.
"Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and high-fever heat."
This shows the pitch of excitement in everyone, that it has come over them suddenly like an illness.

Dickens uses this next sentence to show that the poor have nothing at all to lose so none of them will be holding back when the time comes to fight.
"Every living creature there held life as of no account and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it."
Once again, there is mention of something like an ...

This is a preview of the whole essay