A Tale of Two Cities, Analysis by Difan Li

 A Tale of Two Cities Imagery Review & Analysis

By Difan Li

    Almost every author employs the use of imagery to add depth and description to their writing. Whether this be to ensure the reader is able to gain a better grasp on a central message, or to convey specific details and ideas, imagery plays a major role in the novel world. One such example can be found with the book, A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. This novel weaves a tale of the French Revolution, an era of great bloodshed that tested the bounds of human savagery and brutality. In such a case, imagery is heavily implemented and plays an incredibly major role in each aspect of the story, enhancing the plot, themes, and all other literary elements. 

    The easiest imagery to note, as found in almost all works of fiction, is visual. However, Dickens immerses this form of creation with greater significance by introducing symbolic meanings, parallels, and foreshadowing in his description. He describes the spilling of wine on the impoverished streets of Saint Antoine: “It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth” (Dickens 32). Here, the breaking of the casket of wine is symbolic of the breaking point of the country, whereupon the peasantry erupts into revolution. The wine is representative of blood, and foreshadows that as the wine runs through the street, blood will soon do the same. The eagerness of the people to acquire the wine grants them inhuman qualities, such as a “tigerish smear,” transforming them into  predatory creatures rather than human beings.

    Auditory imagery is similarly used by Dickens, and is able to establish varying moods and tones in writing and enhance those already present. The author describes the attack on the Bastille, a prison fortress that stood as a representation of the monarchy’s power and unyielding reign over the poor: “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack began” (223). Dickens describes the revolutionaries' rage and the depth of their anger. He compares them to a “living sea,” in how they flood the Bastille, impervious to any attempt of the guards to subdue the crowd. Dickens thus uses this form of imagery to signify the beginning of the French Revolution, where the sound of battle is no longer a distant cry but loud and omnipresent in the blood-scented air. 

    I greatly admire Dickens’ usage of imagery to evoke emotional response to emphasize his true purpose in writing, to shed light and provide criticisms of problems faced by many in society. Through organic imagery as well as personification, he describes poverty and hunger in France, pointing out the impoverishment he saw throughout his own life: “The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere” (32). Dickens reiterates the omnipresent figure of Hunger and the effect it has on every person to make clear that the country is on the verge of collapse. The depiction evokes a sense of pity and sympathy as the readers are shown the injustice and oppression of the system.