Tale Of Two Cities Symbolism Essay

The Tale of Two Cities, a novel written by Charles Dickens, examines the violence of the French Revolution and the effect that the war had on the citizens of both England and France. Dickens writes the novel through the perspective of an English citizen. The novel opens with the statement, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was an age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness” (Dickens 1). He used the book to share his message and his thought on different subjects that he believed. Dickens applies Christian symbolism to the Tale of Two Cities to express the natural cycle and the inevitability of revolution. Dickens first makes this political view of revolution known to readers in the novel would be in the scene which a …show more content…
A strong example portrayed is the book is the moment Marqui’s chateau was set afire by a revolutionary in the area . Dickens speaks as if he is writing from God’s perspective of the world watching the event occur from above. He moves out from the single house to a whole shot of France he then says “the fierce [fire] figures were steadily wending east, west, north, and south” (Dickens 240). It is as if France was becoming miserable, fiery hell, and that was exactly what Dickens wanted the readers to think . This is a large symbol throughout the book, which is that France is hell and that the citizens of the country cannot escape the fiery …show more content…
Dickens fuses the past, present, and future in one line, “it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known” (Dickens 386). This quote is associating itself with the catholic saying “ Jesus has risen”, this symbol in the book tells the reader that revolution is a cycle of life, it will happen in the future, it happened in the past, and it is happening in your life at this moment. Dickens's use of the infinite tense proves that revolution is unavoidable, it will always be a nature of