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Essay / Dickens' Use of Foreshadowing in A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is full of foreshadowing and clues that tell us more about the story. Dickens, however, carefully chooses what he wants to foreshadow, namely the coming revolution. He never hesitates to express how the revolution is coming and how the people are preparing for it. In book one, chapter five, a wine cart fell and opened, allowing wine to spill into the streets. Immediately, the peasants rush to the pool of spilled wine and begin to drink it, as if they were dogs, because they were too poor to afford to eat or drink. Then a man dips his fingers in the wine and begins to write the word blood on the wall. Wine itself is meant to symbolize blood, but the word blood is used by Dickens to show us that something horrible is coming and blood will flow in the streets. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Another example of foreshadowing used by Dickens is the imprisonment of Doctor Manette. Doctor Manette was unjustly imprisoned in the Bastille by aristocrats, more precisely the Evrémonde. This foreshadows that later other people and characters will be treated unfairly by the law in England and France, mainly Charles who was imprisoned in the Bastille and was to be executed. But Sydney Carton, who is Charles's double, switches places with him at the last minute by sacrificing himself and dying, shedding his own blood in place of Charles's. This foreshadowing refers to the wine cart incident, where the streets will be red with blood, the blood of Sydney and the blood of the revolutionaries. A final example of foreshadowing would be when Dickens describes Doctor Manette's house. He writes about the echoing footsteps, how they grew rapidly, as if they were the sound of walking. This foreshadows the march of revolutionaries in the revolution. We are brought back to the noise being heard in the Manette household as the French revolutionaries prepare to storm the Bastille, we are told that the echoes of the footsteps have become sharper and faster. Keep in mind: This is just a sample.Get a custom essay now written by our expert writers.Get a custom essayDickens uses foreshadowing to produce a sense of hopelessness in his characters. It tries to show us that the characters we have known will be in danger and that they will be condemned to a certain end. The way he writes is really effective, and it works because he's writing about the French Revolution, the horrible consequences of which most people know about. His methods of foreshadowing truly form the backbone of this book. He continually uses foreshadowing to thicken the plot and intensify the story and its drama..