"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.."

“A Tale of Two Cities” written by the great Charles Dickens, put a new light on the French Revolution. It is mainly based on two families, the Manettes, and the Defarges. Mr. Lorry (A banker at Tellson’s Bank) and Sidney Carton (A alcoholic Lawyer) are also two very important characters in this story. Early on in the book, Mr. Lorry reveals to Lucy Manette that her father has been alive for the past 18 years and is a survivor of the Bastille prison. They travel together to get Dr. Manette out of France, and later, Dr. Manette often thanks his young daughter Lucy for “Recalling him to Life” and saving him from his deathly misery. Many themes were addressed, and many points were given throughout the book, but the most important one of all was ‘revenge and greed always lead to tragedy’. In this book, Revenge completely consumes Madame Defarge. She is so set on her hate for the Evermonde family that she cannot focus on anything else. All she wants is to see people suffer, especially those who were responsible for her suffering.

When Mr. Lorry and Lucy Manette arrive at the Defarge’s Wine Shop to retrieve Dr. Manette, they find that a large cask of wine has been dropped, and broken. The red wine is running down the streets, and people suffering from all kinds of hunger are licking it off the pavement. Meanwhile, Madame Defarge is watching the people on the streets.

“The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. 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; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—BLOOD.”
-Book the First, Chapter 5-The Wine Shop (Page 33)

The French are starting to become greedy, and thirst for what is coming. Madame Defarge knows that the “Lady Guillotine” is on her way, and that she almost has what she’s always wanted. The people have become desperate in their hunger and have a special thirst for change in their lives. They want to be freed from the miserable state they are in, and will go to great lengths to receive happiness in their lives. With nothing around them, and nothing to live for, they only have Madame Defarge’s influence on them, which will lead them to believe that they can only find happiness through revenge, and the lives of others. This is the build-up to the French Revolution, and many people living in England do not understand how this revenge and hate is consuming the French. Like the joker, many of them are already acting like the Defarges and not only thirst for wine, but for blood.

Once you make the connection that the wine is like the blood of the French Revolution, the passage makes a lot more sense. Dickens sets the scene telling you where everything is taking place, and makes it very easy for you to picture the moment in your head. He also does a good job of showing how the French Revolution affected everyone. The blood ‘stained many hands, and many faces as well.’ Whether you were a revolutionist working the guillotine, the person dying from it, or even someone watching, you were affected by it. He also talks about the ‘tigerish smear’ on the faces of the people. This ‘tigerish’ look on their faces describes what the French look like later on in the book as they watch people die at the guillotine with that same ‘tigerish smear’.

The tone of the passage is very strong and has a very negative feel to it. Charles Dickens intended it to have a negative feel so the audience would be ready for all of the negativity that would come later on in the book. The theme is much like the passage, because it too, drips negativity. It helps prove the theme because the people in this passage have become greedy, and that in the end will lead to tragedy.

Even though there were many tragedies throughout the book, there were also many triumphs. Many of the people in the book had their character tested. Some failed to remain strong and live life with love and hope, but some, in fact, did remain with good character throughout it all. Some were even changed for the better because of the revolution. Mr. Carton, an alcoholic that had wasted his life, finds what being a good person really means by saving the life of Mr. Darnay, and giving him the chance to live the happy life Defarge was trying to take away. But even though there were triumphs, the tragedies usually won. The streets of France had in fact become covered in red, but not in red wine: the red blood of innocent people living their ordinary lives. After Darnay was taken to prison for the second time (when doing no harm to the French), not even Dr. Manette, who was very dear to the French, could save him. Their greed had even topped their love for a Bastille survivor, who they treasured dearly. No one could save him, because they had all been stained. It wasn’t just the blood that stained them, they were stained with greed in their hearts and with revenge that had started with Defarge and ended in the whole community.

“A Tale of Two Cities” helped me reflect on many things. It showed me that revenge gets you nowhere in life. You never want to let revenge consume you, because all it will do is hurt others, and end in tragedy (as demonstrated in the book). It also showed me how important your family is and how they can help you overcome your tragedies and trials. Many of the characters in the book wouldn’t have made it without their families to help them along. Lucy saves her father, Dr. Manette; Dr. Manette saves Lucy’s husband; Mr. Darnay, etc. The family’s love for each other is really what keeps them in tune with what is important in life. They want only to have a happy live, and wish that the French would realize what happiness really is. You can tell how a life without family has affected Mr. Carton, and many of the revolutionaries, which is one of the main reasons they are filled with grief and need “Lady Guillotine” to cheer them up. The fact that they take others’ lives to recover from grief is in itself showing their greed. They are selfish, and care for no one but themselves in their actions. So this is why ‘revenge and greed only lead to tragedy.’ Only those who cared for someone else more than themselves found true happiness, and joy. Like Mr. Carton said, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”