A Tale Of Two Cities Final Exam Flashcards
What are The Woodman and The Farmer symbols of?
The Woodman represents fate. In the beginning chapter Dickens mentions, “it is likely enough that…there were growing trees when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate”. Foreshadows the aristocrats bloody downfall. The Farmer is a personification of death; “it is likely enough that… rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution”.
What is wine a symbol of?
With his depiction of a broken wine cask outside Defarge’s wine shop, and with his portrayal of the passing peasants’ scrambles to lap up the spilling wine, Dickens creates a symbol for the desperate quality of the people’s hunger. This hunger is both the literal hunger for food—the French peasants were starving in their poverty—and the metaphorical hunger for political freedoms. On the surface, the scene shows the peasants in their desperation to satiate the first of these hungers. But it also evokes the violent measures that the peasants take in striving to satisfy their more metaphorical cravings. For instance, the narrative directly associates the wine with blood, noting that some of the peasants have acquired “a tigerish smear about the mouth” and portraying a drunken figure scrawling the word “blood” on the wall with a wine-dipped finger. Indeed, the blood of aristocrats later spills at the hands of a mob in these same streets. Throughout the novel, Dickens sharply criticizes this mob mentality, which he condemns for perpetrating the very cruelty and oppression from which the revolutionaries hope to free themselves. The scene surrounding the wine cask is the novel’s first tableau of the mob in action. The mindless frenzy with which these peasants scoop up the fallen liquid prefigures the scene at the grindstone, where the revolutionaries sharpen their weapons (Book the Third, Chapter 2), as well as the dancing of the macabre Carmagnole (Book the Third, Chapter 5).
What is Madame Defarge’s knitting a symbol of?
Even on a literal level, Madame Defarge’s knitting constitutes a whole network of symbols. Into her needlework she stitches a registry, or list of names, of all those condemned to die in the name of a new republic. But on a metaphoric level, the knitting constitutes a symbol in itself, representing the stealthy, cold-blooded vengefulness of the revolutionaries. As Madame Defarge sits quietly knitting, she appears harmless and quaint. In fact, however, she sentences her victims to death. Similarly, the French peasants may appear simple and humble figures, but they eventually rise up to massacre their oppressors. Dickens’s knitting imagery also emphasizes an association between vengefulness and fate, which, in Greek mythology, is traditionally linked to knitting or weaving. The Fates, three sisters who control human life, busy themselves with the tasks of weavers or seamstresses: one sister spins the web of life, another measures it, and the last cuts it. Madame Defarge’s knitting thus becomes a symbol of her victims’ fate—death at the hands of a wrathful peasantry.
What is the gorgon/stone faces a symbol of?
Book 2, Chapter 9 of A Tale of Two Cities is titled ‘The Gorgon’s Head’ in reference to the massive stone chateau, or country house, of the Marquis, where the chapter takes place. The narrator refers to the gorgon’s head in describing the place because, in Greek mythology, a gorgon’s heads could turn everything to stone, just like the chateau. The material the Chateau consists of is cold and lacking warmth, much like it’s owner the Marquis St.Evremonde.
What does the golden thread represent?
The golden thread represent how Lucie is the connection between all the characters and the catalyst for the events in the story.
What do the scarecrows and birds of fine song and feathers symbolize?
Symbolize the gulf between the nobility and peasantry. The chapter in which they are mentioned foreshadows the scarecrows plucking the feathers of the birds.
What is the sea a symbol of?
n A Tale of Two Cities, water symbolizes the French revolutionaries’ rising anger. For example, Dickens compares the mob storming the Bastille to a sea that “overflowed the city.” This demonstrates how revolutionary ideologies overtook Paris and brought people together in anger and determination to bring down the government. It also represents the prevalent mob mentality and how like a wave it encompassed everyone, and no one could escape it.
What does The Vengeance represent?
Dickens personifies Madame Defarge’s insatiable desire for revenge using the character of her friend, the Vengeance. The Vengeance is the human embodiment of merciless retaliation. She is known for her utter lack of sympathy and for her almost supernatural ability to provoke the masses to new heights of fury:
What is the shoe bench a symbol of?
The bench and tools represent a refuge into which Dr.Manette’s mind can escape when faced with the remembrance of his agony of isolation.
What is fire a symbol of?
Soon, fire rages through the castle—its stone faces look tormented and are lost in flame. The inferno becomes a pillar of fire surging high into the sky. The stone faces symbolize the ancient French nobility, which gets decimated by the Revolution. The burning castle is a symbol of the failing aristocracy and the commoners’ revenge.
What is the fountain a symbol of?
The fountain is the peasants livelihood for it is where they get there drinking water. Later, a peasant’s bloody body is hung over it poisoning the water and sending a message to the peasants. In essence the fountain is a symbol of life and death as well as the constant disenfranchisement of the third estate.
What are the blue flies a symbol of?
The “great blue flies” symbolize London’s citizens, their thirst for human suffering, and their reliance on others’ pain. Dickens first introduces the flies during Charles Darnay’s trial, and “the buzz of the great blue flies grew loud again” (Dickens 52) when he is acquitted.
What is the grindstone a symbol of?
What are the footsteps a symbol of?
The echoing footsteps that Lucie hears ominously foreshadow the coming of the French Revolution, when hordes of starving, desperate people will take to the streets to demand radical political change. They also are a common motif used in connection with Sydney Carton strengthening the character’s association with the movement.
What are shadows a symbol of?
The darkness motif with its images of shadows in A Tale of Two Cities points to the inscrutable quality of human nature along with a sense of foreboding and mystery and often gloom.
