A Tale of Two Cities - Quotes Analysis

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Recommended: Positive effects of the revolution

1.“It was the best of times…”

Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette, in the wake of the French Revolution, blithely married in England. (Book II, Chapter 18) Their marriage forged the loving ties between the two, and brought children to their household. To them, to be able to live with their loved one and to be able to caress their children was the best. They were oblivious of the rousing wraths of the peasants in France, and the time to them could not have been better.

2.“It was the worst of times…”

In Book II, Chapter 21, the Defarges and their supporters angrily stormed the Bastille and ruthlessly decapitated the governor of the prison. Although the breaching of the Bastille was not unwarranted, the inexorable murder of a man trying to do his duty reflected the merciless spirits of the rebels, mad and seething with rage like a bull. The act might have seemed inconsequential then, but soon it would rouse the bloody Revolution where even the suspected man would be killed. Indeed, the storming, and the murder of the governor, marked the beginning of “the worst of times,” when order was replaced with chaos, when peace was replaced with violence.

3.“It was the age of wisdom…”

At Charles Darnay’s first trial in France on charges of being an emigrant, Dr. Manette cleverly used his camaraderie with the mad mobs to liberate Charles. (Book III, Chapter 6) Manette had been a wronged prisoner in the Bastille charged by Evremonde, and, using his eminence and his relationship with Darnay, he was able to manipulate the jury. The wisdom of Manette saved his son-in-law.

4.“It was the age of foolishness…”

As the Revolution progresses, more people are executed per day, (“Fifty-two”, in Book III, Chapter 13) and the bloodthirstiness of t...

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...uries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country… was conspicuous in their rich furniture… diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France.” (Book II, Chapter 9) The Marquis’s house was large, extravagant, and decorated – he had everything.

10.“We had nothing before us…”

In Book I, Chapter 5, a cask of wine was spilt on the ground, and the people “suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine.” The ravenous drinking of the people reflects their hungry stomachs, their emptiness – “devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish.” Even a drop of wine was worth the effort. The nothingness that existed for most of the commoners would help incite the French Revolution.

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