"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 nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees--BLOOD."

Imagery Analysis of

“A Tale of Two Cities”

            The constant representation of repeated images and the presence of visual descriptions are commonly epitomized in Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities.  This particular novel repeatedly embodies visual images of the levels of poverty within the peasants that is established in London.  This specific depiction of the peasants allows the readers to feel pity and compassion towards the peasants.  One particular recurring image in the novel is the presence of a broken wine barrel.

            The broken wine barrel takes place in the street outside of Defarge’s wine-shop, in the first book of the novel.  The location of the shattered wine barrel and the depiction of the peasants represent the food and freedom deprivation that the peasants long for.  Dickens also associates the wine in the street with blood, which represents the peasant’s bloodshed and foreshadows the fall of the aristocrats.   “Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth…” here we can visualize the voracious peasants with blood smeared on their mouths because they have been cut with the glass from the broken bottles of wine.  The presence of blood is also represented when a peasant writes in the wall “blood” with his hands that are full of wine and blood.  The intense imagery used to depict the peasants drinking wine from the streets can be depicted through “some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined…others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilates earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads…” The reader can visualize the poor peasants emotions during the sight of free wine scattered through the street.  The unfortunate state of wealth is represented by Dickens use of visual imagery, which intensifies the emotions the readers feel towards the peasants. 

            Along with the description of the underprivileged peasants came the descriptions of the frenzy found in London, which is represented through the use of auditory and visual imagery.  “With drooping heads and tremulous trails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles… the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary “Wo-ho! So-ho then!” here we can visualize and hear the peasants escaping the madness in London by speeding in a taxi through the streets.  In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, you can also visualize the guardsmen seeking control of the country through their pistols, “he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols…” Overall, the use of visual and auditory imagery creates a sense of chaos in the London community.  The visual imagery does not only provide the reader with extensive details and visualizations of the events occurring in the streets, but it also shows the reader the differences between the social classes.  Through the use of Dickens imagery we are informed about the bloodshed occurring in London and in France.