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Foreshadowing In A Tale Of Two Cities

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A Tale of Two Cities is an action-packed book with a specific meaning to each detail and conversation. Charles Dickens frequently uses foreshadowing as a tool to add suspense to the story. When he uses foreshadowing, it allows the reader to predict what will happen given the hints. One might not notice until much later on that a specific event in the beginning or even a repeated symbol was foreshadowing to another event. Foreshadowing is a major part of what makes A Tale of Two Cities such an enjoyable book to read, because each scene is like a puzzle piece with hints of whats to come. Foreshadowing plays a majors role in the intense build-up of action in A Tale of Two Cities through the scene of the wine spillage, the echoes of footsteps, …show more content…

One day a wine-cask spills in a village outside of DeFarge’s shop. The peasants in the village react by kneeling on the ground and trying to get up every last bit. “Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran;” (Dickens 31). Some use their hands as cups, others use handkerchiefs to squeeze the wine into their mouths. This event occurs at the beginning of the book, setting the scene of the desperate and hungry peasants. Following the wine spillage, a man mysteriously writes upon a wall with his wine-stained finger - “BLOOD”. Both the scene of the wine spillage and the writing on the wall foreshadow the coming revolution. The wine spillage shows the peasants giving all they have to fetch as much wine as possible, and this foreshadows their passion for the revolution and aim to get rid of the upper class who treat them so poorly. The blood on the wall literally foreshadows the significant amount of blood that will be shed from fighting and killing people. The scene of the wine spillage offers a glimpse at what will take place further on by showing the condition of the

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