How Does Dickens Use Imagery In A Tale Of Two Cities

The dawn of the revolution is approaching just as quickly as the dawn of day in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. In Book II Chapter Nine, the Marquis meets with his nephew, Charles Darnay, who informs him that he wants to disavow his allegiance to the Evrémonde name. The next morning, the Marquis is found stabbed, along with a note from the Jacquerie tied to the handle of the knife. Dickens uses imagery and a change in diction to foreshadow the discovery of Marquis St. Evrémonde’s dead body, along with personification to represent the unrest of the chateau following the murder. Dickens uses imagery to foreshadow a disruption in the peaceful darkness of the night. The first section of the passage evokes images of tranquil, all-consuming darkness in the reader’s mind. The entire town, rich and poor alike, is sleeping soundly in total darkness, when suddenly, day begins to shed its bright morning light. The light however, suggests something more sinister than just the beginning of the day: “Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned”

They are lost in the darkness, like the people of Paris as they sleep, but new meaning is given to their expression as the day begins. As the sun begins to rise, “... the grey water of both [fountains] began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened” (133). In the night, they stare blindly, but as light is shed upon the situation, their eyes “open,” and Dickens even describes their faces as “awe-stricken.” The faces of these statues never really change, only the way they are perceived does. Their shocking “awakening” is similar to the chateau’s upon the discovery of the death of an infamous French