pre-revolution revolution

Tale of two cities is based around 1775, which is almost two decades before the French revolution. Dickens’ portrayal of Paris and its suburbs is a concoction of all the signs emanating revolution. Dickens encapsulated the reaction of masses to a broken cask of wine with an aura of festivity. It’s not just hungry masses running towards something exquisite or trying to snatch from each other something scarce, it’s a scene

“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 depicted this scene with playfulness and not coarseness illustrating perhaps a pre-revolution revolution.

“There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of everyone to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together”

Towards the end, the inscription of BLOOD with muddy wine is an explicit signal of the revolution to come. This writing of BLOOD with WINE is indicative of the rise of the proletariats and the downfall of bourgeoisie.