Tale Of Two Cities Power Analysis

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An Insatiable Thirst for Power

In A Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens, the author uses wine as a symbol of the lives taken by the guillotine and bloodshed caused by the revolution, showing that wine is representative of the revolution’s insatiable thirst for power. Wine is a pernicious alcoholic beverage that many consume around the world. When one drinks wine they have a transitory feeling of euphoria followed by a sudden low. Wine has the ability to make one do things they might not have under its influence. It also has the ability to make one constantly thirst for it, creating a cycle of progressively needing more for one to quench the thirst it causes. In this novel wine is used as a symbol to show the insatiable thirst for power …show more content…
When a cask of wine had fallen and broken open outside of Defarge’s shop many rushed to drink just a little bit of muddy wine off of the ground. After the people had gotten their share they went back to their occupations, and continued on with their lives, the scene was described as gloomy and the narrator told the reader “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” (Dickens 32). The mad rush that the people had, to drink the wine shows how desperate the people were for just a taste of power. The staining of the people and their shoes is representative of the fact that once the revolution starts it is going to cause them to have an insatiable thirst for ever increasing power. This thirst or addiction will eventually cause many streets to be stained from the blood of the people that the revolutionaries will kill in an attempt to sate their thirst. Wine in this context is foreshadowing the negative effects of the revolution. After almost everyone was out of Paris safely the scene switches to
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