The Wine-Shop

In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens is foreshadowing the French Revolution. In the novel he says, “The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there” (Dickens 22). He is explaining how in the future the stones will be stained red, not with wine, but with blood. The blood will come from the peasants fighting in the French Revolution. Next, Dickens explains how the citizens from that time sensed a rebellion was coming. For example the author writes, “And one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of  a long squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his fingers dipped in muddy wine lees—BLOOD” (Dickens 22). This man sensed the rebellion. He knew soon these walls would be soaked in blood. The wine was red and greatly resembled blood. In another quote, Dickens really shows how the monarchy is doing nothing to help their citizens. For instance he says, “All the people within reach…run to the spot and drink the wine… others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish” (Dickens 21). Everyone instantly ran to get to the wine. This shows that they are not used to the luxury of wine and eagerly drink it up. People were so desperate for the wine that they greedily chomped on parts of the wet cask. The people were most definitely poor and it is obvious the monarchy doesn’t care about their people at all. They let their own people drink wine from the dirty and muddy street. Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities leads the reader to believe that the spilled wine leads to the French Revolution.