"A Tale of Two Cities" Charles Dickens: Foreshadowing the Revolution.

In Charles Dickens', "A Tale of Two Cities", the author continually foreshadows the future revolution. Dickens depicts a Paris crowd, united by their poverty, in a frenzy to gather wine from a wine cask that was shattered. Also, we find a macabre scene in which Madame Defarge sits quietly knitting but we later discover she is knitting a list of victims slated die. Later, the theme of revenge against the nobility becomes apparent after Marquis …

…when united in bleak desperation; an oppressed people will let hatred fester leading them to cruelty, violence, and the imprisonment and death of innocent people; and a lower class rises up to fight against the oppression from the socially-superior nobility. The French Revolution was a dark, ugly, hate-filled period in that country's history. Charles Dickens uses literary foreshadowing to give us glimpses into the desperation, death, and destruction to come in that "Reign of terror."