Previous
Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Tale of Two Cities, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tyranny and Revolution
Secrecy and Surveillance
Fate and History
Sacrifice
Resurrection
Imprisonment
Summary
Analysis
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…" The year is 1775, a time that the narrator describes through a set of contradictions: wisdom and foolishness, belief and disbelief, optimism and doubt, light and darkness, hope and despair. The narrator compares this historical era to his own present moment in Victorian England.
The contradictions listed in the opening of the novel portray 1775 as an age of profound transition, full of promise and threat. The comparison to Dickens's Victorian times establishes the novel's use of the past to comment on the present.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
In France, the government spends wildly and hands out harsh sentences to anyone connected with a crime, no matter how minor. In England, burglars infest the cities—even the Mayor of London gets robbed—and not even frequent hangings can stop the wave of crime.
The narrator extends the potential similarities between revolutionary France and England. Because of their injustices, both governments are sowing the seeds of discontent and political radicalism.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
The narrator tells an allegory of the Woodman and the Farmer—figures of the coming revolution who are silently at work. But the royalty in both England and France believe in their divine right to rule and don't notice the gathering storm.
The Woodman stands for Fate and the Farmer for Death. Both, the narrator implies, will harvest the awful products of the monarchy's political mistakes.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
