Aside from the world-renowned first paragraph of “A Tale of Two Cities,” the intricately symbolic introduction to chapter five that describes the spilt wine is perhaps the most interesting passage so far, with so many possible interpretations. It has already been concluded that the wine represents freedom and that the people running up to take a drink represent the freedom-starved public that jumps at the opportunity for revolution. However, far more symbolism can be found than just that.
For one, the rough, irregular form of the road that “dammed it [the wine] into little pools” (Dickens 34) and created “little streams of wine that started away in new directions” (35) perhaps represent the unpredictable courses of revolution and human nature that sometimes cause freedom and revolutions themselves to turn in unsuspected and sometimes undesirable ways. An example of such unpredictability lies within France’s very own revolution. When the National Assembly took Bastille, created several new constitutions, and executed King Louis, the people hope for a more liberal society, only to find themselves in the mercy of the reign of terror and Napoleon not long after.
The description of the women in the passage is also symbolical. It is described that some men “tried to help the women, who bent over the shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers” (34). Women, for a long time, have been denied the right to relish the freedom men could. The freedoms of speech, press, and religion promised in the Declaration of the Rights of Man promised did not extend to women, as the freedom “had all run out between their fingers.”
“There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it that there might’ve been a scavenger in the street...” (35). In this vital quotation, Charles is conceivably saying that there is no real way to completely stop the will of revolution as “there was no drainage to carry off the wine.” The French Revolution was extreme, with the people fighting against governments despite the efforts to control the people with strict laws and taxes. The mud, however, perhaps represents the abomination that many times appears in a revolution like the one described. The Reign of Terror and the violence of beheading King Louis and so many others, were impurities that could be seen as contaminating the revolution like mud, though people still relished it and “drank from the wine” of freedom. However, I cannot decipher either literally or symbolically the mentioning of scanvenger.
Dickens was very heavy on symbolism in “A Tale of Two Cities,” and no passage is a better example than this one. With hidden messages about human and revolutionary nature, the rights of women, and both the power and hostility of revolution, there is not one sentence that is not a symbol, and every statement relates in concord with the idea of revolution.
春陽： 呵呵，我覺得作父母的要對孩子的生活感興趣，you have to be genuinely interested in their lives, 才會有真正的good relationship. 以前我也不是這樣，也喜歡動 不動就下指導棋，但很快就發現對於挺愛攪那不是很有效。上次小U 來的時候，看 到我和兩個兒子熱火朝天地談論他們喜歡的rock band, anime characters, even wrestling (my least favorite of their favorites, of course), 說：“Your Mom is so cool!”！ 兩個傢伙聽了，說“是嗎？” -- 他們根本沒把這當成什麼 big deal, 因為他們習慣了，嘿嘿。
謝謝梔子花，雪楓評論。 十幾歲的孩子恐怕是最看重朋友的時候，朋友對他們的影響也最深。昨天在書店等 他的時候看了一下O 雜誌，上面有十年前在Colombine High School開槍殺死十幾個 同學的高中生 Dylan 的母親十年後首度接受採訪的文章。她特別提到，兒子在生命 最後的兩年裡，深受那個和他一起plot the crime 的 “朋友” Eric的影響，使他 從一個品學都不錯的孩子，變成了一個連自己的母親都無法理解的“monster”。 這位母親說，十年來，她沒有一刻沒有在自責，不停地問自己，“What could I have done more? How could I have treated him differently? What could I have done to prevent this? ”儘管這是永遠也不會有答案的問題，但對於我們這些為人父母 者，的確是驚心動魄的啟示。
