A Tale of Two Cities: 12 Literary Techniques

1. Apostrophe: In the novel death is directly addressed just like when Lorry is talking to the ghost in his dreams.
2.Antithesis: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The whole first paragraph of the novel is comparing the points of views that are seen throughout the world. In this case it was a comparison between London and Paris.
3.Setting: With the descriptions of the settings there is a place to set up the conflicts and to bring out the comparison between the two cities.The setting also helps develop the theme.
4. Theme: The theme of re-birth is being perceived through the context of the book considering that all the differences that are shown in a revolution are set aside to try and mend things in the end.
5. Diction: The words that Dickens uses make the story more difficult to understand because he chose a style of writing that is somewhat foreign to me; not at all modern everyday English.
6. Syntax: The sentence structure backs up the time period that is used in the novel, making some of the sentences seem like they were written out of place.
7. Symbolism: The farmer and Woodman are representations of death and fate.
8. Anaphora: "It was.." from the first paragraph in the book, the author was stressing what types of settings were going to be used in the novel. In his introduction the differences between both cities were subtly pointed out.
9. Tone: dark and gloomy. It demonstrated the bad political and spiritual state that the two cities were going through.
10. Genre: Historical Fiction- The French Revolution is being analyzed and seen through eyes that were witness of the chaos in both London and Paris.
11. Dialect: "There ain't" "d'ye mind me?" The characters have specific dialects that make the reading more difficult because of the shortened words they use.
12.Metaphor: The wine casket that breaks represents the war that was going to break out and the wine represented the blood that would be spilled.