it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had
nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct
the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some
of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in
the superlative degree of comparison only.�
When it mentions in the sentence, �It was the best of times�� this describes the life of the peasants
during the Revolution. They have the aristocrats in prison and are basically ruling France themselves.
�� it was the worst of times� describes the horror that the wealthy go through and how they suffer
from the wrath of the peasants. The irony and comparisism where it says, "it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness" explains how the peasants think they are wise and knowledgable in their
revenge against the aristocrats, while the aristocrats believe the peasants to be barbaric and foolish to
treat them the way they are being treated. "It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it
was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair" also reveals the way the rebels view the
revolution; they believe that it is "the season of Light" and it is heaven on earth. "It was the spring
of hope" because they can finally take revenge against the nobles who had taken advantage of them. On
the other hand, the artistocrats view the French Revolution as "the season of Darkness" because they
have no rights, no say in anything that happens, and are never sure of what is going happen to them next;
they are in the "winter of despair".
As this opening sentence is well known around the world, it reveals the controversies that are
occurring in England and in France. In England, the public worries over religious prophecies (popular
mystical happenings in the form of �the Cock-lane ghost�) and the messages of rebellion that a colony of
British subjects in America has sent to King George III. In France, on the other hand, witnesses viewed
uncalled-for tax payments and extreme violence, a trend that anticipates the production of the guillotine.
Yet in terms of peace and order, English society could not �justify much national boasting� either. Murder
as well as stealing thrive in both countries.