Duality in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

In A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, it uses duality throughout the story. Duality often refers to having two parts and is usually used with opposite meanings. Charles Dickens wanted us to know about duality by the very first paragraph of his novel. One of the dualities has to deal with the two cities of the title, London, England and Paris, France. Also, some of the dualities show us opposite parallels dealing with two or more people. The two emotions love and hate also have something to do with the theme. I think the use of the doubles is significant First off, Charles Dickens’ very first paragraph says, â€Å"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, 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 sh ort, 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†¦(Dickens 5)†. This is how he introduces duality in the book. I think that it is important that Charles Dickens used duality because he did not only want us to know that he used it but also explained the dualities throughout the story. 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