Book I Chapter 5: “The Wine Shop”

1. Book I Chapter 5: “The Wine Shop”

2. Plot Summary: • Poverty of St. Antoine illustrated by desperate drinking of spilled cask of wine. • Gaspard writes “Blood” on wall in wine. Monsieur Defarge, the wine-shop owner wipes it away. We also meet his wife, Madame Defarge. • Wine-shop customers refer to each other as “Jacques” like “brother.” These men are involved in revolutionary activity. • Mr. Lorry and Lucie Manette are escorted to dark tower room where Dr. Manette is being kept safe by Monsieur Defarge. • The 3 “Jacques” of the wine-shop are peering into Dr. Manette’s room, curiously, which Defarge defends.

3. Literary Devices: Symbolism: The red color of wine symbolizesBLOOD. (this is also foreshadowing!) “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of St. Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled” (32). Personification: Hunger is personified to show that it is pervading and a constant presence. “Hunger stared down from the smoke less chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal. . .” (32-33) Foreshadowing: After mentioning blood, the narrator suggests the people will spill that “wine” too, rising against their poverty, hunger, and oppression, but not yet.“The time was to come when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there” (32)

4. Essential Quote “It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?” (36).