- Okay, we know that this is a summary and all, but we just have to quote this opening for you. After all, it’s one of the most well-known opening lines in English literature. Here goes:
- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness […]."
- The sentence goes on for awhile, but you get the general picture. There are lots of opposites at work in the good ol’ eighteenth century.
- As our narrator points out, these opposites are also rather…similar.
- Confused? Don’t be. Your friendly Shmoop team is here to help.
- It’s 1775.
- This chapter, the greatest of all openings, is a sort of guidebook to the time.
- If you’re a backpacker, you could think of it as the Lonely Planet for the eighteenth century.
- We don’t really meet any characters (but don’t you worry, they’ll be here soon enough).
- What we do get, however, is a breakdown of the important places in the novel: France and England.
- According to our helpful narrator, things in both countries are going along just as they’ve always gone.
- In fact, everything is so dang normal that folks are pretty convinced that things will stay the same forever.
- That’s our first hint that things are going wrong. Anytime anyone says that things are going to stay the same, there’s a good chance that things are going to change. A lot. Anyone who’s seen movies about high school friends going to college and growing apart knows that.
- To get back to our story, though: our narrator gives us a bird’s-eye view of events in England.
- America has just flown the coop. People are pretty upset about that.
- (For those of you who’d like a refresher course on the American Revolution, check out our Shmoop history notes on the subject. We’re sticking to the other side of the pond in this novel.)
- In France, things aren’t going so well. The economy is in a bit of a free-fall.
- Protestants are being persecuted (the French royalty, you see, is Catholic).
- In case you’re thinking that England is a much, much nicer place to be, though, we should warn you: Catholics didn’t fare so well in England, either.
- Our narrator predicts that trees growing in the fields of France will soon be cut and shaped into scaffolds and guillotines. Lovely.
- Back in England, lots of crimes occur on a regular basis. Just about everyone gets brutally punished, regardless of whether their crime was severe or trifling.
- In other words, things may be going along just as always—but that sure doesn’t mean that they’re going along smoothly.
- That about sums up the state of affairs.
- Our narrator offers up a foreboding reference to the Woodsman (Fate) and the Farmer (Death) who will be reaping and sowing their harvest very, very soon.
- Yup. Things are about to get ugly.