Dickens said at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities: "This is the best time, this is the worst time; This is the age of wisdom, this is the age of stupidity; This is a period of faith, this is a period of doubt; This is the season of light, this is the season of darkness; This is the spring of hope, this is the winter of disappointment; There are all kinds of things in front of people, and there is nothing in front of people. "
The best and the worst, wisdom and stupidity, faith and doubt, light and darkness, hope and disappointment, and so on. It reflects that contradictions are unity of opposites, and contradictions are everywhere and all the time. However, we should give full play to subjective initiative, actively create conditions and promote the mutual transformation between the two contradictory parties under certain conditions.
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The preface of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is a classic. This passage uses parallelism and antithesis, neat sentences and concise words, which are highly summarized through the opposition of words, vividly writing out the social contradictions at that time and different people's views on society.
In some people's eyes, society is beautiful, but in some people's eyes, society is extremely dark, and people don't know where they are going, whether it is hell or heaven. It expresses the author's helplessness to society and confusion to reality. The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, which set off a new chapter in history and was progressive, so it was the best era and a spring full of hope.
But at the same time, according to the story in the novel, the process of the French Revolution was also radical, and many innocent people suffered, so it was the worst time and the spring of despair. The story background of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was written around the French Revolution. The story is not mentioned for the time being. Writing this paragraph at the beginning of the full text is the author's description of the overall situation of the times, which is very classic in any era.