What do the footsteps represent in Book 2, Chapter 6 of A Tale of Two Cities?
The use of foreshadowing is key in Chapter 6 of Book II as on a Sunday afternoon, Charles Darnay tells Lucie that workmen have come upon the cell in which her father, Dr. Manette, has been imprisoned; they find the letters "D.I.G."
After this remark, Manette becomes disturbed, but recovers. Miss Pross brings tea, and Sydney Carton "lounges" in, but there are no "hundreds of people" visiting as Miss Pross has complained earlier. Later, Lucie, Darnay, and Carton lean against a window, gazing into the "heavy twilight" : "They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do...as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do."
Adding to Darnay's comment of hearing the footsteps of those coming into their lives, Sydney Carton says, "There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives....I take them into mine!" Lucie echoes his presentiment: "I have imagined them,...
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the footsteps of the people who are to come into my life, and my father's."
Later Mr. Lorry remarks to Jerry Cruncher, the graverobber, "What a night...to bring the dead out of their graves."
Clearly, as one editor has already pointed out, the footsteps foreshadow the French Revolution. But, the remarks of Lucie and Sydney Carton also predict the direct involvement that these characters will later have in the death that the revolution brings.
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Lucie states that she believes they represent the footsteps of all the people who have come and gone in their lives, for good or ill. Though "A Tale of Two Cities" does not have the huge cast of characters as do most of Dickens's other novels, there are still many people who have some effect on the lives of the main characters. Darnay, however, says, "A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!? To him, the footsteps emphasize his loneliness, since no footsteps approach specifically for him.
The footsteps also represent the approach of doom. Earlier it states thatpeople were "speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke." This "storm" can be interpreted as the approach of the French Revolution, in which the characters will be caught up.
How do the footsteps in A Tale of Two Cities evolve into a larger theme?
Dickens uses lots of foreshadowing in A Tale of Two Cities. That's not particularly surprising in such a long novel, first of all, but for a work which builds to a Revolution it's actually necessary. The Revolution doesn't just erupt, full-blown, one day. Instead, it moves and grows and shapes and prepares for that fateful day. One of the ways Dickens show this beneath-the-surface movement is the use of footsteps throughout the novel. We read about them (hear them) first at the Manette's house in London (Book 2 chapter 6). It is said that their house was
a wonderful corner for echoes; it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had set it going.
Notice there is no use of the word footsteps--yet. That comes later in this chapter as well as in subsequent chapters, and it's the sound of a coming Revolution. We hear the footsteps get stronger and louder as the Revolution nears, of course, and they represent the sound of people who will come into their lives, people who will die in the Revolution, and people who will be woven inextricably into their lives in the coming years (like the Dafarges). Book 2 chapter 22 is actually called "Echoing Footsteps," and it opens with a reference to the aforementioned echoing footsteps heard in Dr. Manette's house. The Revolution is at hand. The last chapter of the novel is "The Footsteps Die Out For Ever." The Revolution is no more; instead, it is the beginning of a reconstructed country, one without a king or a dominant aristocratic class.