Book I - Chapter I. The Period Quiz — A Tale of Two Cities

In what year does A Tale of Two Cities open?

• 1789, the year the Bastille was stormed by Parisian revolutionaries
• 1775, described as a year of extremes in England and France
• 1793, when the Reign of Terror began under the Committee of Public Safety
• 1769, the year before the Boston Massacre in the American colonies

How does Dickens describe the King and Queen on the throne of France?

• A king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face
• A king with a gentle manner and a queen with sharp features
• A king with a stern brow and a queen with golden hair
• A king with a weak chin and a queen with a pleasant smile

What literary device dominates the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities?

• Metaphor, comparing the era to a season of planting and harvest
• Antithesis, placing opposite ideas in parallel structure to highlight contrast
• Hyperbole, exaggerating the prosperity of the time beyond all reason
• Simile, likening the period to a storm brewing over the English Channel

What do the Woodman and the Farmer symbolize in Chapter 1?

• The English and French peasant classes struggling under feudal oppression
• Two literal workers whose descendants will become revolutionaries decades later
• Fate and Death, silently preparing the guillotine and tumbrils of the Revolution
• Nature and Agriculture, representing France's economic dependence on farming

What punishment does Dickens describe being inflicted on a French youth?

• Imprisonment for ten years for speaking against the Church publicly
• Having his hands cut off, tongue torn out, and body burned alive for not kneeling before a procession of monks
• Public flogging in the town square for stealing bread from a bakery
• Exile from France for refusing to pay a feudal tax to his local lord

What does the phrase "a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it" refer to?

• A printing press used to produce revolutionary pamphlets in secret
• A portable gallows carried through the streets of London for public hangings
• The guillotine, described through foreshadowing without being named directly
• A fishing trap used as a metaphor for the aristocracy's exploitation of the poor

Which important historical event does Dickens allude to with "a congress of British subjects in America"?

• The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia
• The Continental Congress and the looming American Revolution
• The Boston Tea Party and the colonial protests against taxation
• The Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War

Which of these events actually happened in this chapter?

In the context of Chapter 1, what does the word "incredulity" mean?

• A willingness to believe extraordinary claims without evidence
• Unwillingness or inability to believe something; deep skepticism
• A feeling of intense curiosity about unfamiliar or foreign ideas
• Extreme gullibility that leads a person to accept any assertion as fact

What does "despoiled" mean as used in the sentence about the Lord Mayor?

• Publicly humiliated or shamed in front of an audience of onlookers
• Robbed or stripped of possessions by force; plundered of valuables
• Physically injured or wounded during a violent confrontation or assault
• Falsely accused of a crime and arrested by corrupt law enforcement officials

What is a "tumbril" as referenced in Chapter 1?

• A medieval torture device used to extract confessions from suspected traitors
• A type of heavy cannon used by the French military during the revolutionary wars
• An open cart used during the French Revolution to carry prisoners to the guillotine
• A wooden stock placed in the town square where criminals were publicly punished