Synecdoche, Waves, and wine/blood

Dear Decathletes:

Here is an important literary term that I want you to be aware of...the literary term is called "Synecdoche." This word is pronounced "si-neck-duh-kee."

The definition for Synecdoche" is... "a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special."

We see Dickens' use of Synecdoche on page 216 where he writes..."a tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air...all the fingers clutched convulsively..."

As you can from that passage, different parts of the human body are used to represent the entire mob that is taking action to prepare for the storming of the Bastille.

Regarding the description of the mob, Dickens uses "the sea" as a metaphor. He writes of how the "living sea rose, wave after wave, depth upon depth, and overflowed the city to that point."

He uses this metaphor again on page 222, when he writes "The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave upon wave..."

Finally, on page 223, Dickens refers back to an earlier scene from the book, the one where the wine had spilled on the street and the people had scampered to drink the wine from the street--the first reference to a mob in this book. On page 223, Dickens writes of the mob's behavior storming the Bastille, "For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous, and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge's wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red." As you can see he uses that wine-blood symbol again. This symbol can be understood as a religious one--the blood-wine relationship refers to the Catholic Church's belief that wine in the sacrament of communion represents the blood of Jesus, which ultimately represents the resurrection of Jesus.