In this passage, Dickens talks about the theme of poverty in the story. He emphasizes the gloominess and hunger of the people through the use of irony and imagery. Dickens notes that the Defarge’s wine had always been very thin, but at that point in time the wine was unusually thin. The irony of this statement is that the thinness of the wine has not increased at all, but the poverty of the people has. Dickens likely used this example of irony as a way to explain that as the people continue to fall deeper into poverty, they seek wine to not only quench the hunger they have, but to also drink their worries away. Furthermore, Dickens uses imagery to describe the situation of those not fortunate enough to afford wine at Defarge’s. In the passage,
