In Chapter 3 of Book the Second of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, the symbolism attached to the simile of blue flies in the courtroom during the trial of Charles Darnay cannot be overlooked. Traditionally, the fly represents evil, death, destruction, and corruption--even Beelzebub himself. Thus, in this passage in which the flies swarm around the French aristocrat, Charles Darnay, foreshadows the other "blue flies" of the swarming revolutionaries in France who congregate to bring death and destruction to the aristocrats and Charles Evremonde after he returns to his country.
Even the crowd in the London courtroom parallels those of the other city in their degeneracy as they sadistically listen and await the condemnation of a man that they do not know, but hate because he is aristocratic.
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