What is the significance of the beginning paragraph in the novel A Tale of Two Cities?A tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Ranked among the most famous lines of all literature, the
opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities begins with dramatic
contrasts that, ironically, suggest dualities.  The message of Charles Dickens, who has
read Thomas Carlysle's The French Revolution: A History with
trepidation for his own England, is that both England and France are between chaos and
order, despair and hope, darkness and light--"the worst of times" and "the best of
times."

Long a social reformer, Dickens intends to alert
his English reader that what has happened in France could well occur on both sides of
the Channel. Thus initiating the motif of dualties, the first paragraph helps to launch
the character doubles in Darnay/Carton, Manette/Lorry, Styver/Marquis d'Evremonde and
the opposing doubles of Mme. Defarge/Lucie and Miss Pross as well as the
parallels between London/Paris.

Finally, the opening
paragraph suggests the literary tensions between family and love, oppression and
hatred.  For instance, with the Evremonde family, especially, this tension is present as
Charles Darnay, the nephew, renounces his family name, yet he is pulled by the
"Loadstone Rock" to his home.