While rather somber, it felt fitting to follow up my last blog post about death with a concept central to both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables: sacrifice. Sacrifice, be it giving up time, money, or lives in the name of someone greater than oneself is a recurring theme throughout both novels. Interestingly, the concept has popped up throughout the past few weeks while exploring London and Paris. From the prison cell at the Conciergerie where Sydney Carton makes the ultimate sacrifice to the much more understated urban scene of the barricade where Eponine similarly gives her own life in the name of love. Both of these are examples of the themes of sacrifice both Dickens and Hugo consistently refer back to yet as a way to further their stories and comment on the human experience of love. While it is one thing to read about sacrifice in these books, it is another to visit it and experience its effects firsthand.
The Conciergerie
The place where the feeling of sacrifice can be felt most heavily was within the Conciergerie, a medieval palace turned prison used to house those awaiting execution during the French Revolution. As a museum, it has refurbished prison cells designed to give a sense of how they might have looked 200 years ago when men such as Charles Darnay himself were written to have filled them. Visiting these cells was a surreal experience, not just for its relation to the book, but the reality that this is the true space that thousands of wrongly accused spent awaiting their last moments on Earth. For most visitors, this concept is hard to grasp but visiting the Conciergerie through the lens of A Tale of Two Cities brought up these intense feelings of sorrow, pain, and loss that had been felt hundreds of years ago. In my previous post, I described the idea of death and how it has followed our explorations and class, however, the feelings around sacrifice are similar yet uniquely distinct. In A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most striking quotes in the entire novel lies towards the end:
““I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death.””
This sort of willingness to die for a cause much greater than yourself is a nod toward the theme of revolution that the book is based around. This devotion to creating a better society was echoed all around as we bookpacked Paris, and truly made the already wonderful city that much more of an immersive experience. Wandering the beautiful streets and curious corners of Paris, such as the ones pictured, where people of all creeds are free to roam and intermingle free of persecution is precisely what the revolutionaries had envisioned, a true Republic for the people of France where the power of the people dictated the governed. While the current situation in France may have its issues, it is certainly leaps and bounds better off than it was before the democratic revolution that millions fought so hard to achieve.
Looking at sacrifice from the perspective of Les Miserables is eerily similar to A Tale of Two Cities, particularly in the case of Eponine. Both Sydney Carton and Eponine sacrificed themselves in the name of love for another, love that may not be entirely reciprocated or understood by the recipient. In the case of Eponine, she was willing to sacrifice herself and ensure that Marius and Cosette would end up with one another in the end, despite her true desires. Similar to visiting the Conciergerie, visiting the site of the barricade in Les Halles allowed us to access the emotions of the sacrificial moment that Hugo so beautifully portrayed. Despite now being nothing more than an intersection at the fringes of a mall, the site of the barricade represents much more for us bookpackers, as it is truly the setting for our story of love, brotherhood, and revolutionary might yet a backdrop of despair, tragedy, and sacrifice.
As the class continues, more themes about the human experience are revealed by both Dickens and Hugo in their unique ways. As with the previous blog post, I constantly find myself surprised by the emotional intensity that comes with visiting places we read about. Before this class, I would expect only a non-fiction work to evoke such a response since it involves real stories. However, the stories we have been reading, while based on historical events, are fictional yet produce an even stronger response than a simple retelling of a true story. The connection both authors create with the reader transcends words on a paper, particularly in Les Miserables, we become increasingly intertwined in the universe of the story. Visiting these universes through bookpacking allows us to access their thoughts, emotions, and feelings that we would otherwise be unable to. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this experience thus far has been the ability to take words on paper and make them come alive through exploring, researching, and interacting with our stories in a different way.