This is a paper that I wrote for the fun of it. Mostly to have a place to dump my thoughts, because they were floating around in my head and getting pretty annoying. I tried to do what normal people do and find somebody to discuss these thoughts with, but I could never find somebody who understood what I was talking about.
My thoughts were on the similarities and differences between A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Lés Miserables by Victor Hugo, but everyone that I spoke to had either read the books years ago and couldn’t remember what I was talking about, or had never read either one or both of the books, thus making educated conversation rather difficult. So I dumped those thoughts into the most epic comparison paper of all comparison papers, and then decided to make it coherent.
Here’s what I came up with. I hope you enjoy.
Both written after the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Lés Miserables by Victor Hugo are two of the most admired pieces of literature on the topic. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that the two novels are vastly similar in several more areas than the fact that they both take place during the French revolution. This is evident through the characters and backstories of Jean Valjean and Dr. Manette, Cosette and Lucie Manette, Marius Pontmercy and Charles Darnay, Eponine and Sydney Carton, Javert and the Defarge family, the unnamed bishop and Mr. Lorry, and the respective underlying messages of each of the books.
Starting with the father figures in both of the stories, we have Jean Valjean from Lés Miserables and Dr. Manette from A Tale of Two Cities. Not only were they both imprisoned for an extended period of time, but they were both ‘recalled to life’ by their respective daughter figures. After several years of living with their daughters, both Dr. Manette and Jean Valjean go on to save the lives of their eventual sons-in-law. They are very similar in their admirable feats of morality and Godliness.
Next is Dr. Manette’s long-lost biological daughter, Lucie, and Jean Valjean’s adoptive daughter, Cosette. Valjean adopted Cosette because he promised to help her mother, a prostitute, Fantine. Fantine’s dying wish was to have someone to take care of and raise Cosette. Valjean, despite the fact that he was a wanted man due to breaking his parole, took to the job with gusto. In the case of Lucie Manette, she was born mere months after her father, Dr. Manette, was imprisoned. Her mother died not long after, and she thought her father was dead as well until Mr. Lorry intervened and reunited them. As a result of their respective first meetings with their fathers, Cosette and Lucie Manette recalled their fathers to life. Because of them, Valjean discovered the life of love that he had always wanted, and Dr. Manette realized his newfound purpose.
Marius Pontmercy and Charles Darnay are similar in character because the girls in their respective stories fell in love with and eventually married them. Then, later in the stories, their lives were both saved by their future fathers-in-law. In Lés Miserables, Marius was a member of the group that first started the French revolution. Jean Valjean found out through a letter that Marius sent to Cosette, realized what danger Marius was putting himself into, and joined the revolution himself to keep an eye on his daughter’s love. When Marius was injured in the midst of the fighting, Valjean immediately intervened, and dragged Marius through the sewers underneath France to a hospital, making him the only revolutionary in his group to survive. As for Charles Darnay, five years after he married Lucie, he took a trip to France to deal with business for a friend. He was immediately put in prison and accused of being an emigrant. Dr. Manette then spent the next year doing everything in his power to get his son-in-law out of prison. Both Marius and Charles were deeply respected by their fathers-in-law.
Despite the complete happiness of Cosette and Marius and Lucie and Charles, in both cases, there was a third person involved. In Lés Miserables, Eponine is in love with Marius, and in Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton is in love with Lucie. Both characters died for their loves. In the early days of the revolution, Eponine disguises herself as a French boy and joins Marius in the revolution, and one night, takes a lethal bullet for him. At the end of Tale of Two Cities, Sydney switches places with Charles Darnay so that Lucie’s husband would survive. Sydney took the fate of the guillotine that was destined for Charles Darnay so that the love of his life could have her husband back.
Unlike the rest of the comparisons in this commentary, there are more differences than similarities between Javert from Lés Miserables and the Defarge family in A Tale of Two Cities. Javert is the prison guard and policeman who appears many times in Lés Miserables. He is the man who informs Valjean of his freedom near the beginning of the book, and he proceeds to spend the rest of his life chasing down Valjean after he breaks his parole. Javert is convinced that he is the epitome of all things good and Godly in the world, and that Valjean is breaking the law and dishonoring God in every way possible. He is so bent on his own self-righteousness and Valjean’s sinfulness that he ends up jumping off a bridge to take his own life when Valjean spares him in two situations when he had every opportunity as well as right to kill Javert. The Defarges, on the other hand, are the prime spreaders of chaos. They stand for everything dark and insane in the midst of the revolution. They consider themselves at the forefront of the cause, and they decide that they are the prime authority of what moves to make as the people, but this respect and authority eventually devolves into bloodlust and madness.
The final character comparison is between the unnamed bishop from Lés Miserables and Mr. Lorry from A Tale of Two Cities. Victor Hugo spends the first seventy pages of Lés Miserables describing the life and habits of the bishop, and rightly so. He is the definition of true moral uprightness and Christian values. All of this time is spent on him because immediately after Valjean is released, he finds himself at the bishop’s home. There, he is greeted and cared for like a prince. After nineteen years in prison, the treatment takes Valjean by surprise. Once the bishop goes to sleep and the house is quiet, Valjean steals the bishop’s prized silver collection from the cabinet, but leaves a set of candlesticks on the table in his haste. The next morning, when Valjean is dragged back to the bishop’s house, the bishop proceeds to tell the police that he gave the silver to Valjean as a gift, and implores Valjean as to why he left the best of the silver behind. When the police leave, the bishop begs an astonished Valjean to use his silver to build a better life. It is through this act of pure kindness and mercy that Valjean finds God, and uses the silver to build a new life, but keeps the candlesticks for the rest of his life as a memento of the bishop’s selflessness. The bishop’s humility and kindness is also seen in Mr. Lorry, the equivalent brought to life in A Tale of Two Cities. Mr. Lorry starts out as nothing more than a business partner to Dr. Manette, and ends the novel as his best friend. In the end, it is because of Mr. Lorry that Dr. Manette and the small Darnay family are able to escape Paris after Sydeny Carton gives his life for Charles.
Lastly, we have the astonishingly similar messages of the two novels: Both writers appear to have been very careful in making sure that the glory of their revolutionary book went right back to God. Many times nearing the end of his life, Charles Dicken’s character Sydney Carton repeats a line of unreferenced scripture in his head: “‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ sayeth the LORD; ‘he that believeth in Me yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’” Similarly, possibly the most famous line near the end of Lés Miserables, spoken by Fantine as Valjean is dying, points to the Savior: “Take my hand, I’ll leave you to salvation. Take my love, for love is everlasting. And remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.”
Aside from all of their reams of similarities and differences, Lés Miserables by Victor Hugo and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens are both masterful works of literature, both when they were first published as well as today. They send the timeless message of love, hope, and salvation into a perpetually dark world.
“There is a prospect that is greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect that is greater than the sky and it is the human soul.” -Victor Hugo
dear west coast 