by Joe Miller
Sydney Carton is one of my favorite characters in literature.
I recognize that he’s a bit of an odd choice. Sydney Carton – the semi-protagonist of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities – is what the kids might call a hot mess.
Although he’s usually the smartest person in any given room, he mostly wastes his talents, doing all the work while letting his (mostly useless) law partner take all the credit. Sydney spends his life drunk, depressed and quietly in love with Lucie Manette, who regards Sydney fondly, but who is in love with (and later marries) Charles Darnay.
Sydney, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Darnay, confesses that he both loves and hates his double, seeing in Darnay all that Sydney could have been had he not frittered it away with drink and a lack of ambition.
Sydney similarly confesses his love to Lucie and promises that (a) he will never speak of it again and (b) that he will do anything to ensure the happiness of Lucie and her family. Sydney develops a friendship with the family and becomes a sort of favorite uncle to the Darnay’s daughter.
Several years pass and Darnay – who is secretly a French aristocrat – returns to Paris during the Reign of Terror. While there, he is arrested and sentenced to die for his aristocratic ties.
Sydney trades places with Darnay, allowing the latter to escape with his family while Sydney stoically heads to the guillotine. His final words, as he awaits his turn to die:
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Oddly enough, I often think of Sydney Carton in conjunction with another of my favorite characters.
For most of my childhood, my family would gather around the television on Christmas Eve to watch It’s a Wonderful Life.
I fully acknowledge that it’s a little weird to associate Sydney Carton with George Bailey. Sydney is a wastrel. George Bailey is a truly good everyman.
George sacrifices the hearing in one ear to rescue his brother from an icy pond. He gives up on college when his father passes away unexpectedly, staying home to take care of his mother and to run the family business. He gives up his honeymoon to help his customers during a bank run.
George spends his life helping the residents of Bedford Falls purchase homes. A great many of George’s customers are Italian immigrants. That might seem fairly uncontroversial today, but at the time the film was made, the U.S. had just passed several laws specifically restricting Italian immigration.
Those laws were part of a backlash against mostly uneducated, majority Catholic immigrants who were accused of taking low-wage jobs and entry-level housing from those of Northern European origin. (The more things change, eh?)
George is, of course, famously given the chance to see the world as it would have been had he never been born. That world is a much bleaker place.
Even though I’ve seen the movie dozens of times, I get teary watching it.
George Bailey’s life is truly remarkable. He may seem quiet and unassuming, but George Bailey does a stunning amount of good. Vanishingly few of us would leave such a profound void were we to be erased from existence.
To me, Sydney and George epitomize the two parts of what it means to show love.
Sydney Carton’s love for Lucy and for her daughter is unconditional. He never asks for anything from Lucie – indeed, he knows that his feelings are unrequited – and yet he willingly sacrifices his life for her happiness.
While Sydney’s grand gesture is epic and romantic, George Bailey reminds us that love is mostly about showing up every single day.
George is rarely called upon to make grand gestures. Instead, he simply does all the little things. He takes care of his mother. He helps his brother go to college. He attends housewarming parties for first-time homebuyers. He gives to those who have fallen on hard times – even in cases where the hard times are at least partially of the person’s own making.
Sydney’s actions are beautiful and inspiring but ultimately a little distant. It’s vanishingly unlikely that any of us will be called upon to die for a loved one, much less die for someone else’s loved one.
Making Sydney’s choice would be incredibly hard. And yet, arguably, George walks the more difficult road.
Sure, we could stop to help the stranded motorist. Or chip in when we see someone trying to decide which things to pull off the checkout line because they can’t quite afford the total. We could welcome strangers into our community, even when they have funny accents and worship differently on Sundays.
But we’ve had a crummy day at work and just want to get home. We’ve been saving up for a new iPhone. It can be uncomfortable talking to people who are different from us.
George Bailey shows us that it’s those little things, done every day, that leave the world a far, far better place.
joe.miller@fountaindigitalconsulting.com
