A City of Stories

Paris refuses to be experienced in one dimension. Every day here feels like stepping into another chapter of history, sometimes illuminated by sunlight on the Seine or hidden in the damp shadows beneath the streets. My trip has been a steady layering of moments: wandering through museums, visiting the opera house, eating delicious food, and exploring places that hold centuries of memory. This layered history and sacrifice mirror the complex social struggles and resilience depicted in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables—a city where past and present conversations about injustice, identity, and humanity converge.

Paul Sérusier’s painting L’Averse at Musée d’Orsay

At the Musée d’Orsay, surrounded by Impressionist light and the grand sweep of 19th-century art, I was drawn to a quieter piece, a painting of a nun holding an umbrella over her head. It wasn’t a scene of grandeur or public ceremony, just a moment of her everyday life. Yet something about it stayed with me. The umbrella seemed like a small shield against the world, a fragile defense in a life defined by service. I thought about the sacrifices nuns make when dedicating their lives to the church. Whether it be giving up personal freedom, family, or other dreams they left behind.

Though I didn’t visit a convent during my trip, the painting brought to mind the role convents play in Les Misérables. In the novel, the convent offers Valjean and Cosette a quiet sanctuary from violence and chaos. But it is also a place defined by strict structure and restraint. Its walls impose rules and routines that contain its inhabitants within a particular order and silence. This tension between sanctuary and confinement is powerful: a place that protects, but also restricts, shaping safety with limits on freedom and movement.

This duality echoes a larger theme in Les Misérables—the costs and contradictions of seeking refuge. Protection often demands sacrifice, and safety can mean isolation. The painting felt like a visual reminder of this balance and how places designed to shield us can also enclose us. It deepened my understanding of Hugo’s portrayal of sanctuary not as escape from hardship, but as a space where the fight for freedom continues quietly within boundaries.

Doll in a Victorian dress symbolizing South African apartheid, featured in the Soweto ballet, displayed at the Opera.

A few nights later, I visited the Paris Opera. The building itself was grand and lavish, a spectacle that transports visitors far beyond the everyday. Yet amid the opulence, my attention kept returning to one striking costume on display: an elaborate gown on a doll inspired by apartheid-era fashion, reimagined for the stage. The doll’s Victorian dress symbolizes South African apartheid by reflecting how colonial-era European fashion was imposed as a marker of power, control, and racial hierarchy. The heavy history embedded in the gown’s design made me pause and reflect on who is allowed to wear beauty, and under what circumstances.

As I wandered the grand halls, the gown’s powerful symbolism brought to mind Les Misérables and its profound exploration of social injustice, oppression, and the struggle for dignity. Just as this choreography interpreted the conflict in human terms, highlighting the inhumanity of South Africa’s white regime and the people’s strength and resistance expressed through group dances, Hugo’s novel reveals the lives of marginalized people confined by rigid social hierarchies. Both the gown and the novel remind us that beauty, identity, and survival are often shaped by forces beyond individual control—and that resistance can take many forms, whether on the barricades of 19th-century Paris or through cultural expression confronting apartheid’s legacy.

One of my quietest moments in Paris was walking the path of Javert’s final moments in Les Misérables. In the novel, Javert’s solitary walk toward the Seine is laden with inner turmoil; today, the setting is serene. People stroll in pairs, and friends sit along the embankment as light fades. There is a sense of community in a place Hugo painted as lonely. It made me reflect on how places absorb and outlive the stories told about them. The same stretch of riverbank can hold both tragedy and joy, depending on who walks there and when.

Strip along the Seine where Javert had his last moments

Paris is full of layered complexities. In one afternoon, you can stand in a sunlit square and then descend into the darkness of the Catacombs. That was one of the most humbling experiences of my trip. I expected eeriness—and found it—but even more, I felt the vastness. Endless walls of bones stacked neatly, each skull and femur a silent story. It was hard to grasp the weight of history surrounding me, countless lives folded into this space. The arrangement is orderly, yet the reality it represents is messy: centuries of disease, poverty, overpopulation, and the practical need to move the dead from crowded cemeteries. History often hides its most sobering truths out of sight.

The Catacombs were not my only somber stop. At Montparnasse Cemetery, I visited the tomb of Simone de Beauvoir. The grave itself is simple, but flowers and notes left by visitors make it feel alive. Standing there, I thought about how de Beauvoir’s voice still resonates—how fiercely she challenged oppression, and how surely she would have condemned the injustices faced by characters like Fantine. Fantine’s descent into prostitution is not just personal tragedy; it is a social failure and the result of systems that punish women for vulnerabilities they did not choose. I could almost imagine de Beauvoir writing an essay on Fantine, placing her alongside overlooked women of history.

Tomb of Simone de Beauvoir at Montparnasse Cemetery

These moments—in museums, opera houses, along the river, or underground—shaped my experience of Paris into something richer than a checklist of sights. The city feels like a living novel, its chapters scattered across neighborhoods, each telling a unique story. Some are quiet, like the nun’s umbrella. Some are grand, like the opera’s gilded balconies. Some devastating, like the Catacombs. And some quietly defiant, like Simone de Beauvoir’s grave, holding steady against time.

Walking through Paris, I noticed how art, history, and daily life blur into one another. One minute, you can be looking at a centuries-old painting; the next, sipping coffee by the Seine. You can stand where Hugo described scenes in Les Misérables and realize that while the city has changed, the human struggles he wrote about—poverty, injustice, resilience—still find reflections here.

As my trip comes to a close, I keep returning to the idea of sacrifice. Whether the sacrifice of nuns at the convent, the lives lost in the Catacombs, or the fictional sacrifices of characters like Fantine, who gives up everything for her child—these sacrifices carry weight. But Paris has also shown me the flip side: community, beauty, and the ways people protect one another. If Hugo’s Paris was a city of shadows and barricades, today’s Paris is a city of layers. It holds space for joy and grief, for memory and reinvention. And as I pack my bags, I am grateful to have stepped into so many of its chapters, knowing each will follow me long after I leave.

Echoes of Her Strength

The Louvre is overwhelming in the best possible way. No matter how carefully you plan your visit, you inevitably get lost in its endless halls, drifting between centuries and continents as if time itself has loosened its grip. The museum demands that you slow down, not just because of its vast size, but because so many pieces ask for more than a glance. They ask you to think. To connect. To question.

One painting that stopped me in my tracks was Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. The canvas is alive with motion bodies surging forward, smoke curling through the air, a woman striding at the center holding the French flag high. Liberty herself is a paradox: at once an allegorical figure and a flesh-and-blood woman. Her bare breast is impossible to ignore, and while I understand why some may find it unsettling or even exploitative, to me it feels nuanced—both vulnerable and powerful at once. It communicates something raw and symbolic, with purity and defiance intertwined. In that moment, Liberty read to me as a “pure, edgy woman,” unashamed of her body, charging into danger without hesitation. She is maternal and militant at the same time, a figure both nurturing and unyielding. Her nudity doesn’t seem to exist for the pleasure of the viewer, but as part of the message she carries: this is France, stripped of pretension, leading its people toward freedom.

Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People

The sense of nationalism in the painting is palpable. Every brushstroke pulses with the urgency of revolution. You can feel the pride, the resolve, the collective identity. For me, the painting wasn’t just about French history. It was about how visual symbols can transcend time and geography, inspiring people who may never have lived under the tricolor flag.

Coat made by designer Duro Olowu

That connection between past and present surfaced again when I came across something completely different, a coat designed by Duro Olowu. In the middle of all the classical sculpture and historic portraits, there was a piece of modern fashion that spoke the same language as the paintings around it, but with a contemporary twist. Olowu’s coat blends the elegance of eighteenth-century European style with patterns and influences drawn from his Nigerian heritage. Standing in front of it, I thought about how fashion, like art, can be an act of cultural dialogue, taking something rooted in a particular history and transforming it through another lens.

The coat reminded me that the Louvre isn’t just a collection of the past. It’s a place where conversations between eras and cultures can happen right in front of you. Seeing that coat after Liberty Leading the People felt like watching two different chapters of the same story—the struggle for self-definition, the interplay between identity and image, the blending of tradition with something bold and new.

But not every representation of the female body in the Louvre left me with the same feeling I had in front of Liberty Leading the People. During class, we discussed Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World). Unlike Liberty’s symbolic nudity, Courbet’s work reduces the figure to a sexualized body part without context or narrative, unlike the empowering message of the former. This discussion brought to mind the concept of the male gaze—the idea that much of art history has been shaped by men creating for the eyes of other men, often turning women into objects rather than subjects.

It made me think about how often women in art are seen but not heard, visible yet voiceless. Even when their beauty is celebrated, the perspective can still be one that strips them of agency. In contrast, Liberty feels like she’s claiming her space. She meets the viewer’s eye, she moves, she leads. The gaze doesn’t trap her; she directs it.

This revisiting of the male gaze wasn’t something I expected to do at the Louvre, but that’s the thing about being in a place like this: art doesn’t just sit quietly on the wall. It provokes. It demands that you think about what you’re seeing and how you’re seeing it. By the time I left, I realized my visit had been less about “seeing the Louvre” and more about having a series of conversations—between myself and the art, between the past and the present, between the different ways a body can be represented. Liberty Leading the People reminded me that nudity can be a symbol of courage and solidarity. Duro Olowu’s coat reminded me that tradition can evolve, taking on new forms without losing its roots.

Art, I realized, isn’t static. It changes depending on who’s looking and on what lens they bring with them. That day, my lens was shaped by our class discussions, by the works I’d already seen, and by my awareness of how nationalism, fashion, and the female body intersect. And just like Liberty leading her people, I left feeling a little more sure of my footing, ready to keep moving forward.

This whole experience deeply reminded me of Les Misérables and its complex portrayal of women and society. Women in the novel, like Fantine and Cosette, navigate a world that often reduces them to mere objects or symbols, much like the tension I observed in these artworks. Fantine’s suffering and degradation echo the objectification and loss of agency represented in The Origin of the World, where the female body is fragmented and stripped of identity. She is forced into invisibility and dehumanization, much like the faceless figure in Courbet’s painting.

““For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.””

— Virginia Woolf

However, Hugo’s novel also offers women moments of quiet strength and revolutionary care, much like the figure of Liberty, who simultaneously embodies nurturing and defiance. Cosette’s transformation under Jean Valjean’s protection is a powerful assertion of a woman’s right to dignity and love, transcending the societal chains that bound her. She claims her place beside Valjean, walking “step for step” into a new life. This mirrors the image of Liberty, standing front and center, unapologetic and unashamed, demanding recognition and agency.

Les Misérables is deeply concerned with who gets to tell the story and whose voice is heard. Just as the Louvre’s vast collection reveals hidden histories and provokes questions about representation, Hugo’s novel elevates voices on the margins, especially those of women who must resist erasure in a patriarchal society. Both the museum and the book compel us to question dominant narratives and to recognize the power of stories told from the perspectives of those who have been silenced. Women like Fantine tragically struggle under circumstances that deny them this agency, while others like Cosette symbolize the hope for reclaiming it. Similarly, the artworks at the Louvre challenge viewers to consider how women’s identities have been shaped, distorted, or reclaimed through history and art.

In the end, my visit to the Louvre and my reading of Les Misérables converged around a shared truth: that women’s bodies and stories have too often been controlled, objectified, or erased, but that reclaiming agency through care, love, and courage is a form of quiet revolution. Whether it’s Liberty leading her people, Cosette stepping forward beside Valjean, or women throughout history reclaiming their narratives, these acts of defiance and dignity ripple across time, challenging us to see and honor the full humanity of women.

Stories of Care and Resistance

When I stepped into the Maison de Victor Hugo, I wasn’t just walking into a preserved home; I felt as if I had entered the intimate space of a man who carried entire worlds inside his head. The rooms were warm and slightly dim, the kind of lighting that makes you lower your voice instinctively. Ornate furniture, patterned wallpaper, and personal objects gave the space a lived-in quality, even though Hugo hadn’t been here in over a century. Among his bedrooms and handwritten notes, the painting of Jean Valjean walking beside young Cosette as she carried her water bucket caught my eye. The moment it captured was quiet, almost ordinary, yet pivotal in both their lives.

Painting of Jean Valjean and Cosette

In Les Misérables, Cosette’s childhood is defined by fear, deprivation, and invisibility. Under the care of the Thénardiers, she is overworked and underfed, treated more like a servant than a child. The scene in the painting, drawn from the moment Valjean meets her when she fetches water at Madame Thénardier’s demand, radiates a tenderness that feels almost miraculous in contrast. He walks beside her, step for step. That placement says everything: I am here. You are safe. Standing before it, I realized Hugo wasn’t just telling a story about revolution and justice; he was also exploring the quiet revolutions sparked by compassion, protection, and dignity. Valjean changes Cosette’s future by being the first to show her love, and she gives him a new purpose. This delicate balance of power and tenderness is what makes their relationship so compelling, a reminder that even small acts of kindness can be revolutionary in a harsh world.

““Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.” ”

— Dalai Lama

Leaving the Maison de Victor Hugo, we headed to the Musée Carnavalet. The streets felt alive with history, the sounds of distant conversations, the faint scent of freshly baked bread drifting from a nearby boulangerie, and the chatter of footsteps on cobblestones worn smooth by centuries of travelers.

Inside, the museum unfolded like a labyrinth, each room brimming with paintings, artifacts, and everyday objects that told the story of Paris across centuries. Shepard Fairey’s Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité immediately caught my eye. Its bold colors and powerful message vibrated against the muted tones of the surrounding galleries, pulling me into the revolutionary spirit of Les Misérables, especially the passion of the student-led ABC group fighting the monarchy. I’d noticed this same motto engraved on buildings throughout the city, most memorably at the Palais de Justice, a reminder that liberty, equality, and fraternity remain values deeply woven into French culture.

Shepard Fairey’s Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

But the part of the Carnavalet that truly stopped me was something I hadn’t expected: a section dedicated to Black Parisians in the nineteenth century. I was surprised, not because I didn’t know such communities existed, but because their stories are so rarely given space in major museums. The weight of that omission felt somber.

Further inside, portraits of artists and intellectuals sat alongside documents recording the lives of formerly enslaved individuals who settled in Paris. Their presence disrupted the common image of nineteenth-century Paris as entirely white, prompting me to reconsider the incomplete history I’d absorbed. One painting, Au Nègre joyeux (The Joyful Black Man), had been used to advertise food products imported from the colonies, reinforcing the stereotype of the cheerful Black servant.

I was struck by how many of these stories echoed themes from Les Misérables: migration, survival, and the fight for dignity in a society that often resisted their presence. Jean Valjean’s struggle to redefine himself after prison mirrors the battles these individuals faced to claim their place in a society that did not fully recognize them. Both are stories about navigating exclusion and injustice. Standing in that room, I thought about how history is shaped as much by what’s left out as by what’s included. For every celebrated figure we remember, countless others are lost to time, often because they didn’t fit the dominant narrative. Seeing these Black Parisians represented, however briefly, was a reminder of the gaps in collective memory and the ongoing work to fill them.

As I made my way back through the museum, I realized my visits to the Maison de Victor Hugo and the Musée Carnavalet were connected in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Hugo’s Paris in Les Misérables is a tapestry woven from voices on the margins: the poor, the criminalized, the forgotten. The Carnavalet’s glimpse into nineteenth-century Black Parisians felt like discovering another missing thread in that tapestry.

Walking back through the streets that afternoon, I felt the city’s layers pressing in on me. Paris is often romanticized as a city of lights and beauty. Still, it is also a city of hidden histories, quiet resistance, and everyday people whose lives shaped the city as much as any king or general. The same streets that echoed with Valjean’s footsteps also carried men and women living outside the center of the story, yet whose stories quietly shape the soul of Paris. As I passed small cafés and bustling markets, I thought about how the present city holds so many stories at once, stories of privilege and struggle, celebration and sorrow. It made me realize that the real revolution is the ongoing work of remembering and honoring all of these voices, not just the loudest or most powerful.

Au Nègre joyeux

Travel often promises novelty, but for me, the most rewarding moments are when the past feels suddenly close, not as a foreign country, but as a set of human experiences that still matter. Whether it’s a fictional girl finding safety with someone who loves her, or a real person carving out a life in a society that wasn’t built to welcome them, these are stories worth holding onto.

In the footsteps of Jean Valjean and Cosette, I see how simple acts of care become quiet rebellions against a world that too often forgets. I’ll remember that painting of them walking together, step for step, and I’ll think of the other pairs who must have walked these streets—fathers and daughters, friends, strangers—bound together by the simple, radical act of care. And I’ll remember that telling their stories isn’t just about honoring the past; it’s about shaping the present and imagining a future where those stories are never lost again.

Paris as a Living Reminder of the Past

Before coming to Paris, I expected elegance, high fashion, and exquisite bakeries. Paris is elegant, yes, but it’s also bold, complex, and deeply rooted in history. What struck me first was the atmosphere. Paris immediately had a different energy than any other place I’ve been, especially London. Where London often felt more polished and proper, Paris feels more raw and real.

Inside of Notre Dame Catherdral

The social norms reminded me of home on the East Coast. People tend to engage less in unnecessary small talk, valuing directness over surface-level interactions. Still, I appreciated the honesty in it. One thing that differs from the bustling lifestyle of America is the lack of hustle culture here. Instead, there’s a focus on taking things one day at a time and appreciating the moment. There’s also an undeniable sense of pride that runs through Paris. It’s quiet, yet obvious, in how carefully history is preserved and in the seriousness with which language, food, and identity are treated. This sort of national pride is alluded to by Dickens when he explores how people felt an obligation to the Republic during the revolution.

Religion still feels central to the city’s identity. Cathedrals and chapels are everywhere, most notably Notre-Dame, of course, but also countless smaller churches scattered throughout the city. The architecture of Notre-Dame was breathtaking. While Dickens doesn’t directly identify himself as a Christian, I felt like the ideas of God and religion play a symbolic role in how he explores morality, redemption, and sacrifice. Dr. Manette being “recalled to life” from the years that he spent in prison by rekindling his relationship with his daughter Lucie mirrors biblical themes of rebirth. Additionally, Sydney Carton’s testimony of self-sacrifice, where he dies in the place of Charles Darnay, echoes Christian ideals of suffering and laying down one’s life for another. Dickens frames this act as one of moral and even spiritual transcendence, suggesting that redemption is possible for anyone, even for someone like Carton who deemed himself unworthy.  

Palace of Versailles

I especially felt the weight of history at the Palace of Versailles. It felt overwhelmingly grand with its gold, high ceilings, intricate artwork, and vast, beautiful gardens. While physically extravagant, what stood out to me was the sheer amount of wealth held within the palace walls, a contrast to the reality of the poor who were struggling to survive as the monarchy lived in luxury. It makes sense to me that the Revolution followed. Versailles is beautiful, but it also feels detached from reality. It reminded me of the class divisions in A Tale of Two Cities, where the aristocracy thrives in luxury while the poor starve. History truly repeats itself.

I also noticed a sense of admiration for Napoleon at Versailles. The number of people crowding to get a snapshot of his bed or murals made it feel like he was being idolized. His legacy is complicated; while many criticize him for his invasions, in Paris, he is still remembered with respect. The fact that his tomb has become a major attraction and a monetized destination says a lot. While one can be seen as a hero and savior to some, they can simultaneously be an enemy to others.

Another recurring theme during our first week was the criminal justice system of nineteenth century France, particularly through our visits to Place de la Concorde and the Conciergerie. These experiences led me to reflect on the question: Who deserves justice and why? In class, we discussed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which guaranteed all individuals the right to “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” Yet in practice, women, children, foreigners, and servants were often excluded and discriminated against.

Women’s courtyard

Dickens reminds us that revolutions are not just political, they’re deeply personal. Characters like Madame Defarge show us how grief and trauma are inseparable from history. Walking through the women’s courtyard at the Conciergerie, I felt that same sense of personal loss that is often dimmed by the intensity of political conflict. These weren’t just historical figures; they were daughters, sisters, mothers, and fighters. I especially appreciated the garden because it centers the voices of women so often left out of traditional narratives. It was striking to learn that this section of the Conciergerie is the least altered part of the site since the French Revolution, as if the stories there refused to be erased. 

In both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Misérables, women’s perspectives are frequently sidelined, so I valued the chance to learn about the stories of real women who were actively fighting for justice during this time. One woman who stood out was Olympe de Gouges, memorialized in the garden. I admired that she called herself a feminist long before it was generally accepted, embracing Enlightenment ideals and writing boldly in defense of women’s rights. The way she was imprisoned in the Conciergerie and sentenced to death simply for standing up for democracy is a reminder of how dangerous it has always been for people, especially women, to speak out against the status quo. It's disheartening that this kind of threat to democracy is still visible in the world today. 

Of all the places we visited during the first week, the Conciergerie felt the most somber. It was here that Charles Darnay believed he would spend his final days, and standing inside those walls, I was transported to envision his fear. Cold stone corridors, echoing footsteps, narrow hallways, and small windows barely letting in light, the building seems to close in on you. It doesn’t try to romanticize history. It forces you to feel it. 

One of the most haunting spaces in the Conciergerie was Marie Antoinette’s cell. It’s quiet and dimly lit, almost frozen in time, a stark contrast to the grandeur she once lived in at Versailles. Standing in the small stone chamber where she awaited her execution, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of history sink in. Seeing it in person made me think of A Tale of Two Cities, where Dickens doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette, like many aristocrats, is a symbol of the inequality that drove the revolution forward, yet her final moments, like Charles Darnay’s imprisonment, remind us that even those in power are vulnerable when systems of justice become tools of vengeance. Dickens shows how the line between justice and revenge can quickly blur. Like Darnay, she was condemned not just for who she was, but for what she represented — a reminder that revolutions, while rooted in justice, often end in suffering.  

A Tale of Two Cities warns us that if inequality and injustice go unchallenged, violence doesn’t just happen, it becomes inevitable and normalized. Dickens brings us through a revolution that begins with ideals and ends with a spectacle, where justice is reduced to performance and the guillotine becomes a routine event. Standing in Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine once stood, I couldn’t help but think how quickly hope can turn into horror. Today, it’s a stunning square that encompasses you, surrounded by fountains and monuments, but beneath that elegance is a history soaked in fear. In the novel, the guillotine is ever so casually referred to as the National Razor that shaves close. That’s the danger Dickens is highlighting: when killing becomes ordinary, revolution loses its moral center. It was haunting to stand there and realize that what began as a fight for liberty and equality ended in pain and persecution. 

Paris made the French Revolution feel real in a way I hadn’t expected. The revolution was more than a series of historical events, but lived experiences, full of pain, justice, and meaning. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens explores what happens when society fails to protect the vulnerable, when justice becomes revenge, and when history forgets the humanity of its people. Visiting Paris helped me see how these themes aren’t limited to the literature; they are alive in the architecture, the memorials, and even the somberness of places like the Conciergerie. Like the novel, Paris is a city where the past never disappears. It lingers to warn, remind, and demand to be remembered.

Layers of London: Exploring History, Culture, and Power

As someone who left America for the first time, exploring London has been both enriching and eye-opening. Throughout our journey across this bustling global city, I’ve discovered how deeply rooted art, history, and culture are—not only in the past, but also in the present. Towards the start of our bookpacking expedition, we visited two of the city’s most acclaimed landmarks, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. These structures, which encompass extensive royal and religious power are situated just across the street from one another. We were able to witness firsthand how the monarchy continues to maintain its influence on British society. The palace distinguishes itself from the general public with its soldiers guarding the secrets that linger behind those gates. It is interesting to me how British society has decided to conserve the monarchy and what that ultimately means for the lives of everyday citizens.

In the past, when I have dwelt upon institutions like the British monarchy, what often comes to mind is colonialism, especially as someone who is of African descent. I believe that while one can appreciate the grandiose view of Buckingham Palace, it is also important to recognize the harm that has occurred in the name of expansion and exploitation. While we were at the Tate Modern museum, a piece struck me that appeared to exude similar themes of occupation. This piece depicted a Black woman who was a circus performer assigned the role of appearing “exotic” to circus goers. The fetishization that Black people were subjected to during the 1800s led to the stripping of their humanity. Othering Black people in this manner contributed to the justification of colonizing African and Caribbean countries by the British Empire.

Before arriving in London, I was not familiar with Westminster Abbey. However, as I strolled through the halls, I realized how integral it is to London’s history. I didn't expect notable scientific figures like Issac Newton and Stephen Hawking to be buried in such a major religious institution, since science and religion are often not viewed as complementary to one another, especially in today's world. It was also evident to me that the operation of the monarchy was intertwined with Westminster Abbey. Seeing the coronation chair and high altar, which were dripping in gold, offered a glimpse into the ceremonial traditions that have upheld and reinforced the monarchy over time. The beauty of the architecture was striking and almost overwhelming in how much history it carried.

Later, walking along the row of gentlemen’s clubs gave me insight into the classism that still prevails, especially within wealthier circles. Classism is a recurrent theme in both A Tale of Two Cities and Les Misérables. For instance, in A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay and Monsieur Marquis debate about the suffering that their high-status family have inflicted upon the poor. Marquis represents those who seek to uphold the status quo, while Darnay criticizes the oppression that is occurring. Today, these viewpoints are still expressed, especially within politics.

One of the aspects of London that initially caught my attention was its diversity. I honestly wasn’t expecting the city to be so multicultural. For instance, visiting Brick Lane allowed me to understand how Bangladeshi and Jewish immigrants have established their communities in the city over the years. I felt as if the city leans more towards embracing its diversity, rather than trying to reject its existence.

When we entered the Bank area of the city, I immediately noticed the contrast between the older architecture, such as Child’s Bank (referred to as Tellson’s Bank by Dickens), and modern skyscraper-like buildings. London’s ability to maintain consistent banking practices over centuries attests to the strength of its financial industry. While the exteriors of these banking institutions have evolved over the years, capitalism remains their core driving force. Seeing the site of Tellson’s Bank made Dickens’ critique of the financial world feel especially present. In A Tale of Two Cities, he depicts Tellson’s as a symbol of rigid tradition and moral judgement, where those in debt are met with little empathy. This attitude still lingers in our current capitalist society, where economic hardship is often blamed on individuals before considering the possible inequalities at play.

This week, we explored the relationship between legality and morality that Dickens discusses in A Tale of Two Cities. The Old Bailey court is a central piece to the plot, where convicts often are faced with possible death. I thought it was mindboggling how even the pettiest of crimes would result in an immediate trip to the guillotine. We can say for sure that such crimes would certainly not equate to immediate death in today's world. I also noticed that religion, particularly Christianity, was primarily used to determine what was lawful or moral. The lack of forgiveness echoed Jean Valjean’s struggles in Les Misérables, showing how redemption and acceptance were difficult to come by.

As we set off to Paris soon, I am excited to further explore how culture, history, and architecture shed light on what defines a city’s identity. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of how these iconic cities have changed over time, and what their streets and traditions reveal about the people who live there.