De quoi l’héroïsme est-il le nom dans No Name de Wilkie Collins et A Tale of Two Cities de Charles Dickens ?

• Main Author: Sophie Naveau
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2014-06-01
• Series: Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
• Subjects: arbitrariness; artifact; character; civil status; double; heroism
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/cve/1248

The reader may wonder about the fate of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and about the fate of Magdalen Vanstone in No Name by Wilkie Collins. The question of their heroism is at stake. This question cannot but be determined by the complex relationship they have with their names. Magdalen Vanstone does not have the legal right to use her family name. Sydney Carton is a man of talents but he has never used them to serve his own name as he has lived in the shadow of another man. So how can they find a way to save their name? In the two novels, the process of naming can be first seen as a legal and social process. However all the effects produced by the act of naming cannot be fully explained by the legal and social aspects of this process. Indeed if a name is an artefact, it is also a part of one’s identity. A name is something to play with as well as a thing which cannot be disposed of. What is a name then? Is it nothing but an artifact or does it reveal the true nature of its bearer? Plato already dealt with these questions in his Cratylus. But reading A Tale of Two Cities and No Name bearing these questions in mind gives them a new perspective. Nature and artifact may not be as distinct as they may seem.