Le Beau Geste
You walk into your apartment complex holding stacks of books and papers, hustling to make it to your door before you collapse. You’ve spent the past nine hours dealing with your boss throwing paperwork at you and customers bombarding you with idiotic questions and complaints. But you try to forget about it and focus on getting your keys out of your coat pocket without dropping the book barely balancing on your forearm. With quick movements you get your keys, open the door and immediately hit with the savory smell of your favorite meal, chicken parmesan. Rose petals line your apartment floor and make their way to your kitchen table; where, your boyfriend of two years, sits smiling at you. Your hit with an instant shock of relief and overwhelmed by the his romantic grand gesture. You smile and say, “quel beau geste.” …show more content…
You start to recount all the grand gestures that you have witnessed in life. The first were from the books you read in school. Most of the time grand gestures were from sacrifice, similar to when Mariam sacrificed her life and freedom for the sake of Laila and the children, in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Or in Cyrano de Bergerac, when Cyrano sacrificed his heart so Roxanne could be with Christian. These characters were not forced to sacrifice themselves but chose to. Chose to give up their time, their love, and their energy for the sake of someone else. However, some characters make grand gestures for themselves; for instance, Werner sacrificed everything to pursue a better life in the military. His life was doomed to be spent beneath the ground in the coal mines, but he beat the status quo. A grand gesture, a sacrifice for himself for the betterment of his