Snuff-box Symbol Analysis

In A Sentimental Journey, the snuffbox the Franciscan monk gives to Yorick represents the power of travel—and, specifically, interacting with foreigners—to improve a person’s manner and overall character. Yorick first meets the monk when the monk comes into his room in Calais to beg alms. Although, moments before, Yorick felt generous and at peace, he now scolds the monk, decides to give him nothing, criticizes his religious practices, and declares his own duty to give to other Englishmen before foreigners—a set of reactions that betray Yorick’s fickleness and residual xenophobia. When Yorick and the monk meet again in a coach-yard, the monk offers Yorick some snuff (powdered tobacco). Yorick, realizing he has treated the monk unkindly, offers the monk his own snuffbox as a gift. The two men exchange snuffboxes, and, later in the story, Yorick uses the monk’s snuffbox to remind himself to be polite and good-natured. For example, Yorick is tempted to make a sarcastic remark to another travel who makes an obvious comment; to stop himself, he takes snuff from the monk’s snuffbox instead. Later, at the Opera comique in Paris, Yorick sees a tall German blocking a dwarf’s view and—taking a pinch of snuff from the monk’s snuffbox—deplores the German’s behavior, thinking how differently the monk would have responded. Periodically reminding Yorick to be courteous, the snuffbox represents the lesson Yorick has learned on his travels: to appreciate people from other countries and treat them politely.