Despite being a self-confessed musical fan for the last 6 or 7 years, I only checked out Les Misérables a couple months ago, in anticipation of the new movie coming out. After watching a recording of the show, I decided to read the epic tome that is Victor Hugo’s original novel. It’s certainly not light reading, but it’s definitely one of those novels everybody should read. Despite it being only a subplot, I found myself really interested in the relationship between two of the characters. Simply put, he book’s protagonist, Valjean, is contrasted with the fanatical police inspector Javert. Valjean (AKA “[Prisoner Number] 24601″) escapes from 19 years’ captivity a hardened man. Javert personifies society still pursuing him for breaking parole. The thoughts that I formed on the subject are based in part on the book and partly on the show itself. In a lot of ways, the show can convey the moods and intimations that the book makes through music and dialogue. (I should mention here that this post contains spoilers.)
Let’s start with the exchange between Javert and Valjean during the opening number of the show. The two characters are essentially bringing the audience up to speed as to why Valjean’s in prison:
[JAVERT]
Now bring me prisoner 24601
Your time is up
And your parole’s begun
You know what that means.
[VALJEAN]
Yes, it means I’m free.
[JAVERT]
No!
It means you get
Your yellow ticket-of-leave
You are a thief
[VALJEAN]
I stole a loaf of bread.
[JAVERT]
You robbed a house.
[…]
[JAVERT]
Five years for what you did
The rest because you tried to run
Yes, 24601.
[VALJEAN]
My name is Jean Valjean!
[JAVERT]
And I am Javert
Do not forget my name!
Do not forget me,
24601.
Valjean then proceeds to break his parole, becoming a wealthy factory owner and mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, a small town. Javert, in the intervening eight years, continues doggedly searching for his escaped prisoner. What I find really interesting at this stage is how Victor Hugo presents Javert and Valjean as opposite ends on the spectrum of morality. As a police inspector, Javert is a moral ‘light’ to Valjean’s ‘darkness’. This is summed up both in Javert’s soliloquy (“He [Valjean] knows his way in the dark / Mine is the way of the Lord”). Note the conflation of light and dark with morality, furthering the idea that Javert and Valjean are metaphors as much as they are characters.
This duality comes to a head when Valjean saves Javert from being killed by students participating in the 1832 June Rebellion. Javert is distraught, having been shown the ‘ultimate mercy’ by the man he perceived as a worthless criminal.
[JAVERT]
Who is this man?
What sort of devil is he?
To have me caught in a trap
And choose to let me go free?
Valjean has shown that criminals are not inherently evil, shattering Javert’s beliefs. Javert feels that now, morally, he cannot pursue Valjean for his crimes, yet his duty to the law demands it. He believes he cannot do the moral thing without committing the illegal act of letting Valjean go free, but cannot do what is legally right without committing the moral crime of imprisoning a good man. Since Javert’s life centers around the belief that good men cannot be criminals and vice-versa, he cannot live in a world where this world-view is challenged.
In the show, the notion of Javert seeing himself as God’s representative on earth is represented in his constant referral to stars. In both his soliloquies, he mentions them:
[JAVERT]
Stars
In your multitudes
[…]
Filling the darkness
With order and light
[...]
Lord, let me find him
That I may see him
Safe behind bars
I will never rest
Till then
[...]
This I swear by the stars
(Note the conflation of the stars with “order and light”.)
In his second soliloquy, when he’s distraught over Valjean saving his life, he describes how “the stars are black and cold / As I stare into the void”. To cope with the dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself in the Seine.
This leaves us with a fascinating worry: our tightly-held beliefs may be more brittle than first thought. A single event could bring the house of cards tumbling down. One is left to wonder which of our beliefs are a product of our upbringing rather than reflecting an objective truth.
