I would, as a viewer, identify four things that make the most difference in the second half of “Les Misérables.” And these are relatively little things, as opposed to the grand uprising that was the focus of the previous post.
1. Eponine (Samantha Barks) gives Marius — with whom she is in love — the note he was supposed to have received from Cosette — with whom he is in love — after hiding it.
2. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), fearing to lose his adopted daughter Cosette but knowing her love for Marius, saves the latter’s life in almost total anonymity.
3. The love between Marius and Cosette, which culminates in a happy wedding.
4. The mercy of Valjean, who at one point has Javert (Russell Crowe) in his grasp but spares his life, even knowing full well that he will continue to hunt him.
It is in these very simple and seemingly mundane actions of rectifying one’s own mistake, risking life and limb for another with no one watching, the love between a man and a woman, and “turning the other cheek” that produce the greatest emotional effect and conduce most to the story’s happy ending.
I think we see our two great themes coming together at this point. We talked about the futility of a merely this-worldly uprising against institutional oppression in the previous post, and of how the latter is embodied in the character of Javert.
Ironically, his side of the coin — namely, the legalistic police state — is another form of the same error. After all, it is based on the assumption that by force, one can bring about perfect conformity to morality here on earth. So the problem it poses is an earthly-utopia/transcendent-hope issue is well as a Law/Grace issue.
By showing Grace toward Javert in a self-effacing way, Valjean actually does wind up successfully bucking the “system.”
Javert, unfortunately, commits suicide as a result of this. Having been faced with an understanding of reality for which he has no frame of reference, he simply cannot handle it; and instead of repentance, he chooses despair.
But whatever the result, Valjean has, by way of an action that to all appearances should be judged of little importance, thrown a wrench into the clockwork.
Self-effacing actions, not self-asserting actions, are what effect real and needed change. Eponine and Valjean succeed in surrendering their own desires/interests, and their respective acts of detachment converge in a wedding…
Next time.
Images obtained through a Google image search
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