Les Misérables has long been one of my favourite
musicals. When I was a child, the dance class I was in used some of the songs
as part of a sequence at a show, so I feel like I have known some of the songs
forever. I think it was when I was 14 that my mum took me to London to see the
show and I loved it. Since that first time seeing it at the West End, I’ve seen
it once more there with my brother (who I went to the cinema with last night),
and once in an amateur school production with my friend Lucy as Éponine – a very
talented cast. I have also actually read the 1300 page book. I was 13 at the
time, and skipped over the 50 page description of the Battle of Waterloo and
Thénardier’s involvement in it, but recently began to re-read it, and have been
much more engrossed this time around. I will always remember the pastor of the
church I was in growing up telling me that when he first saw it, it made him
want to preach a sermon at the end. After seeing the film last night, I feel
the same way.
The music of the film is wonderful – stirring and haunting
(and the whole film is sung – for those of you who don’t know!!), and the
acting and singing was fabulous. I especially loved the performances by Anne
Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne (he made me like Marius, which I had
never done before!!) – and the production was terrific. Bringing the musical to
film made it much more intimate, and much more detailed (great examples, I
think, are Jean Valjean’s ‘Soliloquy’, the detail in ‘Master of the House’ and
of course Valjean dragging Marius through the sewers!).
But really what gripped me once more, and moved me to tears
on several occasions, is the story. I love the story of Les Mis, and I
love the character of Jean Valjean – he is possibly my favourite character from
anything I have ever read. It’s a story of freedom, love, mercy – and redemption.
The story is explicit in its belief in the power of grace to transform people,
and as a Christian this is something I firmly believe in – and it is
beautifully displayed in the character of Valjean. Victor Hugo’s own position
towards the Catholic church was constantly in flux, but he did seem to have few
issues with the central positions of the faith.
Hugo spends at least 50 pages in the opening of his novel
describing the Bishop who so dramatically alters Valjean’s life, carefully
showing us a picture of his selfless, merciful and loving life, which I think
can be summed up in this beautiful statement: ‘As we see, he had a strange and
peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.’
Previously, Valjean has been subject to a strict and pure Justice, which punishes
him with imprisonment for the desperate theft of bread, and then for attempted
escape. In showing Mercy to Valjean when the law was ready to execute Justice
on him, as it had so many times before, the Bishop enacts a process of
redemption:
‘ “Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil,
but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark
thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!” ’
In the novel, Valjean exhibits a final act of selfishness in
stealing a small sum of money from a boy he meets on his travels, and this last
minor incident culminates in a life-changing realisation what the bishop has
done for him:
‘He beheld himself then, so to speak, face to face, and at
the same time ... he saw ... a sort of light which he took at first to be a
torch ... he recognise that it had a human form, and that this torch was the
bishop.
‘His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed
before it, the bishop and Jean Valjean... as his reverie continued, the bishop
grew grander and more resplendent in his eyes; Jean Valjean shrank and faded
away. At one moment he was but a shadow. Suddenly he disappeared. The bishop
alone remained.
‘He filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a
magnificent radiance.’
The bishop has literally bought this desperate man. After
having set the bishop up as a Christ figure, I think part of what Valjean is
meant to represent in the story is a similar thing. The bishop has shown
Valjean divine love – and this spark is fanned into a flame in him too.
Throughout the rest of the novel, Valjean makes mistakes and errors of
judgement (he is still human!), but instead of being compelled by hate and fear
he is now compelled by mercy and love. Even his desperation to conceal himself
in Paris is mainly for Cosette’s sake, as he remembers the promise he made
Fantine to care for her. We constantly see him seeking to do the loving thing,
even when it is not necessarily the right thing... and this extends to Javert.
Valjean, the man redeemed through Mercy, against Javert, the
man ruled by Justice.
Christians often talk about the Mercy and Justice of God,
and how these are seemingly opposing forces. God is just – therefore according
to His laws He must punish sin. Yet He is merciful – and provides a Redeemer to
allow us to know His love. Jean Valjean is like many people – he is familiar with
the Justice of God, but until meeting the bishop, not His Mercy. Javert has
never encountered Mercy, and he is so entrenched in his law-keeping belief that
he can please God and man through Justice, that when Mercy is extended to him,
he is unable to comprehend or accept it. It seems so unbearably UNjust to him
to have Mercy shown to him, that he takes Justice into his own hands and metes
out punishment on himself. When Mercy is extended to us, what is our response?
Are we Javert, or are we Valjean?
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