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Law and order upside down; it is a world where dog eats dog, but who saves the dogs? They rely on each other. They, the opposing parties depend upon each other for the sake of their fates. In the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the main characters of the ex-convict Jean Valjean, and the idealistic Inspector of Police, Javert, rely on each other. Valjean is Javert’s saviour, and Javert is Valjean’s. They ultimately control each other’s destiny. In the end, they lift each other from the shadows of their hollowed abyss to the light and radiance of the dawn. Javert and Valjean are both born, or in the case of Valjean, reborn, in a prison in Toulon. They both save each other’s souls and they make the other’s life phenomenal.
Javert and Jean Valjean are born after leaving the prison in Toulon. Valjean is released from a nineteen year prison term for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s children. Everywhere he goes, his yellow passbook, or his documents in a yellow book signifying his status as a parolee, puts him at the bottom rung of society’s ladder. After his encounter with the bishop at Digne and the small boy with the forty sous piece, Valjean learns shame and humility. The bishop gave him a second chance at life. When Valjean left the bishop’s home in the night, he takes with him the silver. Earlier that day, he had been sent away from his job as a farm hand. The silver is worth twice what he had earned. He is later brought back by two policemen to the bishop because he looked suspicious he looks like “a man who was running away” (Hugo 29). The bishop make it clear that “it [was] all a mistake” (Hugo 29). When Valjean leaves the bishop’s company, he goes through a radical change. But, a radical new inspector of police is on his trail.
Javert rises from the gutter to the respectable inspector of police. His beginnings
are humble. “He was born in a prison. His mother was a fortuneteller whose husband
was in the galleys” (Hugo 47). He learns to rely on himself and to hate the world around
him. Very quickly he learns that society is ruthless when it comes to
two classes of men: those who attack it, and those who guard it; he could choose between these two classes only; at the same time he feltQuickly he makes his way through the ranks and at “forty he was an inspector” (Hugo 47). He follows the law to the point of being extreme. When Valjean, or Monsieur le Mayor at this point in his life, is insulted by Fantine, Javert puts aside Valjean’s rights to serve the law. Valjean treats him with respect, but at the same time, puts him in his place. Throughout Javert’s life Valjean teaches him mercy.
that he had an indescribable basis of rectitude, order, and honesty, associated with an irrepressible hatred for the gypsy race to which he
belonged. He entered the police (Hugo 47).
Valjean shapes Javert’s destiny by showing him compassion. Initially, with his background, Javert follows the law to the letter so he would make up for his parent’s short comings. It wasn’t until Javert’s execution that he finally learns of his mistakes. Valjean sets him free and then “fired [his] pistol into the air” (Hugo 433) to reinforce Javert’s freedom. Two days later, the seventh of June, 1832, Javert is again shown Valjean’s compassion. Marius, the sole Les Amis survivor, is carried from the barricades by Valjean, but Valjean is caught by Inspector Javert on the streets of Paris. Pleading for Marius’ final wish as he was almost on his deathbed, Javert consents to a detour to Monsieur Gillenormand’s home or Marius’ grandfather and adoptive father. After delivering Marius from death, Valjean pleads to return home, to say goodbye. “Javert remained silent for a few seconds, his chin drawn back into the collar of his overcoat; then he let down the window in the front” (Hugo 459) and takes Valjean home, and sets him free. His greatest act of mercy.
Javert is the saviour of Valjean. After Valjean tears up his yellow passbook that reveals his status as an ex-convict, Javert begins the twenty year chase. Never far behind Valjean, Javert causes Valjean to make amends for past misdeeds and after Valjean’s run-in with the bishop, Javert keeps him clean and honest. Valjean knows that if he is to be caught thieving, his past record will have him put away for life. Javert’s constant pursuit gives him his family, his honour, and his dignity. By delivering Marius from death, Javert, indirectly, gives Cosette, Marius’ intended, and Valjean’s adopted daughter, back to Valjean. “For four months [she] had been dead.... Since [Marius] was wounded [upon the barricades] she [had] passed her time in weeping and making lint [for his bandages]” (Hugo 472). Javert also gives Valjean honour and dignity by granting visible respect to his enemy Valjean at the barricades.
With all these factors taken into account, Inspector Javert lives a radiant life. In the end, he throws himself off the Pont de Notre Dame and drowns himself in the Seine. His life is complete. If he had lived an hour longer, it would have been treacherous. In the reverse, his death is his one great act of fraternity to Jean Valjean. They raise one another from the corruption of society to honesty and truth. In this light, they mould the other’s fate. They both plunged into “a grave illuminated by the dawn” (Hugo 418). Each are both the student and the teacher; the student and teacher to each other.
Hugo, Victor Les Misérables. Toronto: Washington Square Press, 1964.
© Gaelique de la brumes 2000