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"Everything [Jean Valjean] had done up to now was merely a hole he was digging in which to bury his name. What he had always most dreaded [...] was the thought of ever hearing that name pronounced; he felt that would be the end of everything for him; that the day on which that name reappeared, his new life would vanish from around him, and, who knows, even perhaps his new soul from within him."
And yet it is only by revealing himself as Jean Valjean, by reattaching that name to himself out of his own will, that he can hope to keep the soul that he earned that night after M Myriel saved him. I just, I can't, I need a moment. I'm sorry to be dumping catching up in the tags but 1.7.3 is killing me
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**MAJOR LES MIS SPOILER BELOW PROCEED WITH CAUTION**
āThe reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other than Jean Valjean.ā
āIndependently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to his actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but a hole in which to bury his name.āĀ
āHe distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom she was thrusting into the gulf in his stead; in order that the gulf might close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or that other man, should fall into it: he had only let things take their course.āĀ
Valjean resolves to allow Champmathieu to take the fall for him. This is Valjeanās one shot at true freedom, and it must have been sent to him providentially.
āHe declared to himself that his life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the true oneāto save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone, which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon himāto shut the door on his past?ā
āSad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men.ā
āAt length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on high, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without and abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without.ā
He suddenly remembers Fantine and her child, and this thought expands to the factory workers and all the people in the town who depend on him.
He throws everything that might connect him with his past life into the fire.
āJean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark. Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God.āĀ
āShould he remain in paradise and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?ā
Oh boy, another Jean Valjean introspection chapter. You know what that means, it means all the lighting symbolism!
Weāre returning to a lot of metaphors and symbols weāve already used. The human soul is a place where you can find the brightest of light and the darkest of shadows, something very reminiscent of the earlier Jean Valjean chapters. This interplay of light and shadow is something weāre going to keep coming back to, as the two forces of light and dark, good and evil war within him for the dominance of his soul. Itās a pretty obvious metaphor, but one that Hugo does some interesting things with.
We start with another mention of lightning, our first since Javertās introduction. āHe sensed shadows filled with thunder and lightning gathering overhead." These are metaphorical shadows, heralding a storm inside his soul. A tempest of the brain, as it were.
This isnāt direct lighting symbolism, but weāre told explicitly that there arenāt any stars in the sky. The last time we were told that specifically, it was when Valjean was being rejected from Digne. Once again, nature itself is rejecting Jean Valjean.
And now we get to one of the more interesting things that Hugo does with light and Valjean. Weāve already gotten a hint of it before, when the light in his mind was the idea of stealing the silver from the Bishop, but here again we get this idea that clarity is not always the same as goodness. In hiding his identity, Jean Valjean has cloaked himself in obscurity. His legal name shines like a light, piercing that obscurity and revealing the truth. To make things even more confusing, this light has the potential to increase and solidify the darkness, should he choose to reject it.
This is our first clue as to what the narrative believes the right choice for Jean Valjean to be. Obviously common sense tells us that telling the truth, in this kind of story, is the Right Path, but the symbolism is also telling us that. And weāll get to how Jean Valjean himself deal with light in a bit, but itās telling that the symbolism and his actions are not always in harmony here. The narrative has an idea of what the right answer to this dilemma is, but its ideas are not always in accord with Valjeanās.
We continue onwards through the chapter, with a few passing mentions of light or darkness. Jean Valjean perceives himself as waking from a dream and seeing Champmathieu through the gloom. He acknowledges that depriving another man of his place under the sun is a monstrous act. Thereās this idea of prison as darkness and freedom as light, which contrasts sharply with the other running theme of truth as light and lies as darkness. And that contrast illustrates why coming to this decision is so hard for Valjean. Both choices lead to darkness: one a darkness of the flesh, with him being literally denied his time in the sunlight, and the other a darkness of the soul, as he damns someone else in his place.
And so he makes up his mind to go to Arras and denounce himself, and we get a return to blatantly metaphorical light (but also possibly non-metaphorical, break with reality light -- again, Hugoās pretty good about only going in for grand visual metaphors when his characters could realistically be having visions). His duty to denounce himself is written in blazing letters before his eyes, as clear a sign as any you could ask for that this is the correct choice. Slowly, he sees the conflict between his two desires transform into two literal beings fighting a literal battle in his brain. Tellingly, though, he sees them, āamong shadows and glimmerings of light.ā Weāve very rapidly moved from clear, obvious light back to the disorienting flashes of light and darkness that characterize Valjeanās confusion.
From this flashing, we then eventually get Fantine, springing into his mind like a ray of light. And itās clear now that when Hugo uses light to describe Valjeanās thoughts he doesnāt use it to signify rightness, he uses it to signify clarity. Hugoās metaphors are not subtle, but his Infinite sometimes is, and this is one of those times. Repeatedly now, weāve seen the sudden burst of light in Valjeanās mind be used to illustrate a sudden clarity of thought or burst of decisiveness. Here, Fantine shows up like a ray of light and abruptly derails his spiraling thoughts to remind him that other people exist. This reminder changes the way everything else looks, as the light pierces the weird flashes and changes the perspective. But, and this is key, just because itās clear doesnāt mean itās right. Weāve got this tension between the things the narrative is telling us as narrative (the obscurity of Jean Valjeanās false identity, for instance) versus what the narrative is telling us as Valjeanās thoughts. In the first, light is pretty consistently associated with the right choice. The light is always the choice to turn himself in. In the second, the light is associated with whatever the dominant thought is in his mind at the time.
We see the culmination of this towards the end, when heās exhausted and still doesnāt know what to do, and the light just gives up and turns to smoke. There is no more clarity. No darkness, no light, just the aftermath of both.
And this takes us neatly to the other way light is used in this chapter, which is Jean Valjeanās interactions with the lighting in the room. From the top:
-he extinguishes his candle at the beginning of the night, paranoid that something can see him. This starts off his mental back and forth.
-he relights the candle when he comes to the decision not to turn himself in. Clarity of mind, a decision made. He feels secure in his choices and suddenly isnāt afraid of being watched anymore.
-he lights a fire around midnight, to stave off the cold. Weāre not told if the fire casts light yet (I mean, obviously fire casts light, but itās not drawn attention to yet.) Valjean, meanwhile, is confuse and uncertain, having lost all clarity of mind.
-he throws his old prison clothes into said fire, and it abruptly blazes red. The last time we got red light, it was when Valjean was threatening Petit Gervais, and he was lit up from behind by the sunset. Red light is not a good thing. Red light is an allusion to Hellfire (particularly telling, given the allusion to Danteās journey into Hell at the beginning of the chapter) and Hellfire is not a good thing. Even the candlesticks are glowing faintly with this light, as if to warn us and him that this course of action has the potential to destroy everything heās worked for and turn all of it to evil.
Again, when directly associated with Valjeanās thoughts and actions, light tends to mean clarity over correctness. But even then, when Valjean knows that his clarity is leading him astray, that light takes on a sinister tone, as though warning him that sometimes light burns as well as warms. Itās an extremely consistent metaphor used in some actually kind of interesting ways. Hugo knew his stuff.
I suppose the intro line must be because the novel was published in separate volumes initially? Although it is still funny, Madeleine turns out to be none other than Valjean.
This is probably another of my favourite chapters because of its length of digression and for someone like Valjean whose internal monologue is sometimes hard to read, as in the previous chapter because of Hugo focusing his lens on the outward going ons, this time we turn the lens into Valjeanās soul and the inner workings of his mind. The descriptions at times, of light fighting against darkness, both contained within Valjean, are so vivid and wonderful, the goddess fighting the giant.
Like the bishop, he still continues his duties of visiting Fantine and taking care of his other duties.
The description of the soul is so poetic, the infinity contained within man, and reminds me of the chapter Man Overboard and its descriptions, I would quote lines from this chapter except it would probably end up me quoting most of the chapter.
This is one of my favourite quotes, so I have to:
There is a spectacle greater than the sea, that is the sky: there is a spectacle greater than the sky, that is the human soul.
He keeps the candlesticks as mementos, despite considerable risk ā signifying darkness and light, (Not very subtle Hugo). It is interesting that the two driving forces in Valjeanās life are to completely escape from manās society because he has judged that he will never be accepted into it and to turn towards good deeds and God.
However, his own persona of Madeleine as a respectable mayor, while it may have convinced the town folk, was not really enough to convince Valjean and the readers. Valjean knows the moment Javert mentions the name that he cannot keep holding onto Madeleine, cannot live respectably among society and that his efforts to bury his name were useless. It is sad that his name cannot be redeemed and Valjean cannot be a respectable man in society because of it, despite his good deeds, it also highlights the importance of names and the status of those like Fantine born without them to give them respectability.
I also love the descriptions of him extinguishing the candle, yet not being in darkness, unlike in his former life, he is in the presence of God and conscience, which is one and the same to Hugo and Valjean. Throughout this chapter we get a constant play of light and dark metaphors symbolising Valjean's choices and his internal struggle.
Valjean compares, first his life with Champmathieuās and next the life of a man against the benefits to society and to Fantine and Arai Manga does a very nice depiction of this event.
Iām not sure what the Romainville song alludes to, though it is a good depiction of the mind jumping to other things as a means of distraction from this question.
Others have mentioned that the first half of the musical does a really good job in depicting that struggle as well. Hugo keeps up the drowning metaphors throughout, the soul on the brink of a precipice about to hurl itself into the waves, on one hand damnation by society on the other hand damnation by God. Turn where he may, there just isnāt a good answer for Valjean, although this chapter does hint that he has sometimes eschewed the judgement of men to favour God, with him being compared to Christ and the bishop, frequently.
