Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [16]
Characters
Hugo integrates this worldview with his character depiction and plot development through the implied religious doctrine of supererogation (in French, réversibilité): exceptional individuals may accrue sufficient merit, through their loyal faith and virtuous acts, not only to ensure their own salvation but also to aid in the salvation of others, to whom some of their extra merit may be transferred. Supererogation is the dynamic and positive mode of the archetype of Inversion: what seemed bad (Christ’s betrayal by his friends, humiliation, torture, and agonizing death on the cross) proves good (mankind will be redeemed). It allows the concept of free will to be synthesized with the concept of Providence. Hugo represents this force not mystically, but quite realistically, through the influence of conversation and example, which often occurs partially, gradually, and belatedly. Good influences, in his view, are not compulsions, but invitations to which their objects must choose to respond. But they can create a chain reaction.
The first example appears in the figure of the conventionist G—(a representative of the assembly that dissolved the monarchy, and of which a majority excluding G—condemned Louis XVI to death). He humbles the initially scornful Bishop Myriel, who comes to recognize the moral excellence of his devotion to humanity and kneels before him to ask his blessing. “No one could say that the passage of that soul before [Myriel‘s] own, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his own had not had its effect upon [the Bishop’s] approach to perfection” (p. 34). This blessing is later transferred, so to speak, from Myriel to Valjean, thus saving the ex-convict from further hatred and crime: “Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I am withdrawing it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I am giving it to God!” (p. 63). In turn, Valjean later symbolically transfers his own superabundance of merit to the dying Fantine, assuring her that since her motivation for prostituting herself was her pure wish to provide for her daughter, she remained innocent in the eyes of God. And in the final scene the repentant Marius, kneeling at the dying Valjean’s bedside to ask his blessing, recalls the initial scene between the conventionist and Myriel.
Hugo broadly signals the presence of supererogatory merit in his characters. He compares the parables of Bishop Myriel to Christ’s (p. 17). He suggests that the origin of Jean Valjean’s name is “Voila Jean”—there’s John (p. 48). That phrase recalls Pontius Pilate’s ecce homo (there is the man), spoken when he shows Christ, wearing the crown of thorns, to the Jewish priests who have accused him; see the Bible, John 19:5). A person condemned according to one law, and destined for suffering, will be vindicated according to a higher law. Years later in the plot, Hugo associates Valjean clearly with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, when the mayor hesitates over whether to denounce himself in order to exculpate the pruner Champmathieu (pp. 148-149). Hugo reintroduces the image of the bitter chalice in the title of part V, book seven, “The Last Drop in the Chalice.” Marius’s point of view affirms Valjean’s absolute, self-sacrificial goodness and his total transformation unequivocally: “The convict was transfigured into Christ” (p. 821).
But although Bishop Myriel demonstrates for Jean Valjean the power of absolute trust in God, and active benevolence, this influence cannot be definitive. Through practicing virtue, he risks succumbing to pride. His “accidental” discovery of a refuge in the convent helps save him from pride: he must compare his involuntary suffering from social inequities and vindictiveness to the voluntary, altruistic suffering of the nuns (pp. 334—335). Their example foreshadows his voluntary self-sacrifice at the end. Through Cosette, he has learned of human love; but this love remains selfish (pp. 267