Why does Javert commit suicide?
Apologies if this was already covered in another post...
C
How can I now allow this man
To hold dominion over me?
This desperate man whom I have hunted
He gave me my life. He gave me freedom.
I should have perished by his hand
It was his right.
It was my right to die as well
Instead I live... but live in hell.
And my thoughts fly apart
Can this man be believed?
Shall his sins be forgiven?
Shall his crimes be reprieved?
And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all these years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles
The world I have known is lost in shadow.
Is he from heaven or from hell?
And does he know
That granting me my life today
This man has killed me even so?
- From the song Javert's Suicide, from the musical Les Miserables
Javert' existence was built around his belief that law = morality. He was personally very interested in capturing Valjean, because Valjean not only broke the law, but managed to evade him many times. To Javert, Valjean was an immoral man destined for Hell, and Javert was doing God's work in trying to catch him. Now, Valjean eventually had an opportunity to kill Javert, but of course spared him. Javert now realized that Valjean was not a bad person after all, and that he was wrong this whole time (decades).
Why he specifically chose suicide, I am not sure. I imagine that the book could go into pages and pages of detail on Javert's internal thoughts, but I haven't gotten that far in the book yet. It's possible that this revelation makes Javert think of all the people he doomed to prison, or worse, over the course of his career, potentially many inherently good people like Valjean who made mistakes, or committed petty crimes for good reasons.
Thank you so much ... I did not get (only saw the movie) that Javert "realized" that Valjean was "good" ... Since even after Valjean lets him go, he keeps pursuing him ...
THANK YOU!
He killed himself because he couldn't ACCEPT that Valjean had changed. In his mind people never changed. And yet his life had been spared by a man who, in his mind, was a deviant. And he had to repay the deed. But in doing so he allowed a man, a criminal, whom he had hunted for years escape. He willfully chose to break the law. And in doing so he condemned himself to death, if only in his own mind. In addition to breaking the law he would have to live with the memory that man who, in his mind, was nothing short of a murderer, had saved his life. He saw it as a weight above his head. It would always be there. And his only way out was death.
It all stems back to his parents. His mother was a prostitute, his father a thief (I don't remember exactly, but I think that was the crime). He made it his life's goal to leave behind the shadow of his past and recreate a name for himself. A name that people wouldn't consider synonymous with crime. Of course, I doubt anyone truly saw him as guilty of his parents crimes, but HE did. He had to be above the criminal society. He had to bring them to justice. He could have nothing to do with them except correct their behavior. But it didn't work.
So his reason for killing himself can be found in the first verse of his last song:
"How can I now allow this man
To hold dominion over me?
This desperate man whom I have hunted
He gave me my life. He gave me freedom.
I should have perished by his hand
It was his right.
It was my right to die as well
Instead I live... but live in hell."
THANK YOU ALL! This is why IMDB is so great ... In so many other posts, people just fight!
shareCould you change the god damned title of this thread, or at least signify there's going to be a spoiler? I did not need to know that, I went on this board to see if this was the best incarnation of the movie and right there
JAVERT COMMITS SUICIDE
God damn it.
Its a jungle out there.
Notice that Javert's father was a thief and mother his was a prostitute. Notice that he killed Fantine (prostitute, ultimately) and was after Valjean (sent to prison as a thief). So chronologically, Javert grew up with the shame, but he became Mr. Law and Order. If he couldn't forgive his parents, why would he forgive either of these two? On the contrary, he's punishing them as though they're his parents.
The big takeaway message from Les Mis, for me, is that if you are kind to people no matter what---kinder than they deserve, even---you can defuse their hatred.
Javert ended up with a schism in his head. Maybe we're more modern than he is, realizing that there's sometimes a big gap: what's just vs what's right vs what's legal and so on. He didn't have any shades of grey or middle gears to deal with that. He sort of psychologically imploded.
Cameren, I've learned that if I don't want to see spoilers, I don't read message boards, user reviews, etc.
For what it's worth, I somehow heard that a title character of a different classic novel commits suicide in the end, but this did not negatively affect my enjoyment of reading the novel. That novel, as well as Les Miserables, has multiple storylines and multiple characters. Knowing Javert's fate doesn't reveal the entire movie, and it's hardly a twist ending.
I digress, but in my admittedly limited reading experience of 19th century literature, the relatively few attempts at twist endings can make our modern eyes roll.
Anyway, ANY discussion comparing versions of a film will necessarily include spoilery plot points. A lot of discussions about this movie in particular have to do with having a certain character in a practically extra role. Condensing a 1000+ page novel into a 2 hour movie requires much plot trimming, and any discussion on a best version would have to deal with plot that was kept, vs. plot that was trimmed.
Reviews could and should not reveal spoilers.
Maybe Javert's death isn't so big in the whole scheme of things but you are in no position to make that decision for anybody.
It was the thread title he had a problem with.
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItWasHisSled
Dude, this is no spoiler. It's like "I Am Your Father" and "Snape Kills Dumbledore" and "Red Wedding".
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Valar morghulis
You need to stop taking the Lord's name in vain. Oliver Stone was on a talk show and spoiled the end of Titanic for me, as far as a certain character dying, and I still enjoyed the movie. It's not the end of the world.
"Don't "yeah,yeah" me, Lois."