It’s fascinating how Jean Valjean is constantly associated with imagery of being buried alive.
His literal near-burial in the coffin outside Petit-Picpus is the most obvious example of that. But it’s in the sewers chapters as well— he has to face the horror of nearly drowning and being buried alive deep underground in the filth beneath the city.
And that imagery a running motif throughout his entire storyline. His imprisonment is constantly compared to as a burial, a living death; being in prison is like being trapped and drowned underneath an enormous weight, unable to move, unable to escape, with everyone around you refusing to acknowledge you are still a living human being.
In his dream before the Champmatheiu trial, Jean Valjean had a nightmare where he’s surrounded by a faceless crowd of indifferent people, who tell him:
‘Do you not know that you have been dead this long time?’
I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near me.
The core horror of Jean Valjean’s plotline is the horror of being buried alive. It’s the horror of being constantly told that he is dead when he’s still living and suffering and desperately struggling to escape—- but suffering alone while he’s buried in a place so deep that no one can hear him.
