Javert's Suicide
I actually have proper time to myself today, so I finished "Javert Derailed." (Being an adult is really annoying because I do not get enough time to immerse myself in my interests.) I was somewhat dreading this chapter. I knew what would happen, but I didn't want it to happen. And when it did happen, I got emotional, of course. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this section, so here is me trying to put them in writing.
First, it's very important here that guilt is not Javert's primary motivation. Yes, Javert "examine[s] his conscience" (trans. Donougher 1181); however, the repeated references to the breaking of his moral compass - his internal "division" (1180), his "loss of certainty" (1183), etc. - indicate that this sense of morality is the conscience that he examines. Javert is devastated because the world and values he was certain of have been reduced in the face of Valjean the convict's kindness: "All the axioms that his whole life had hinged on gave way before that man" (1182). Nothing is orderly or predictable anymore, and this "loss of certainty" is Javert's "supreme anguish" (1183).
Although I doubt that Hugo intended these descriptions of Javert's pain to reflect neurodivergence, they portray the relationship between neurodivergence and order/chaos incredibly well (at least in my experience as an autistic woman). Javert's belief that he cannot simply be human but must "be irreproachable" (1184), his distress over being bombarded by "a whole order of unexpected factors" (1183) or by having "the unknown looming over him" (1186) - these are things that terrify me and so many other neurodivergent individuals who I have become acquainted with. I mean, I have cried and had meltdowns over far less major changes than what Javert undergoes; it makes perfect sense that he is distressed. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Javert is autistic. I don't care that the term and diagnosis of autism wasn't coined until the twentieth century; autistic people have always existed and Javert is one of them. And honestly, he's much better representation than a lot of purposefully autistic characters in modern media.
Another part of this section that I found significant was the following excerpt:
"The only unknown Javert had ever seen was down below. The irregular, the unexpected, the disorderly opening-up of chaos, the possibility of sliding into an abyss - this was something to do with the nether regions, with the intractable, the wicked, the wretched." (1186)
Here, Javert's origins reappear ("the nether regions," etc.). These two sentences make such an impression upon me because Hugo hasn't exactly alluded to Javert's childhood since Part 1. His reinstatement of this childhood, importantly, reiterates an additional layer of depth to Javert's character. Javert has a deep-rooted fear of "sliding into an abyss," or, in other words, of living a life of chaos that lacks any sense of the known.
And the language! The language in this section is so very poignant. The use of oxymoron, for instance: "vile angel" (1183), "horrified and dazzled" (1184). And there's something of Julia Kristeva's abject here; the natural world is grotesque, the river being "swollen" (1190). The ways Hugo references Javert in the final paragraph is also fascinating. Javert transitions from a "statue" (1171) to a "phantom" (1190). Interestingly, Valjean is also described as a sort-of "phantom"; he is a "spectre" (1171). There is certainly something to this parallel.
Finally, there's Javert's pronouns. He is a "he" at the beginning of the final paragraph but, by its end, becomes an "it." Javert ceases to become a living being and becomes a thing, becomes one of the many atoms that comprises the Seine.
