Horizons

I couldn’t finish”Les Misérables” even if I had too. Even the 600-paged abridged version takes me a while. Don’t get me wrong though. This book plus “To Kill a Mockingbird” was what got me into reading and the want to read made me take up English instead of Math. I finished the book when I was in fourth year high school in two months or so. It was the third novel I finished in my life. In first year college I was collecting novels and other literary articles. Now why am I telling this? It’s not completely irrelevant. I never liked reading tiny letters in many pages until I found out that it was worth it. I really liked the novel—it was very touching too. Aside from that, the book provides unfamiliar terms that helps me improve my vocabulary. Now on the book...
Prejudice is such a harsh reality. What you were will always haunt you one way or the other for the rest of your life. It is only in places where no one knows about your past will you be able to escape from these haunting. Sometimes we catch ourselves reliving the past that it’s hard to move on. Even if we won’t attach ourselves to it anymore, other people will. The worst comes in when this attachment prevents us from change. We want a better life, we want to be a better person, and we want a future! But no, these things will keep dragging us down until they leave us. It only leaves through forgiveness and forgetfulness. An all-aspect approach will be necessary. We need to forgive and forget, as well as others, and then we all move on towards the future.
I do not personally like Javert nor would I say that I dislike him. The feeling’s pretty neutral. He’s more like a figure of authority/power/force than a character taking role since he’s always the police present. It’s the consistency of him that makes him more of a character in the intellect than of the feel. For others, well, they all represented something but they played roles; though these roles were also as major and as important as Javert’s. It’s just that the other characters had shifts while Javert was just Javert until the end. No change. No budge. Just Javert. Victor Hugo was right when he called him a fanatic.
Between bitterness and bouncing off of it, the latter is obviously better. Bitterness creates characters such as the Thenardiérs. They fall and sink deeper every time. They sneer and scold and grow more deceptive each time. It’s not hate that you would feel for them and it’s hard to consider compassion. They’re too inconsiderate and selfish yet they could not help themselves. What kind of people are they? And yet they exist. These are the types of people who mock at society and scorn the government. They even jeer their benefactors. They are leeches who need to suck their own blood.
Cosette (the child) and Gavroche are two characters good enough for a Venn diagram. Both of them are born of the less privileged. One is very much loved; the other is not at all. Both of them believe that they are forgotten. Both of them have to work for a living, both because of the Thenardiér couple; the one in an inn while the other in the streets. They are both clothed in rags and sullen. Both of them were the least bitter. One had developed a fearful character while the other became bold. They were practically the same but their later opportunities were different. The former grew up to be a lady. The former died in battle. Both appreciated.
Is society really that unforgiving? Is society what creates these people? Yes it does play a great role but we ourselves play a greater role in shaping our future, even the present! Given the opportunity to do so, we must seize the chance to climb out of poverty in honesty so that it will all be worthwhile and last in the long run. It is a rare chance to meet this kind of people. Many stay put in were they are, whatever status that might be. The greatest of them all are those who rise from poverty into first class. Marius would have been a great candidate for he struggled much and succeeded much but there is one character that fared better than him: Jean Valjean.
His story is just fascinating and meaningful. How can an orphan move from being indifferent to bitter to generous to just to fatherly? He took his circumstances as they came but he used these to shape a future for him and those around him. Jean Valjean was a developing character and he was kept interesting ‘til the end. Even when he was not the focus, one would find him there, developing or in stagnancy for a while. He though kept moving on. He saw what he was and changed what he did not liked seeing. He was a Thenardiér who seized the opportunity, a Marius who excelled better, a Javert who had compassion, a Bienvenu in his own way. I can learn so much from this Jean’s character. I need to move on in life, bounce off bitterness, seize the opportunities, live in honesty, help others along the way, and much more see God through of it.