“Once a thief, forever a thief.” “A man like you can never change.” “My duty’s to the Law, you have no rights.”

This is the philosophy of Javert, Head of Police, in Paris, 1815. He is one of the main characters in Victor Hugo’s novel and the Broadway musical, Les Miserables. Javert spends the entire play hunting for a convict — Valjean — who broke his parole. At the beginning of the play, a Bishop covers for Valjean’s first crime out of jail, which changes Valjean’s entire worldview. Throughout the play, Valjean offers mercy and forgiveness to different people — a concept which Javert is at a loss to understand. Javert’s steadfastness in his worldview causes him to take his own life after Valjean extends mercy to him. “How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me? This desperate man whom I have hunted — 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.” These are the lines Javert sings before he takes his life, showing his confusion and life philosophy clearly.

At the base of this drama of sin and forgiveness is a key question: Why was Valjean able to bring himself to accept the Bishop’s forgiveness, and yet Javert was shattered by the mercy Valjean showed him? What is the vital difference between the two men?

Javert’s worldview is summed up in a sentence he speaks to Valjean as Valjean is saving his life: “Once a thief, forever a thief.” Mercy has no place in his mind, nor forgiveness. When Valjean intercedes for a prostitute who has slapped a customer, and takes her to the doctor, Javert cannot understand it — the woman has done wrong, she is to be taken to the prison: that is his philosophy. He is further confused when, later, as the woman, Fantine, is dying, Valjean begs him for three days in order that he might go find Fantine’s daughter and make her safe: then, he promises, he will return to Javert to finish his parole. A third time this exchange plays out, as Valjean is carrying a wounded soldier to the doctor, and promises Javert that he will return in an hour. By that time, however, Valjean has spared Javert’s life, which simply adds to Javert’s confusion.

But how is this different from Valjean’s story? After spending nineteen years in prison, his is the life of a criminal. He thinks of himself as a thief, and believes the world operates according to Javert’s system, as he sings after the Bishop pardons him: “Take an eye for an eye, turn your heart into stone — this is all I have lived for; this is all I have known.” This is the code that Javert lives out in his own life. This is the code which Valjean renounces as he accepts the Bishop’s forgiveness and obeys his command to “become an honest man.”

The main difference between the two characters is the fact that Javert does not believe in forgiveness. No matter if it is forgiveness given him, or forgiveness asked of him — he does not understand it and does not believe it exists. His stronghold is the Law. Once a man has broken the Law, Javert does not believe he can ever change. Javert says this to Valjean numerous times: once, when Valjean is asking for three days to find Fantine’s child, Javert tells him, “A man like you can never change — a man such as you!” He goes on to say, “My duty’s to the Law, you have no rights!” And finally, before he takes his own life, Javert tries to justify his own existence and philosophy: “I am the Law, and the Law is not mocked — I’ll spit his pity right back in his face!”

Although the two characters have similar backgrounds and worldviews at the beginning of the play, Valjean’s worldview is changed by the Bishop’s forgiveness and he comes to believe in mercy. Javert, however, has the code too much ingrained in him to change. When Valjean helps Fantine and the solder, it simply confuses him: for in Javert’s mind, Valjean is a common criminal, unable of any good work. Finally, when Valjean spares his life, Javert’s mind falls apart, for not only are the roles reversed — it should have been Javert in a position to kill Valjean — but also, Valjean has forgiven him, which Javert is unable to accept.

The play itself is not passing any judgment on the characters themselves, and it is worth a comparison to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In both works, the author simply allows the characters to go their own way, rather than making one character out to be evil, and one to be good. The play is much more complex than that, as is the novel. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester is convicted of adultery by those around her, but Hester herself is never shown to repent, and the narrative persona never injects himself insofar as to tell the reader that Hester had sinned. Rather, the only judgment passed on Hester is by the townspeople who sentence her. The same sort of narrative is seen in the play Les Miserables. Neither Javert nor Valjean is portrayed as good or evil — rather, each are characterized by the choices they make. Both Javert and Valjean are offered forgiveness, and while Valjean chooses to use it to reshape his life, Javert cannot accept it and it ends his life.