Jean Valjean is one of the personalized ideas of human issues in Hugo’s narrative. Hugo uses this way to provoke deep thoughts into some essential human issues concerning morality and justice, and above all, the matter of God.
When the bishop met him, Jean Valjean showed his identity as a former convict. However, the bishop said firmly:‘ I know who you are.’ Jean Valjean was amazed. After the excruciating hard labor in prison for nineteen years, he seemed to have swallowed the bitter and unfair sanction on him, along with the identity he was forced to take as his own. But the bishop changed everything.
When the bishop denied who he thought he was, he was implicitly denying the judgment of the world. In the eyes of God, no justice the world can give, and no sentence was valid. It was also suggested with the book developed into a rather complicated picture where issues of identities always reoccur. It came to be the highlight of the story.
The justice of the world regarding laws set accordingly is contingent, and it solves the tension of moral struggles temporarily. The pain maintains for the root is not yet found. And those who are obsessed with conforming with the laws of the world are like people overdosing themselves with painkillers, not only hallucinating themselves but also laying waste to the world around them.
Generally speaking, for religious people, the conviction of God being justice is firmly held. However, the issue of justice in the secular world remains unsettled. After all, we are living in a world clouded in the gloom of unjust and discrimination. The appeal for immediate sanction and efficient regulations is urgent. And obviously, people with faith would argue that justice should be given by God. All we need to do is have faith in him. This parallels teachings in the Book of the Bible that encourage us to turn the left face to the enemy when we are punched in the right face.
It seems to me, or many others like Hugo, that the circumstances that we are facing are always in conflict. The ultimate justice from God seems to do us no good in terms of the struggles and sufferings we are having in seeking righteous deeds.
Similarly, Jean Valjean echoed the point when the bishop put: “Man can be unjust.”
“Man?” he questioned, “not God?”
