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Villain Overview

And I am Javert! Do not forget my name! Do not forget me — 24601!
~ Javert drilling Jean Valjean as he enters parole.
...Another brawl in the square, another stink in the air. Was there a witness to this? Well let them speak to Javert! Monsieur these streets are not safe, but let these vermin beware I'll see that justice is done.
~ Javert's commitment to the law.
...and if you fall as Lucifer fell, you fall in flames! And so it must be, for so it is written on the doorway to Paradise, that those who falter and those who fall must pay the price!
~ Javert's resolve to uphold the law and bring Valjean to justice.

Inspector Javert is the main antagonist of the Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables and its subsequent adaptations.

He is a French prison guard who devotes himself completely to the law and follows it unflinchingly, displaying a total lack of empathy for criminals of all forms. Eventually being promoted to a police inspector, he becomes destructively obsessed with the pursuit and capture of the convict Jean Valjean, becoming his former prisoner's archenemy.

Portrayals[]

Javert has been portrayed by many actors over the years, the most notable including:

Appearance[]

As he is described in the book, Javert is a very tall, robust man with a flat nose, thin lips, narrow brows, a large jaw and a narrow head. "Locks" of hair cover his narrow forehead and fall over his eyebrows. The hair is dark and immaculately combed. Javert is defiantly mentioned to have big hands. He is hard of aspect and described to resemble a wolf-dog.

Javert is also shown wearing a grey tail-coat and a cravat. He owns a tunic with buttons, that has a collar buckle at the back of his neck. In addition, he is mentioned to wear a great coat buttoned up close to his chin. It may be interpreted that the uniform coat is blue. A low-brimmed hat adorns his head. A cudgel is part of his equipment.

Biography[]

Javert was born inside of a prison to a fortune-telling mother and a galley-doomed father. Javert was sharply influenced by this upbringing and was taken in and educated by the police force. While there, he developed a philosophy that was centered around respect for authority and hatred for rebellion of all kinds (which includes crime). He believes that all criminals will stay criminals, and all law-abiders will stay law-abiders. He then began working at the jail where Jean Valjean, a convict who had stolen some bread to feed his nephew and broke a window in the process, is being held.

He is later promoted to police inspector, where he arrests Fantine (a woman who became a prostitute to pay for her sick child) but is stopped by Valjean out of mercy and compassion, who at this point took the identity of another person and became mayor. This, and other triggering events lead Javert to recognize the mayor as Valjean, and he files a report to the Chief of Police to have him arrested. But, when another man is falsely convicted of being the escaped convict, and unknowing Javert confesses his actions to the real Valjean and asks to be removed from his position. Valjean forgives him and confesses that he is the real Valjean to the court before leaving to search for Fantine's child.

Years later, Javert becomes a spy for the French monarchy to stop the June Rebellion. He is caught by the rebels, but rescued and forgiven again by Valjean, who is there to save the life of his adoptive daughter's boyfriend. Stricken by this kindness, Javert agrees to help return an injured Marius to his home, but warns Valjean that he will still arrest him, which Valjean accepts. But when Valjean exits the house, Javert has already departed, having found himself in a state of complete emotional turmoil. Recognizing Valjean as living proof that people can break the law but still be decent people and/or redeem themselves, Javert's thinking process grinds to a halt; if he arrests Valjean, he will fulfil his duty to the law but betray his own conscience, while allowing Valjean to go free, as Javert's morals dictate, will be an unforgivable crime according to the legal system. To his horror, Javert realizes that Valjean's good nature works in tandem with his criminality, exposing the flaws in the former's own principles, and he concludes that a superior ethical system must exist. In view of all this, Javert concludes that the only resolution open to him is death and drowns himself in the river Seine.

Personality[]

Javert can be summed up in one sentence, "He is a man who lives, breathes, eats, sleeps, and would die for justice, in the form of the law," and all that implies.

He acts confidently and decisively, and never doubts himself once he has already acted. He is not given to fancy or whimsy, and whatever creative thought he has is usually bent to the accomplishment of his duty--his sole source of satisfaction in life. Because of this, he doesn't often read anything irrelevant to his job. His confidence and total knowledge of himself and his abilities allows him to stay absolutely calm in stressful situations such as his job will require; he went ahead into the den of the Patron-Minette, a dangerous Parisian gang, by himself.

Javert is ruthless and straightforward to a fault--this inflexibility of his is sometimes cruelty, as in the case of Fantine--because of his law fanaticism. He carries out his orders to the letter, and because of his awkwardness and tacit outcast status, he tends to err on the side of severity more often than not, scaring everyone he meets. His brutal honesty makes him both an irreproachable policeman and a terrible spy.

His deadpan sense of humor sometimes serves to make him even more frightening, such as in his dramatic entrance to the 'Jondrette' household with the line "Would you like my hat?" and other times simply makes him funny. When he's not snarking, however, he tends to be abrupt and serious, talking in concise sentences.

On occasion he allows himself a pinch of snuff when especially satisfied with himself. He also has the habits of muttering into his cravat, fiddling with small objects, and dramatizing tense situations (such as the confrontations with Valjean and Patron-Minette).

Though at first glance Javert seems as straightforward a character as he would no doubt like you to believe, he has serious issues in his worldview and his self-image. Due to the inflexibility and abrupt decisiveness inherent to his beliefs ("if you abide the law, you are good; once you break it, you are evil"), he is quick to condemn and has no intention of trying to understand any deeper moral struggles or dilemmas, such as the situation of 26-year-old Jean Valjean. Since he never encounters any contradictions to this worldview that smack him in the face, he's quite willing to ignore the evidence and hold on to his overly simple black-and-white belief system, which is part of the reason he is confident to the point of recklessness.

Since he himself falls into the "evil" part of his world--being the son of criminals--his self-image has suffered; on multiple occasions in the book, he makes it clear that he doesn't believe he deserves good things in life, including kindness that he doesn't ask for, and he considers himself worthless due to his origins. The satisfaction he derives from persecuting lawbreakers can be seen as his own way of coping with his crushing self-reproach, though as a coping mechanism little can be said for it.

Apart from his own self-loathing, his black-and-white worldview doesn't appear to cause him problems, though it's quite prominent, until the chapter Javert Derailed (also Javert in Disarray, Javert Off the Track, Javert's Derailment, etc.). Jean Valjean sparing his life, even when there was a considerable benefit to not doing so, means that Jean Valjean--an ex-convict, a parole-breaker, a recidivist besides--is good. That a man can be good despite the law condemning him, that justice is not equal to the law, is something Javert has never had to consider--until his life is spared by one of these walking contradictions.

His inability to cope with this realization is what leads him to commit suicide by jumping into the Seine.

Trivia[]

  • In the 1998 film adaptation, Javert explains his father was a thief and his mother was a prostitute.
  • In the book, Javert was born in a prison around 1780, his mother a fortune-teller and his father a convict serving on a galley. The narrator explains that "he thought that he was outside the pale of society" and had a "hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung". Feeling condemned to stand outside normal society either as a criminal or a policeman, he chose to enforce the law and proved successful in that career.
  • The trope aside, because of the doggedness of their pursuits, Javert is considered the direct inspiration for both Lieutenant/Marshal Gerard from The Fugitive and Reporter Jack McGee from the live-action TV version of The Incredible Hulk. Both characters, however, lacked the monomaniacal focus on the guilt of their charges; Gerard's aim was to bring Kimble in, believing the courts could possibly resolve his guilt, which he now doubted; McGee badly wanted a story to make him a legit reporter once more, but later also wanted to aid the tormented man he knew as John Doe, who became the Hulk. They were, unlike Javert, fully capable of dealing with the better natures of those they pursued, but still wanted them to answer for the murders they were charged with.
  • In the 2007 anime, he did not commit suicide. He even attends Valjean's funeral and rededicates his life to rehabilitating lawbreakers like the Thénardiers. In that series, both of his parents were criminals and Javert had to arrest them.
  • In the musical adaptation, "Javert's Suicide", his last number in the show which portrays his death, closely mirrors Valjean's number earlier in the show, "What Have I Done?". Both songs share the same melody and have their character come to terms with a challenge to their moral philosophy after an act of unexpected kindness. However, while Valjean vows to redeem himself and change as a person, Javert is unable to accept that his outlook on life was flawed and refuses redemption, choosing to end his own life in the process.
  • Javert is considered to be an archetype for fictional characters that are Lawful Neutral, as he believes the law is always right and concerns himself with nothing else. Although he is not evil and shows a number of sympathetic qualities, his unwavering commitment to upholding the law (which, in Les Misérables, is not always justly applied) and refusal to see the good in Valjean cements his place as the story's anti-villain.

External links[]

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