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AND I'M JAVERT
Apr. 3rd, 2013 08:38 pmI went and read the brick for an hour or so because I'm stressed and I seriously needed it because when I am not reading Les Miserables I spend an unhealthy amount of time pining and waiting until I have time to get around to reading it. Which I never do, and I really needed to read Richard III for class tomorrow, but this was the right decision. I feel much better now.
Anyway, I've been thinking about brick!Javert a lot, because that's what I do, and I wonder if there's been any discussion about the possibility of reading him as autistic. Disclaimer: I am not autistic. My therapist and I discussed whether I might have Asperger's Syndrome, but as far as I know I do not and thus do not consider myself qualified to talk about this in-depth. That being what it is, here are my thoughts:
1. The man worships rules and regulations, and they govern his life to a degree improbable in your average person.
2. He sees the world in such black and white terms, and he needs to categorize people. There can be no exceptions, and as you can see, when there is absolutely no way he can categorize Valjean as either good or bad, he literally cannot cope with it.
3. I was particularly struck by the scene where he arrests Fantine. It is so frustrating to read because he just repeats himself, and repeats himself, no matter what M. Madeline says. It's like there's this mental block for him, where he can't comprehend the idea, M. Madeline is his superior, and therefore he is supposed to fit into a certain category and have the same beliefs as Javert, and when he doesn't, Javert is incapable of processing it. He strains to fit it into his preexisting categories of responses, even though it doesn't make any sense to do so. It reminded me of the posts I have seen on tumblr from autistic people (or is it "people with autism"? I've seen some people prefer the latter) talking about the difficulty that they have communicating sometimes.
4. His inability to empathize with other people, and to even try to understand them. In his eyes, it's like there's only one worldview, and one right way to see things, and that is his way, and if you do things that are wrong in his worldview then there is no way that you could possibly justify yourself because clearly there is a right thing to do and a wrong thing to do and you know that what you are doing is wrong.*
*This is, I will admit, kind of drawing on personal experience: one of the things which led my therapist to talk to me about Asperger's Syndrome is because I had difficulty remembering that other people are just as real as I am, and that they have concerns outside of their interactions with me. (In my case, it had a lot to do with how little time I spent interacting with people growing up, and I've gotten a lot better since then.)
Now, I've only read the first two books so far, and I know Javert shows up more later, so this is definitely an incomplete thesis.
Anyway, I've been thinking about brick!Javert a lot, because that's what I do, and I wonder if there's been any discussion about the possibility of reading him as autistic. Disclaimer: I am not autistic. My therapist and I discussed whether I might have Asperger's Syndrome, but as far as I know I do not and thus do not consider myself qualified to talk about this in-depth. That being what it is, here are my thoughts:
1. The man worships rules and regulations, and they govern his life to a degree improbable in your average person.
2. He sees the world in such black and white terms, and he needs to categorize people. There can be no exceptions, and as you can see, when there is absolutely no way he can categorize Valjean as either good or bad, he literally cannot cope with it.
3. I was particularly struck by the scene where he arrests Fantine. It is so frustrating to read because he just repeats himself, and repeats himself, no matter what M. Madeline says. It's like there's this mental block for him, where he can't comprehend the idea, M. Madeline is his superior, and therefore he is supposed to fit into a certain category and have the same beliefs as Javert, and when he doesn't, Javert is incapable of processing it. He strains to fit it into his preexisting categories of responses, even though it doesn't make any sense to do so. It reminded me of the posts I have seen on tumblr from autistic people (or is it "people with autism"? I've seen some people prefer the latter) talking about the difficulty that they have communicating sometimes.
4. His inability to empathize with other people, and to even try to understand them. In his eyes, it's like there's only one worldview, and one right way to see things, and that is his way, and if you do things that are wrong in his worldview then there is no way that you could possibly justify yourself because clearly there is a right thing to do and a wrong thing to do and you know that what you are doing is wrong.*
*This is, I will admit, kind of drawing on personal experience: one of the things which led my therapist to talk to me about Asperger's Syndrome is because I had difficulty remembering that other people are just as real as I am, and that they have concerns outside of their interactions with me. (In my case, it had a lot to do with how little time I spent interacting with people growing up, and I've gotten a lot better since then.)
Now, I've only read the first two books so far, and I know Javert shows up more later, so this is definitely an incomplete thesis.
