(no subject)

[thjazi]

Wow it's really quiet around here.

Uh.

So.

HOW ABOUT HUGO SHIFTING OVER ALMOST ALL HIS RADICALS TO BEING STUDENTS, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT.


(it's either that or I start trying to talk about Communion Meal parallels between dinner at the Bishop's and breakfast at the Corinth which is admittedly my current focus but I'm not sure how to even launch into that)


(if this were Tumblr I could tagnatter as I flee but it's not so BALL'S IN YOUR COURT GEN)

Comments

[genarti]

I ACCEPT

...uh, and am tired so I don't have a lot to say, except that I do actually totally want to talk about Communion Meal parallels. That sounds fascinating! And, wow, talk about the joining of earthly and Infinite. (Repeated theme number eleventy-billion, but a big one for sure.)

No, seriously, now you have me thinking about this. Huh.

They're both meals which aren't themselves transformative in any plot-containing way -- the moments of transcendent change come afterward -- but the meal is part of what leads into that transcendent change. Meal, and then moment of falling lower (Valjean stealing the silver from the one person who treated him with respect; Grantaire going from a ranting nihilist in the corner to raving and harrassing everyone while they're trying to build a barricade, with enough obstreperous bad timing that COURFEYRAC of all people snaps at him to shut up, and then passing out cold for a day straight), and then the transcendence: the Bishop's gift that spurs Valjean to change his entire life, the barricade's epic sweep of the future all illuminated with death and symbolism, and for Grantaire the moment of acceptance and really being one of them and part of it before, you know, he dies. But there's nothing at odds with Communion symbolism in sacrificial death after the meal, either.

[flo_nelja]

I think because he was writing both a group of radicals and a group which reminded him of his group of friends when he was young - students with students interests? I have absolutely no proof, though.

[kerrypolka]

HELLO SWEET THREADED DISCUSSION, LONG HAVE I MISSED YOU. &;

[melannen]

HELLO!

You can totally still tagnatter on DW, if it's turned off in this community I'm sure the mods could be inveigled in to turning it back on in order to attract more tumblr folks. ^_^

I would love to talk about the communion meal thing (although I have no idea where to start) but now you've got me thinking about "why are they students" and you're right, I am puzzled! It isn't just shifting them away from being working-class, is it, it's siting them in this specific space which doesn't actually match very well with most of the people they're based on.

Hugo never attended university himself, did he? I wonder if that's anything to do with it - we know that a lot of the Amis is Hugo Working Out His Feels on Insurrection.

[bobcatmoran]

Going back to your original question:

It never even occurred to me that it would be odd for them to be students, as the tie between students and radical uprisings and protests has been so strong throughout history. I think it has a lot to do with university/college/higher-education-of-chosen-place-and-time students generally coming from relatively privileged backgrounds, where they have the time and money and social standing to be able to focus on more than just getting through one more day. Not that people from less privileged situations don't rise up (not at all!) but when your belly is full and you don't have to worry about how you're going to manage the necessities of life, (and you don't have to worry that, if you do participate in a radical action, that you'll lose your livelihood and your means of affording such things) that's brainpower and energy that you can dedicate to other things. Like the revolution, perhaps.

That, and students are generally in an environment that encourages one to think deeply about things and expand your horizons — not only because of classwork, but because institutions of higher learning oftentimes bring together people from different locations and backgrounds. Ot top of that, they tend to be in cities, which also bring together people from an even greater variety of locations and backgrounds. It makes it easy to be exposed to new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, stepping outside the comfortable bubble of childhood and perhaps seeing the injustice in the world and wondering, "How can I make this better?" Add to that the fact that young people are less wedded to the power stuctures, more open-minded because they're less likely to have decided "This is the way the world works, period," and it's no wonder that so many of Les Amis are students.

sleep-deprived ramblings

[fizzygingr]

Coming in a bit late here, but if I can just add a big WOW YES WOW to pilf's Communion Meals post. ESPECIALLY the part about the outsider becoming aware that he has a door open, and it's his choice whether to be a part of the community. Just. Wow.
The relationship between the meal and the subsequent Low Point is really interesting to consider. For Valjean, I think it's pretty clear that the bishop's kindness specifically drove him to steal the candlesticks. He had this moment of "Wait, the world's not rejecting me? But why not? I thought I was Bad?" And I think that in order to make sense of this, he had to prove to himself that he really was Bad. Or rather, he had to make himself Bad, so that they could reject him again. The grace of acceptance frightened him too much.
And for Grantaire, too, he hit his Low Point because he was reminded that he was a part of something. And that HURT, not so much because he didn't deserve it, but because that Something were all about to go get themselves killed. So like Valjean, he distanced himself to make it hurt less.
Ultimately, though, the meal showed them both that they had a choice to be a part of something, that they weren't locked out as much as they wished they could be (because wouldn't that make everything easier?), and that whether or not they belonged to humanity was their choice.
And they both chose to say, "J'en suis."