Hugo’s character Javert sees anyone who may hold commit a offense every bit simple as the larceny of a loaf of staff of life as a societal criminal. a blight on all of society. a premier immorality who needs to be eliminated. removed from the general population. and a Satan that can be neither reformed nor tamed. Javert is the true positivist. Like Medieval philosophers. he believes that people will of course fall back to evil. and that these people can ne’er be saved or reformed. Javert is the true positivist because he believes the jurisprudence is the highest authorization. sees Jean Valjean as strictly evil. and because he wholeheartedly believes in the infallibility of the jurisprudence.
Javert believes the jurisprudence is the highest authorization throughout Les Miserables. When his character is first described. Hugo states “ It will be easy understood that Javert was the panic of all that category which the one-year statistics of the Minister of Justice include under the header: Peoples without a fixed abode” ( 57 ) . Javert believes that all of those that live in poorness are destined to be felons because they are forced to populate without being able to fulfill certain wants. and that people. who are of course bad. will go against the jurisprudence to fulfill themselves. Javert. quick to penalize anyone of a low societal position. is besides speedy to penalize himself. When he falsely accuses Monsieur the Mayor of being a inmate. he asks to be dismissed. To the Mayor. he says “ I denounced you as a convict- you. a respectable adult male. a city manager. and a magistrate. This is a serious affair. really serious.
I have committed an discourtesy against authority” ( 69 ) . He believes that he has violated the jurisprudence and should hence be punished for it. even though he has proved himself to be a worthy inspector and merely is guilty of a minor misdemeanor. He believes that any adult male. despite any old or future actions. is inherently evil if he has of all time done incorrect. so Javert automatically condemns himself because he has commit a offense. Javert besides believes that the word of the jurisprudence ever supercedes the word of a normal adult male. Champmathieu. who denied being Jean Valjean. was. in fact. non him. but Javert was positive that he was because the constabulary had accused him of it.
When Champmathieu proclaimed his artlessness. Javert said of him “ Champmathieu plays away astonished” because he believes that there is no shadow of a uncertainty on whether this adult male is Jean Valjean. The constabulary accused him of this. so they must be right. The constabulary. because they are the minister plenipotentiary of the jurisprudence. the supreme justice of character. must non be incorrect. they are infallible in his eyes. Javert is a true positivist because he believes that the jurisprudence decides what sort of individual you are. and the jurisprudence is the highest authorization. and that one time judged by the jurisprudence. a adult male can non alter.
Javert is a positivist because he believes that adult male is incapable of reform. Throughout the novel. Javert pursues Jean Valjean because he is a inmate who is a danger to society. In M_ Sur M_ . Jean Valjean showed he was reformed by giving to his fellow adult male before taking for himself. In M_ Sur M_ . Jean Valjean made 600. 000 francs. but non without giving 1. 000. 000 to the people of the town. Javert pursues him even though he proved himself to be good for the community. Javert is relentless in his chase because he steadfastly believes that a inmate is incapable of reformation because he has shown himself to be a actor of immorality. and person who has done immorality is inherently evil. When Jean Valjean saved Cosette from the Thenardiers. he showed that he was capable of love and that he was no longer acrimonious from old ages of captivity.
However. Javert pursuits after him because he believes he is still a menace. because of his evil nature. Afterwards. Jean Valjean made it his life’s intent to raise Cosette and give all his money to the hapless. to better their fortunes. When Thenardier intended to kill Jean Valjean. Javert came non to halt a offense in procedure but to acquire Jean Valjean. Javert even pursued Jean Valjean after he had spared Javert’s life at the roadblock. Even after the countless good. selfless workss that Valjean performed Javert pursued him because he thought Valjean was still and would ever be evil. because a man’s psyche can non alter. is predestined to good or evil. love or force. Javert shows he is a positivist because he is unsighted to the fact that Valjean has reformed. because it is impossible for a adult male to make so.
Javert shows he is a positivist because he believes the jurisprudence is infallible with all his psyche. When saved by Valjean. Javert is confronted with a moral quandary. He knew that he had to convey back Valjean or else he was in misdemeanor of his responsibility. and that if he were to allow Valjean be free he would be every bit as immorality. Hugo describes this quandary “ Javert felt that something horrible was perforating his psyche. esteem for a convict” ( 336 ) . Javert felt that he was going evil because he empathized with a strictly evil adult male. As he empathized with Valjean. “ all the maxims which had been the supports of his whole life crumbled away” ( 336 ) . Javert was infected by a awful disease. compassion. Compassion blinded his objectiveness and was rendered an unworthy justice. now he was simply a wretch of a adult male. with a psyche every bit black as Jean Valjean’s.
Because in his head. the head of a true positivist. there was merely right and incorrect. there were merely two ways about this. He could either turn the evil adult male in or decease for helping and abetting the fleeting. Javert must make either the right. and turn out himself true. or make incorrect and turn out himself evil. He must be either good or evil. because there is no such thing as a grey country. and no such thing as compassion. merely seeds of immorality in his psyche. He was his ain justice. jury. and executioner. He killed himself because he had failed before the eyes of the jurisprudence. he failed to make right and was therefore proven evil. and did non merit to populate. For this he was a positivist.
Javert represents the true positivist in this novel because he believes the jurisprudence is the highest justice of work forces. The jurisprudence is the world’s guiding visible radiation and is ever true. It is infallible. and the justice. a dispensary of the jurisprudence. is the direct minister plenipotentiary of God. Jean Valjean is strictly evil. and his efforts at penitence are merely efforts to acquire out of problem and to once once more be assimilated into his milieus. so he can one time once more do evil. Valjean is merely a wolf. trying to have on a sheep’s tegument. His beliefs lead him to be so near minded that he is unable to cover with the fact that the jurisprudence might be incorrect. His head is his ain gallows. because he believes in the supreme power of the jurisprudence. His positivist beliefs are his noose. the ultimate cause of his decease.