Rolfe 10/19 Revolutionaries

Spoilers for Les Miserables: everyone dies. Well, that's not entirely true. Marius and Cosette end up married ever after, and the Thernardiers live - if you can call what they subsist on "living." But the odds are if a character is named in Les Mis, they're doomed. It's not much of a surprise if you know the history - while the Friends of the ABC Cafe are fictional, the rebellion is not. Victor Hugo was even caught in the crossfire near one of the barricades. Much like in the musical influenced by these events, the rebels all die and accomplish nothing. Spoilers.

Yet logically the rebels are RIGHT. The world of Les Miserables is a terrible place, where if you're not starving or in prison you should consider yourself lucky. The play spends almost three quarters of its time devoted to events that occur years before 1832. Some of it is essential character work - it's important to know who Valjean and Javert are - but mostly the play is concerned with illustrating just how awful French life is in this time period. Fantine in particular has one of the more tragic stories in Les Mis, and I get the impression that the rest of the "lovely ladies" have a similar story to hers. By the time the story skips to 1832 the audience is already on board with a revolution - something, anything must be better than this. The members of the "ABC Cafe" are audience surrogates; they carry the dream that the good guys will right the societal ills that plague them all. Instead they all die. Again, spoilers.

The members of the ABC Cafe spell their doom with their very first song There are multiple versions of this song, such as the concert concert version, the play version, and the slightly truncated movie version. They all have relatively the same feel and message. I'll only be covering the movie version , as the youtube community has a lovely edited version with lyrics.

Immediately the song begins with trumpets signaling the scene change, which will become a common recurring theme in the song. The rebels are brass instruments: loud, clear, and with little room for subtlety. Brass also carry a military association, which is most closely aligned with Enjoras. Notice how snare drums seem to back up his speeches - this is a march in more ways than one. Anyways, the moment Enjoras speaks (or sings - the characters in Les Mis live in backwards town where everyone sings and only sometimes speak) the room immediately quiets, illustrating him as the leader. He begins with

The time is near
So near it's stirring the blood in their veins!
And yet beware
Don't let the wine go to your brains!
We need a sign
To rally the people

To call them to arms
To bring them in line!

Before you start with "Yeah, revolution, let's go!" consider this: why is the time "near" if Enjoras still needs to "bring [the people] in line"? A successful revolution is fought with overwhelming numbers of citizens with a singular purpose. An unsuccessful revolution is fought with a small entourage of angry youths against a larger, better organized, and better equipped force. Gaining public support should be Step #1, not as a hopeful byproduct of the revolution.

Marius steps in, and the other members of the Cafe note that he has "seen a ghost," playfully ribbing him about his love-at-first-sight meeting with Cosette. The irony of course is that Marius and Cosette are the only ones to survive the coming events - the rest of them might as well be ghosts. The music here quiets, with strings and woodwinds dominating the exchange. This part seems happier, more carefree, as maybe this is a glimpse of what goes on in the Cafe when they're not discussing violent rebellion. Enjoras, ever the killjoy, puts an end to their fun, brought in with a slight introduction to the chorus of the song. He chastises them:

It is time for us all
To decide who we are
Do we fight for the right
To a night at the opera now?
Have you asked of yourselves
What's the price you might pay?
Is it simply a game
For rich young boys to play?
The color of the world
Is changing day by day...

The "rich young boys" bit is directly referencing Marius - he is the only member of the Cafe who is there by "choice." He hails from an upper class family, yet his friends are all of the starving lower class. He is an outsider among friends - an advocate and an ally - yet he does not have the same skin in the game that the rest of them do. Enjoras challenges Marius to put his life on the line, much like the rest of them have their entire lives. He continues with the chorus:

Red - the blood of angry men!
Black - the dark of ages past!
Red - a world about to dawn!
Black - the night that ends at last!

The two colors he illustrates are not there solely for the neat turnaround that Marius does in the next line. Red and Black is a French novel by Stendhal detailing a rise of one man's social status, pulling himself up to a higher class. More recently, red and black are connected to Anarcho-socialism, though I'm not sure Hugo meant that in his original novel. In any case, red and black are colors associated with gaining social status, as well as the things Enjoras describes: blood, dark, dawn, and night. Things are bad, and the only way to solve them is by shedding blood. He's asking Marius to die for the cause (which Marius is more than willing to do), yet Marius turns out to be the only one who does not. This leads to the suspicion that Marius has something that the others do not. One may assume it's his class that sets him apart, but he illustrates how he differs from his friends in the next line of Red/Black:

GRANTAIRE
Red...

MARIUS
I feel my soul on fire!

GRANTAIRE
Black...

MARIUS
My world if she's not there!

ALL
Red...

MARIUS
The color of desire!

ALL
Black...

MARIUS
The color of despair!

The love Marius has for Cosette is what sets him apart from the rest of the Cafe. He knows that their cause is important, yet Cosette has supplanted the rebellion in his mind and the two are battling for control of his actions. "To love another person is to see the face of God" is the final line sung by Valjean and Ghost!Fantine, which is what sets Marius apart. Love for Cosette is what prompts Valjean to save Marius from the barricade, and ultimately what lets him into heaven. Marius' love is torn between his brothers in arms and Cosette, and his torn love almost gets him killed. The Red/Black dichotomy Marius feels is internal, focused on personal growth and doing what is right morally and for one's heart. Much like Valjean fails in his attempts to help an entire town through a fake identity, Enjoras fails to spark a revolution because he predicates it upon an external view of Red and Black. The world must change, and we will make it change by force. Where Valjean finds redemption and where Marius finds happiness is within an internal view of Red and Black, focused on self-reflection and improvement.

Eventually Enjoras manages to sway Marius (with a full-cast rendition of his version of Red and Black) and they begin their revolution in earnest with accompanying brass and hoo-rah vocals as they end the "ABC Cafe" and move into "Do You Hear the People Sing." The audience moves with them - the rebels, after all, are attempting to do something about the horrible conditions that plague France. They are heroes, yet they all die and fail in their endeavors. It turns out Enjoras' plan was flawed from the start - the people, as he assumed, did not come. The only remaining rallying point the rebels had was a charismatic leader. They weren't wrong, but their methodology was - not just in terms of plans, but in terms of philosophy. 

The characters of Les Mis live in a post-French Revolution world. The French Revolution happened the previous century, and conditions for the poor are worse, not better. Another revolution to upend the mistakes the previous Revolution made is a fool's errand - it's cyclical and only deepens the issues at hand. The Red and Black of the "ABC Cafe" is the constant cycle of bloodshed and unending darkness, not of social movement. Continuing the cycle is pointless. It only leads to more tragedy, as illustrated by the very dead rebels. Instead, the ones who survive do so thanks to their upstanding moral integrity. The red desire and the black world without love win over the blood of angry men.