Sleeping Around

If someone says, "I love Jesus," I never, ever think that they mean "I want to have sexual relations with Jesus." 

So when Victor Hugo says that Grantaire loved Enjolras, why does it automatically mean that Grantaire wanted to have sexual relations with Enjolras? 

There are so many different types of love that are expressed in Les Miserables, including unrequited love for another human being (Eponine). The way Grantaire loves Enjolras is the way that people love whatever god they believe in. Grantaire "venerates" Enjoras; Grantaire does not lust after Enjolras. 

The Death Sequence

 I see more religious imagery than I do romantic imagery. Grantaire is a sinner, he has repeatedly let Enjolras down. Grantaire is now standing on the threshold to heaven, and he asks Enjolras, "Will you permit it?" Will you permit me to enter paradise with you? Is my sacrifice enough to please you? Enjolras lui serra la main en souriant. "Enjolras shook [Grantaire's] hand and smiled." A handshake of welcome. Welcome to the afterlife, my disciple, my faithful friend. You are welcome to come and die with me. 

They die as they shake hands; they do not die as they hold hands. 

To compound the religious imagery, "Grantaire, struck down, collapsed at [Enjolras'] feet." Here is a man literally at the feet of the man he worships. Different people sit at Jesus' feet during different points in the Gospels, and the fact that Grantaire dies in such a position is highly religiously symbolic. 

Orestes and Pylades

Victor Hugo choose to describe the relationship of Grantaire and Enjolras as similar to the one between Orestes and Pylades. "Oooooh!" fanfiction writers exclaim. "Orestes and Pylades were Greek homosexual lovers--obviously that means Grantaire and Enjolras were too!"

In all the stories about Orestes and Pylades, absolutely none talk about Orestes and Pylades being anything more than friends that were so close they considered each other brothers (they were actually cousins raised together). The only mention of anything but a platonic relationship comes from Lucian's Amores, a writing in which two men--one heterosexual and one homosexual--argue about which form of love is better. The homosexual man says that the close friendship, the willingness to lay down their lives for the other is an argument for homosexuality. (The implication is that because men and women can't be friends, they can't be lovers as well as men can.)

However, I don't think that friendship equates to sexual attraction either. Everything else written about them only talks about their friendship. 

What do Orestes and Pylades say about Enjolras and Grantaire? That Enjolras doesn't completely disdain the poor drunken Grantaire. There is a connection there. Enjolras wants for Grantaire to better himself. This idea is expressed further when Enjolras gives Grantaire the chance to go to one of the sections of Paris to stir up the ideas of revolution. 

No.

Victor Hugo labored over a decade on Les Miserables. Now, anyone with the internet can take his carefully crafted characters and make them do whatever they choose.  Enjolras is a perfect character exactly because he is this virginal Apollo that believes only in freedom and equality. Grantaire is a perfect character exactly because he is this ugly alcoholic student that believes only in the believer Enjolras. The lack of sexual relationships is such a crucial part of Les Miserables. Look at Jean Valjean, at Javert, at Eponine, at the whole host of nuns and priests and unmarried sisters that make appearances in the novel. 

If you want, write about the questionable relationship between Laisgle and Joly (including their grisette Musichetta) because there may have been something there. However, don't ever mistake the veneration that Grantaire had for Enjolras as desire to get into Enjolras' pants. 

So please, please, please, if you have any respect for Victor Hugo and Les Miserables stop the E/R fanfiction.

Enjolras in Adaptations

In both the musical and movie adaptations (including the recent Tom Hooper movie, which I've already seen a shameful number of times), Enjolras is a different character than he is in the book.

Friendship with Marius

Our very first introduction to Enjolras in several  adaptations is a passionate speech in a street, usually somewhere near General Lamarque's house. However, Enjolras is pretty much ALWAYS accompanied by Marius up on the platform. Which really surprised me because in the book, Marius disagrees with the Friends of the ABC because he's a Bonapartist (like his father) clashing with Republican idealists like Enjolras. 

Most  of the adaptations ignore the whole plot with Marius's father fighting with Napoleon and being saved by M. Thenandier, so for the sake of making the adaptation under 3 hours, I can understand them making Marius just another student revolutionary. 

However, I completely don't understand how the adaptations justify the friendship between Enjolras and Marius. Marius, in a way, is like Grantaire: distracted from the revolution (Marius by Cosette and Grantaire by alcohol). Although the other students have mistresses, none of them are consumed with them as Marius is. Although Marius has more of the passion for fighting than Grantaire, I still think that the pure-hearted, idealistic Enjolras would at least have some contention with Marius. In the musical, Enjolras gives Marius a gentle scolding:--"Marius, you're no longer a child" and "who cares about you're lonely soul; we strive towards a larger goal"--but then doesn't at all treat Marius with even a little of the disdain with which he treats Grantaire.

That's why it makes sense that Courfeyrac is Marius's closest friend in the Friends of the ABC in the book. 

"Drink with Me"

Another thing about the musical that bothers me is the song "Drink with Me." Victor Hugo specifically says that Enjolras forbid everyone at the barricade from drinking, and a song all about drinking just doesn't fit. Only right before the final battle does Enjolras allow each man a ration of brandy. 

Waving the flag

In the musical, Enjolras is killed valiantly waving the red flag of rebellion on top of the barricade in the final battle. In the book, this is what happens to Father Mabeuf, the older botanist, after the first volleys. Enjolras's reverence for the sacrifice of the old man in the novel shows such a compassionate side of him outside of his tough, sending-women-running-with-a-single-glance exterior. Enjolras hoists Mabeuf's bloodied jacket as a flag of the revolt, in essence saying "For this man, we are fighting." Which leads to another interesting point--Father Mabeuf was poor. Slowly but surely, he had to sell away everything he had, even his most prized possessions, not unlike Fantine earlier in the novel. For the poor that are wretched from society, Enjolras fights.

I don't think that anyone can justify making Enjolras die in that way. It says several times in the novel that he protected his body with the barricade, fighting with his mind more than his spirit. 

Paris Rising

In several adaptations, Paris sleeps as the men at the barricade fight. They are told of the lack of fervor by one of the officers in the army. In the novel, however, Paris does show some signs of rebellion--women shooting out windows and people throwing trash off their roofs onto the army below. However, this quickly dies out. Enjolras returns from spying and tells the men that there is no hope. Enjolras's ability to recognize the hopelessness of his very own cause shows that he isn't completely idealistic, a fact that is largely ignored by the adaptations.

Leadership

Enjolras leading the people in rebellion.

He is unequivocally the leader of the Friends of the ABC and on the barricade; what he says is obeyed. But one of the things that is missing from adaptations is the leadership of other members of the Friends of the ABC. They often advise Enjolras or take their own leadership initiative. Enjolras encourages Marius to step into a leadership position in the barricade. In adaptations, I always get a sense that Enjolras is much more cocksure and self-sufficient leader, wheras in the book, he is the leader of a Republic, bowing to the will of the people

He also looses his ability to stratigize in adaptations, making him a weaker leader. Part of his leadership is the fact that he knows who to send where, when to conserve bullets, when to build up the fortress in the Corinth (also, for some reason, adaptations tend to favor the Cafe de Musain), when to close off the last exit with another barricade, when to send those with wives and children home. Adaptations don't have him do any stratigizing besides shouting "Fire!" and "Vive la France!"

Virginity

The fact that his virginity is not emphasized in the adaptations also makes him loose some of his greatness and dedication. His only family is democracy, republicanism, France and humanity. His sole and only focus in on liberty, and by not expressing his virginity, the adaptations are loosing that aspect of him. 

Death

Aaron Tveit as Enjolras in the 2012 screen adaptation.

I've already spoken on how the musical kills the beautiful Enjolras (See Waving the Flag above). In the most recent movie, Enjolras is the very last remaining revolutionary, and is cornered by the guards. Grantaire stumbles to join him and Enjolras proudly holds up a red flag. The shots send Enjolras through a window so that he is hanging upside down, the red flag still proudly waving in his hand. I won't criticize the fact that in the novel, Enjolras remains standing at the wall, his head tilted because I think the flag and the window have the same effect, the same feel as standing, and it was a beautiful death. They didn't do it verbatim Victor Hugo, but having Enjolras literally become the flag of the revolution, facing heaven and the Paris that abandoned him is very, very fitting and well thought out. 

However, I will criticize a few things. One, Grantaire is a character largely ignored by adaptations. His final show of sacrifice, by standing by his idol, Enjolras, doesn't mean much because in the movie, it isn't clear that Grantaire is a cynical drunkard that doesn't care one whit about liberty. If he's just another student revolutionary, then he dying for his cause and it isn't as moving.

Two, the book demonstrates this great bravery and self-sacrifice that the movie ignores. Enjolras fought the entire brigade single-handed as his men rushed to get into the Corinth for protection. He used his gun as a club to fight off an entire barricade of men. Once the soldiers finally get into the Corinth, bloodied from fighting up one single flight of stairs, Enjolras again faces them alone. Then he bravely tells them to execute him, without a blindfold. In the movie, he kind of just runs into the building and is trapped on the second story. If he's going to bravely hold up the red flag of revolution, than make him brave enough to fight the entire brigade. 

Lover of Liberty

Please stop.

Les Miserables is at its core, a love story. And I don't mean the whole love triangle between Cosette, Marius, and Eponine.

I mean that the novel explores human love. M. Myriel, Bishop of Digne demonstrates true love for God. Fantine demonstrates love for her daughter. Javert demonstrates a love for order. The Thenardiers demonstrate a love for money and material possessions. The students at the barricade show us brotherly love. There is of course, the issue of romantic love. There is love for inanimate objects, love for isolation, puppy love. 

Enjolras demonstrates a love for justice. True justice. He was distracted by nothing else. 

And that's why it makes me really, really, really angry when some of the first results that pop up for Enjolras are fan fiction websites that all have romances between Enjolras and Eponine, Enjolras and Grantaire, and Enjolras and Marius. 

Aaron Tveit in the 2012 screen adaptation of Les Miserables.

Part of what makes Enjolras so compelling is the fact that he is as committed to democracy as the Bishop of Digne is to God, or Javert for order. 

In regard to Enjolras:

"His twenty-two years appeared as seventeen; he was serious, he did not seem to know that there was a being on earth called woman. He had one passion only, justice; one thought only, to remove all obstacles."