Oh, My Friends, My Friends, Forgive Me: Les Mis, Loving the Neighbor, Augustine, and Paths to Heaven

Abstract

In this thesis, I read Les Mis alongside Augustine to assess the musical’s theology of love. I will show that the two male leads, Jean Valjean and Javert, follow Augustinian ideas about the need to love God and the neighbor in order to get to Heaven. However, two of the main female characters who will reach Heaven undermine Augustine’s arguments. Their cases show us that love of one’s neighbor without an explicit love of God is, in Les Mis’ world, sufficient for entrance to heaven. In other words, Les Mis promises a pathway to Heaven based solely on terrestrial relations. It draws upon Augustinian theology but then develops it in a new direction, one that treats human relations as the sole arbiter of virtue.