Am I the only one who thinks Victor Hugo described Grantaire as unnaturally ugly because he’s so beautiful on the inside?
I mean if he were also good looking in addition to his personality it would be just plain mean to us people.
i beg to differ.
Enjolras
but grantaire wasn’t beautiful on the inside, i don’t think. grantaire was miserable and conflicted and angry and disappointed and jaded and obnoxious and wasted his talent and intelligence and was too afraid to commit to any type of firm belief; he could only commit to people, but he couldn’t even communicate with them properly because he was so deep in his own shit. he has almost no conversations with his friends. it’s always the grantaire show, until someone tells him to shut up, or in the case of joly and bossuet in corinthe - they can sense that he’s upset so they just let him have at it and get him drunk and try and cheer him up until someone else (i.e. courfeyrac, enjolras) tells him to shut up. he didn’t choose to be at the barricade. the barricade came to him.
grantaire was not planning on fighting and dying. grantaire was sad. he didn’t want to lose his friends for selfish reasons (he does love them, this i will never deny. he loves and loves and loves and loves them, but he also needs them the way a child needs parents/family/protectors. he can’t make himself happy on his own. he can’t feel whole on his own. he needs his friends for that, to be someone, to find joy, etc). he needed them. he couldn’t get along without them, and he hated the idea of them dying. he thought it was a waste. why die when they could all be having fun together? he went to the tavern to drink, bossuet suggested the barricade be built around them.
even at that point, he just kind of resigns himself to it but is still at war with his mind. he goes manic. he laughs too loudly, carries on at the window, drunkenly harrasses the serving women (this might be his way of flirting, which wouldn’t surprise me, but he’s over-the-top), shouts and acts like it’s just another meeting they’ll all go home after. courfeyrac’s calling him a cask doesn’t improve this, because it’s just a differently worded call for him to shut his face, which he’s used to.
it is first when enjolras literally throws the harsh reality in his face, tells him this is a barricade, not the place for drunken antics, that grantaire “gets it”. and it’s sobering. he’s not having fun with his friends. he can’t even pretend any more that he is. they’re at a barricade. he ended up there with them. he can’t live without them, but they will probably die, so he’s going to die with them. he grumbles a bit, decides to die, but still takes no active part in anything, even in his own death. he sits and sleeps as if he’s waiting to be finished off before he can wake up.
victor hugo purposefully writes grantaire as ugly up to this point, to show the conflict inside him. the entire point is that he is not beautiful on the inside. he’s a mess. his soul on a face would be horrific. imagine - nothing symmetrical, every feature fighting with every other for attention, certain features so weak (a weak chin maybe, or very thin lips, etc etc) it’s as if they never formed properly - or he never let them. he’s sad, and you’d see that. his skin would be a wreck. his hair would be unhealthy. he’d have bloodshot, glassy eyes and dark circles, and his teeth are probably a wreck let’s be honest here - alcohol, vomiting from alcohol (which anyone who drinks heavily has done at some point, though it doesn’t have to be a constant thing), sleeping after drinking and eating without paying attention to dental hygiene are all hard on the teeth. he’s an actual wreck - inside and out.
the beauty is in his love for his friends, though there is something parasitic about it in some ways because he does need them more than they seem to need him, but it’s love. he’s otherwise a writhing mass of ugly on the inside. and that’s ok. that’s the point of his character. he’s flawed inside and out, but he can love, and this love keeps him with his friends, rather than have him run away like a coward. he’s not the bravest until he chooses death. his very passive deathwish asleep at his table was another cowardice in some ways - “my friends are going to die, so i might as well just sit here where anyone can and will probably gun me to death and go with them, because let’s face it i tried to avoid this but somehow ended up here anyway, on this actual barricade, but i won’t actually do anything because it seems fate wants me here to die with my friends.” he makes quite apparent with his speech about god in corinthe that he thinks he has no control over things. he’s just going to let them happen as they do.
the beauty is in the transformation. he’s been trying to hide from reality for so long, he has no idea what he feels for things, can’t commit to ideas etc, but he sees enjolras standing before the guards, the curtain tears itself apart before his eyes, and he realises what he had been avoiding all along - these feelings he had for enjolras that were never apparent become clear to him, and his own role in all of this and the choice he is faced with are all suddenly very concrete concepts for him to grasp at. and he makes the active decision to do so. he apparently cannot just parasite off of their glorious death. he can either sleep on and live in shame and loneliness, or he can make the active choice to die with them, for the republic and the future of france and - tied together with his love for them - to everything they represent in this movement, this revolution. here he is not a cynic. he is not a lovestruck puppy following its master to his death. he says “VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE”, and he means it. because la république includes his friends - they are as rooted in the ideal as the slogans he used to laugh at. he scoffs in one of his earlier rants that victory is lame. you want real success - try to convince someone of something. they couldn’t convince him through their arguments and logic, but through friendship, humanity, and love. that was the point that turned everything, and he became a whole person on his own, having made the connection between humanity, love, friendship and the ideal and can in turn be loved and accepted by enjolras.
then they clasp hands and die together. and that’s the first time he’s beautiful on the inside.
i’m sorry this is probably not even coherent i am just RAMBLING
ooc: and i might only add to the last-but-one paragraph “…and potentionally, for a split moment, even on the outside.”
ok i m sorry but u r under arrest for making me fall in love with u bcoz of this bcoz that. was. beautiful.
(( i’ve officially committed myself to loving u forever i m sorry it’s too l8 ))