Melodic threads
are meant to be followed, and Les
Miserables weaves them together skillfully. If I were in college, I would
listen to all of the available soundtracks repeatedly until I could tease out
every thread and write a longer paper about them. As it is, I am no longer in college,
and am still new to this musical, so I will just follow one and write a
quasi-academic blog post on it.
The melody that
reaches its apex in “On My Own,” Eponine’s ballad of unrequited love, is the
same melody used in two major death scenes: Fantine’s (“Come to Me”) and
Valjean’s (“Epilogue”). What does unrequited love have to do with death?
(First of all, I
hope you can all acknowledge that that is a great essay question. To all of my
theatre professor friends—you’re welcome. Secondly, I really miss essay questions, so let
me jump right in.)
At the start of “Come
to Me,” Fantine is a woman who has lost nearly everything and is at the point
of losing the last thing remaining to her besides life itself: her hope of
seeing her daughter again. When Valjean enters the room, he brings a different
melody, but swiftly matches her mood, swearing to her that he will care for
Cosette. Comforted, Fantine asks him to tell Cosette she loves her and will see
her when she wakes—with the strong implication that she does realize she is
dying, but that she does not believe that death is to be the end of her.
It is easy to see the parallel to “Epilogue,” the death
scene of Cosette’s other parent. When Cosette appears in his room, Valjean
slips into the melody Fantine used when speaking to her daughter in her final
delirium, and Cosette replies in the melody Valjean first used in speaking to
Fantine. He soon moves into not just a parallel melody, but a parallel
lyric—whereas Fantine sang “Take my child, I give her to your keeping” and “For
God's sake, please stay till I am sleeping,” Valjean sings:
On this page, I write my last confession
Read it well, when I at last am sleeping
It's a story of those who always loved you
Your mother gave her life for you
Then gave you to my keeping
In the movie, the scene continues with Fantine welcoming
Valjean to follow her to heaven (“take my hand, I’ll lead you to salvation”),
but the Broadway version has Fantine joined by Eponine, and then by Valjean
himself, in a request that seems aimed higher than the dying man:
Take my hand, and lead me to salvation [emphasis mine]
Take my love, for love is everlasting
And remember the truth that once was spoken
To love another person is to see the face of God!
Considering that
the same melody was used in parallel death scenes pointing to a life beyond
suffering, one might expect that it would serve the same purpose for Eponine,
who after all does have a death scene of her own. But while she has a death
song with a similarly positive underlying theme (“rain will make the flowers
grow”), it is not the same musical
theme. Instead, the musical theme used in the scenes previously discussed
reaches its apex in “On My Own,” Eponine’s ballad of unrequited love.
The song is
prefaced by an acknowledgment that Eponine is living in her own head when she thinks
of Marius caring for her as she cares for him. Then the theme we recognize from
Fantine and Valjean’s songs begins. It is, in fact, most closely associated
with Eponine, despite not being first sung by her. She sings of talking to
herself, of being alone, of pretending. Pretending, in fact, is twice
mentioned, and it is here that the themes of all three songs come together lyrically,
because in acknowledging the pretense she is dying to a dream.
In a way, “On My Own” is
Eponine’s death scene. In it, she consciously dies to the dream of Marius and
her “forever and forever,” yet chooses not to turn away from him. She loves him
only on her own, but she holds that love as precious in its own way. It is not her
dream vision of love, but it is a real love, a love that will bring her to the
barricades in an attempt to save Marius’ life by giving him a reason to
continue. (Because she must know that while she is the type to sing “Without him
/ The world around me changes / The trees are bare and everywhere / The streets
are full of strangers,” Marius is the type to sing “Black! the color of despair!”
Which is taking it up a notch.)
The epilogue to the Broadway version of the musical has the
advantage over the movie because Eponine and Fantine stand together. They are
two women who each loved someone they could not be with in this life, but who
attest that unlike this life, love is everlasting. Valjean joins in the
assertion that “to love another person is to see the face of God.” Together,
the three point to a purpose greater than mere survival, and to a love that is
both behind and beyond any love this world has to offer.
