Chapter seven here is the first of several chapters that looks at the effects of imprisonment on Jean Valjean (and by extension others) from multiple different angles. This chapter focuses on the way that the disproportionate nature of the justice system’s response to Valjean’s simple crime drove him to a state of despair.
As noted before, the crime itself was driven by desperation that resulted from systemic issues, and this is not isolated to this fictional tale from the early 19th century. It’s a reality that still exists in the 21st century and there are people today who are being ground down and dehumanized by a system that does not care about them or anyone like them.
These chapters are a tough read, not because they’re new, but because it’s hard to acknowledge that we still have the same problem despite all of the “progress” of the last 200 years. The description of Valjean as a “grain of corn ground between millstones” is vivid and heartbreaking. None of this is about reform, or restitution, or restoration. It isn’t even proportionately punitive justice. It’s raw power exerted to shock, terrorize and brutalize. It’s meant to strike fear in the hearts of anyone who would dare resist the system. It’s meant to quell the noise of those who would say that no family should starve.