casually points out that enjolras undergoes a metamorphosis in the book
and grantaire does not
#idk people are always talking about how grantaire ‘redeems himself’ in orestes fasting and pylades drunk #but he literally does exactly the same thing he’s been doing the whole book #it’s enjolras who changes here #combeferre has influenced enjolras so much he’s started to see shades of grey #and then he starts to see grantaire
But…what about the following:
“Long live the Republic! I’m one of them.”
Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.
He repeated: “Long live the Republic!” crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.”
Hugo specifically tells us that Grantaire is “l’ivrogne transfiguré” – he is the transfigured drunk. To transfigure is to alter – to change or exult. What has changed or exulted Grantaire here? “the immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed”. Grantaire, although having no part, rises to his feet and embodies the struggle for his friends have fought and died, and issues the proclamation of belief – “Long live the Republic! I’m one of them.”
That is indeed a metamorphoses – Grantaire declaring his belief in the republic.
Enjolras is never shown as being as narrow as Hugo tells us he is – we see him tolerate Grantaire’s presence from the start (he does nothing to stop him when he is ranting in the early scenes in the Musain), he allows R to attend their secret councils, he offers Grantaire a chance to prove himself when Grantaire asks for it, even though after years of Grantaire offering nothing to their cause he has no reason to believe him….
Frankly, while Enjolras is absolutely in the right to tell Grantaire to go away at the barricade, one reason I think he sounds so personalised in his invective when he finally snaps at R and tells him he is incapable of basically everything but love (notice he doesn’t say that) is because he has wanted so very much for Grantaire to prove himself capable of more than empty, knee jerk cynicism and hollow declarations that he “believed” in Enjolras.
And in this scene, Grantaire does that. He marries words to actions and is transfigured by embracing the cause of a better future and a dawn beyond that present day – we are explicitly told by the omniscient narrator that it is this that changes and exults him, the battle that he did not partake in but which he embraces.
No wonder Enjolras smiles and reaches out a hand – Enjolras, who never loses hope in humanity, and whom the textual evidence indicates so badly wanted to Grantaire to achieve the potential he saw in him, sees the transfiguration and embraces it.
Enjolras does not change here. He has not compromised – he sees in Grantaire the belief he always hoped for.