JESSIE L. LABISTE, JR.

BSED 4A (English)
MW/1:00-2:30/EB107

PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS
(BISHOP MYRIEL)

Man must see that nothing really is, but that everything is always
becoming and changing. Nothing stands still. Everything is being born,
growing and dying. The very instant a thing reaches its height it begins to
decline. The law of rhythm is in constant operation. There is no reality. There
is no enduring quality, fixing or substantiality in anything. Nothing is
permanent but change.
The character of Bishop Myriel is drawn with great force, and is full
both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary churchmen.
This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness so far as to
receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses reject, and,
when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the latter by telling
the officers who had apprehended the thief that he had given him the
silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, really!
Later, Jean Valjean "becomes a good and pious man," starts in a
manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent purposes.
This is what Bishop Myriel is looking forward from Valjean knowing his
past. He determined the co-existence of the goodness of Valjean and had
succeeded in his plans.
Truly in his quite a short pert in this great novel, Bishop Myriel
exemplified a man who sees nothing but change for the part of Valjean.
He never gave up after being smashed in the middle of the night after the
ex-convicted criminal successfully robbed their house.
From the bare abstract, the story does not seem to promise much
pleasure to novel-readers from the character of Bishop Myriel, yet it is all
alive with the fiery genius of Victor Hugo, and the whole representation is
so intense and vivid that it is impossible to escape from the fascination it
exerts over the mind. Bishop Myriel can be anchored to the philosophies
of Moral Evolutionism where morality changes and improves. He ever
believed that Valjean has a lot of doors for change and making his life a
well-coveted life for others.
This is Bishop Myriel who took care of the protagonist and renewed
his image and personality. He who happened to believe that man has all
the resources to change only if people will not prejudge and make an
early assumption that is baseless.
Man must see things evolving from other things and resolving him
to other things, a constant action or reaction, inflow or outflow, building
up or tearing down, creation or destruction, birth, growth and death.
Nothing is real and nothing endures but change.