I Dreamed a Dream...

Les Miserables is one of my all time favorite musicals. The music is beautiful and so powerful. My favorite song is I Dreamed a Dream and it is performed in the first act by the character Fantine.

Some background information: Fantine is a working class French woman very much in love with a man named Félix Tholomyès. Tholomyès abandons Fantine, leaving her to to care for Tholomyès' daughter, Cosette, by herself. Fantine out of lack of means to provide for Cosette, is forced to leave her in the care of the corrupt and selfish Thénardiers. She sends money to pay for Cosette's keep. 

Unbeknownst to Fantine, Cosette is being abused and used as labor for the Thénardiers' inn. The Thénardiers lie to Fantine about the costs of Cosette and use the money for their own selfish wants.

Fantine is later fired from her job at Jean Valjean's factory, because of the discovery of her daughter, who was born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the Thénardiers' letters and monetary demands continue to grow. In desperation, Fantine sells her hair, her two front teeth, and is forced to resort to prostitution to pay for her daughter's "care." Fantine is also slowly dying from tuberculosis. 

At this moment when singing I Dreamed a Dream, Fantine finds herself at the lowest point she has ever been in her life. She laments the state of her life, how she started with so many dreams and expectations. Her lover left her. Her daughter is no longer in her care. She lost her job to provide for her daughter. She sold her hair, her teeth and is attempting to make money being a prostitute. In anguish, in sadness, in frustration, in utter despair she questions what went wrong in her life. 

I included the trailer of Anne Hathaway singing in the new Les Miserables movie. She may not have the best voice but that doesn't matter. She was recorded singing the song live on set. She really cut her hair for the role. She really lost all that wait to become Fantine. The song proves it. You can hear her pain and anguish when you listen. 

I've never felt so close to Fantine as I do now. Not that I've lost my lover (yeah that's a good one), or my hair, my teeth, my child or forced to become a prostitute. I just feel all my dreams, my plans, things I envisioned and wanted, attempted to do have not only not happened, but failed. I feel like the whole gay card causes a lot of that. My emotions over the past week or so have caused me to rape the replay button on my iPod and play this song over and over and over again.

I had a dream my life would be... 

Cheers,
GMSW