☝️ Key Points
- Eponine's song 'On My Own' showcases her profound loneliness and unrequited love for Marius.
- She idealizes her relationship with Marius, imagining they are together and alleviating her loneliness.
- Eponine realizes that her fantasy about Marius is just an illusion and that he is 'blind' to her love.
- She accepts that her love for Marius is not reciprocated, but realizes that without him, her world changes and becomes foreign.
- The song ends with the tragic understanding that her love for Marius was an illusion and that she only loves him 'on her own', highlighting her loneliness and heartache.
Interpretation
The song lyrics 'On My Own' from the musical
Les Misérables is a heart-wrenching ballad sung by the character Eponine. The lyrics of the song describe her lonely, unrequited love for Marius, a young student who has fallen in love with another woman.
At the beginning of the song, Eponine acknowledges her loneliness and abandonment, admitting that she 'has no one to turn to'. She describes how she imagines Marius is beside her to alleviate her loneliness. She says, 'On my own, pretending he's beside me.'
As the song progresses, Eponine speaks of her fantasy world where she and Marius are together. She describes the beauty of the night and how she imagines she and Marius are together 'forever and ever'.
But then she realizes that all of this is happening only in her head and that she is actually only speaking to herself and not to Marius. She admits that she knows Marius is 'blind' to her love, but still hopes that there is a possibility for the two of them.
In the last part of the song, Eponine finally accepts that her love for Marius is not reciprocated. She realizes that 'without him, the world around her changes' and that the streets are 'filled with strangers'. She says, 'I love him, but every day I'm learning, all my life I've only been pretending.' This shows that she realizes her love for Marius was only an illusion.
The song ends with the tragic acceptance that Eponine loves Marius, but only 'on my own'. This underscores her loneliness and the heartache she feels due to her unrequited love.