Les Misérables, written by Victor Hugo, is a book of historical fiction. The story is written in first person, and takes place in France from 1789-1832 (Around the time of the French Revolution). At that time, French society still ran as a class system, and one’s social class was determined at birth.
The book tells the story of the life struggles of a poor man named Jean Valjean. When...
more Les Misérables, written by Victor Hugo, is a book of historical fiction. The story is written in first person, and takes place in France from 1789-1832 (Around the time of the French Revolution). At that time, French society still ran as a class system, and one’s social class was determined at birth.
The book tells the story of the life struggles of a poor man named Jean Valjean. When just a boy, he stole bread to feed his starving family, and was caught and sent to prison for 19 years. Upon release, he was given a yellow paper, which branded him a criminal for life. The story is about his struggle to rise above his class, and to live a respectfully. It is about his encounters with the people who influenced him and the effects they had on his life.
There are two main conflicts in this book; of man to man and man with himself. His conflict with man is about how over the years he struggles to stay a step ahead of the zealous police officer Javert and tries to raise his adopted daughter, Cosette. The man to himself conflict is about Jean’s internal struggle to change from a thief to an honest man.
Of the many events which occur in Les Misérables, there are three which stand out as more influential than others; the incident with M. Myriel and the Candlesticks, Valjean’s public disclosure of his true identity at the trial of Champmathieu, and Fantine’s death/ Valjean’s promise to raise and guard Cosette.
The first event takes place early in the story when the convict Jean Valjean is released from a French prison, after serving nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread and for many attempts to escape from his prison. Upon release, he is handed a set of yellow papers, signifying he was an inmate. When he arrives in the city Digne, no one is willing to give him shelter because he is an ex-convict. Desperate, Valjean knocks on the door of M. Myriel, the kind bishop of Digne. When they are about to go to sleep, Valjean sees the bishop place a pair of expensive silver candlesticks into a small wooden cabinet. He wakes up in the middle of the night and fearful he will have no job or money, he flees with the candlesticks. He is caught by the police and brought back to the bishop’s house. The kind bishop tells the police that he gave the candlesticks to Valjean as a present to protect him and keep them from returning Valjean to jail. When the police leave, the bishop makes Valjean promise to use this second chance to become an honest man.
This event is important because it is the time in Valjean’s life in which he decides to live a decent and honest life. The small kindness done to him by a wise old bishop completely changed his entire outlook on life. It made him realize that he was not just a number; but that he was a human being.
The second event was when Valjean had changed his name to M. Madeleine, and he worked his way to the top of society. He did this by inventing an ingenious manufacturing process which brought the town prosperity, and eventually he became mayor of the City of Montreuil-sur-mer. During his time as mayor, it came to his attention that a man named Champmathieu, who looked very much like him, was accused of being Jean Valjean and put on trial. He is faced with a difficult decision- to either let this “Champmathieu†go to prison, which would be dishonest and went against Valjean’s principles, or to tell the truth and expose his true identity. He decides that the right thing to do is to fulfill his promise to the bishop and to retain self respect and honor and to face his trial by declaring his true self.
This event is important because Valjean shows he is now an honest man, willing to sacrifice his own well being to save an innocent man, even though he knows all he had accomplished would be lost. It also leads him to his decision to declare himself Jean Valjean and take responsibility for his actions.
The third event occurs when Valjean agrees to care for Fantine’s child Cosette. Fantine is a young woman from Montreuil who lives in Paris. She falls in love with Tholomyes; a wealthy student who gets her pregnant then abandons her. She returns to her hometown, with her daughter, Cosette. On the way back, she realizes she wont be able to find work if the townspeople know she has an illegitimate daughter. She drops her daughter off at a local inn, run by a family named the Thenardiers, who accept Cosette on the condition that she sends a monthly allowance. Fantine finds work in Madeleine’s factory. Her coworkers find out about Cosette, and she is fired. The Thenardiers demand more money, and Fantine is forced in to prostitution to make ends meet. One night, Javert, the local Police chief comes to arrest her, but M. Madeleine intervenes. Fantine falls ill, and when she asks to see Cosette, Valjean promises to send for her. First, however, he must get past Javert, who has found out about his criminal past. Javert shows up to arrest Valjean when he is at Fantine’s deathbed, and when Fantine knows she is about to die, Valjean promises her he will always protect and shelter Cosette.
This episode is significant because Valjean promises to take upon himself the responsibility of caring for a child. He is no longer responsible just for himself; he now has the responsibility of another life, which gives his life new meaning. This child Cosette loves him unconditionally, something he has never experienced before. In the meeting with M. Myriel, Valjean’s life is transformed from being merely a number—24601 to a human being with a name, who could experience kindness. In loving Cosette and her loving him in return, he learns his life has value and that he can love another and be loved in return.
The climax in this story takes place at the barricade when Valjean and Javert meet for the last time. Valjean protects Javert from the rebels against the government and lets Javert go free. Javert then realizes that everything he thought his entire life about truth and justice was a sham. This experience affected Javert so profoundly, that he throws himself off a bridge, taking his own life. The story ends when Jean Valjean dies at peace, with Cosette and Marius by his side.
Jean Valjean is an ex-convict who leaves behind a life of hatred and deceit and makes a fortune off his innovative industrial techniques. He finds fulfillment in loving his adopted daughter, Cosette, and helping people who are in difficult situations even when it means risking his own life and welfare. He assumes different aliases over the years to escape the police and uses his street smarts to continue his acts of kindness. His entire life is a quest for redemption, and he ultimately finds contentment on his deathbed.
Over the course of the story Jean Valjean changes from a hardened criminal to a kind, righteous, honest, god fearing man. He learns the value of philanthropy through his financial enrichment of the town of Montreuil. Most of all, however, through taking care of Cosette, Jean Valjean learns how to love, conditionally and unconditionally, and to pass that love onto others. This ability to change makes him a symbol of hope—if he can learn love and compassion after so much injustice, anyone can.
Through the actions of the characters and plot of the story, Victor Hugo is trying to show the importance of love and compassion, and the social injustice which existed in nineteenth-century France. The importance of love and compassion is shown throughout the book by means of the way that Valjean was changed to a better man after a kind old bishop did him a small favor, and when he was loved unconditionally by a little girl. If the bishop had just been like everyone else in town, and simply thrown him out of his home, Valjean probably would have died within a week; a poor, wretched man. Instead, he gave him hope. Hugo is saying that you are not born into the person that you are; you become who you are by the choices you make and the way you carry them out. These ideas of Hugo’s are still vital today. He writes very strongly against the social injustice because he himself was exiled from France for being idealistic about freedom and democracy.
I enjoyed this book very much. The book was fun and interesting to read, and the author’s descriptions of places and events made it easy to visualize France in the 19th century. The book was well paced; not too fast or slow, and kept my interest. I liked every character regardless of whether they were antagonists or protagonists because they were all interesting characters and each one contributed an important part to the plot or main theme. I would recommend this book to readers from the ages of 12 and up who enjoy reading historical books based on fiction because it is a book about what was happening in France around the time of its revolution, wrapped in a captivating story of a man who fought for his freedom and for social justice, and for the ones he loved until the day he died.
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