LITERARY ELEMENTS OF LES MISÉRABLES

I. PLOT

A. Introduction
The book is called Les Misérables, so it's safe to say that someone is going to start off
in a state of wretchedness. In this case, it's Jean Valjean. Nobody trusts an ex-con, so the
poor guy has a pocketful of money that he can't spend on food or lodging because no one
will take him in. Seems like there's even less freedom outside prison than there is inside
it. In a desperate move, he steals all of a bishop's valuable silverware, but gets caught by
the police. It looks like he'll spend the rest of his life in prison.
Just when Valjean thinks his goose is cooked, something amazing happens. The bishop
totally forgives him and lets him keep all the stolen silverware. In return, the bishop
wants Valjean to promise him he'll become an honest man. In this sense, Valjean is
"called" to a better life by the bishop, and he answers this call loud and clear.
Not long after his encounter with Bishop Myriel, Jean Valjean moves to a town called
Montreuil-sur-mer and discovers a more efficient way of manufacturing jade glass.
Valjean gets super rich and becomes a factory owner. Since he has been called to a higher
purpose, though, he uses most of his new wealth to lessen the suffering of those who
aren't as fortunate as him.

B. Rising Action
Valjean manages to track down Cosette and make off with her, but their little adopted
family doesn't live in peace long before Javert tracks them down. Valjean is barely able to
elude Javert by sneaking Cosette into a convent and living there with her for the next few
years. Once they're out, Valjean takes on yet another new identity and tries to fly under
the radar. But Cosette has to ruin it all by growing up, getting pretty, and falling in love
with a young man named Marius. Valjean is so worried about the attention this will bring
that he decides to take Cosette and move to England to be rid of the French police once
and for all.
The people of Paris are fed up that France is slipping back into the aristocratic ways
that were supposed to have been guillotined off with the French Revolution a few
decades ago. So, when Marius hears about Cosette's move to England and decides that
life isn't worth living, he runs off to join a revolt that has broken out in the heart of Paris.
Fortunately, Valjean finds out just in time what he's done and decides to go rescue him.

C. Climax
As the rebellion hits its climax, Marius is conveniently shot through the shoulder and
passes out as the French army slaughters all of his rebel buddies. Lucky for Marius, Jean
Valjean carries him into the Paris sewer system. Just when it looks like they'll make it,
Inspector Javert catches them. Is this finally it for Valjean? Nope. Javert lets them go
because Valjean saved him from being killed by French rebels a little earlier in the book.
Unfortunately, this merciful actions confuses by-the-book Javert so much that he kills
himself by jumping off a bridge, since that's the only logical response to having your life
saved by a convict.
 D. Falling Action
Fittingly, the "falling action" of this book begins right after Inspector Javert literally
falls off a bridge. Valjean is in the clear, but now that Marius and Cosette are married, he
feels obligated to tell Marius about his criminal past. When he does, he gets himself
banished from Cosette's life. Nice, Marius. Valjean sees little reason for living without
Cosette, so he stops eating and slowly wastes away.

E. Denouement
Once Valjean is in the clear, his adopted daughter Cosette marries a young man named
Marius. Valjean comes clear about his criminal origins with Marius and walks away from
Cosette's life because he doesn't want to taint her happiness with his checkered past. In
the end, though, Cosette and Marius come to his bed while he's dying and tell him they
love him. He takes this chance to say his last goodbyes and to instruct them to enjoy all
the money he has given them. In this sense, Valjean reaches fulfillment in his final
moments and makes sure that Cosette will live a happy and fulfilling life.

II. CHARACTERS

A. Jean Valjean
- Cosette’s adopted father. Valjean is an ex-convict who leaves behind a life of hatred
and deceit and makes his fortune with his innovative industrial techniques. He finds
fulfillment in loving his adopted daughter and helping people who are in difficult
situations, even when it means risking his own life and welfare. Valjean adopts
pseudonyms to evade the police and combines a convict’s street smarts with his
newfound idealism and compassion. His whole life is a quest for redemption, and he
ultimately finds bliss on his deathbed.

B. Cosette
- Fantine’s daughter, who lives as Valjean’s adopted daughter after her mother dies.
Cosette spends her childhood as a servant for the Thénardiers in Montfermeil, but even this
awful experience does not make her hardened or cynical. Under the care of Valjean and the
nuns of Petit-Picpus, Cosette ultimately blossoms into a beautiful, educated young woman.
She finds fulfillment in her love for Marius. Cosette is innocent and docile, but her
participation in Valjean’s many escapes from the law show that she also possesses
intelligence and bravery.

C. Javert
- A police inspector who strictly believes in law and order and will stop at nothing to
enforce France’s harsh penal codes. Javert is incapable of compassion or pity, and
performs his work with such passion that he takes on a nearly animal quality when he is
on the chase. He nurses an especially strong desire to recapture Valjean, whose escapes
and prosperity he sees as an affront to justice. Ultimately, Javert is unable to say with
 certainty that Valjean deserves to be punished. This ambiguity undermines the system of
belief on which Javert bases his life and forces him to choose between hypocrisy and
honor

D. Fantine
- A working-class girl who leaves her hometown of Montreuil-sur-mer to seek her
fortune in Paris. Fantine’s innocent affair with a dapper student named Tholomyès leaves
her pregnant and abandoned. Although she is frail, she makes a Herculean effort to feed
herself and her daughter, Cosette. Even as she descends into prostitution, she never stops
caring for Cosette. She represents the destruction that nineteenth-century French society
cruelly wreaks on the less fortunate.

E. Marius Pontmercy
- The son of Georges Pontmercy, a colonel in Napoléon’s army. Marius grows up in the
home of his grandfather, M. Gillenormand, a monarchist. Marius has an identity crisis
when he learns the real reason for his separation from his father, and this crisis sets him
on the path to discovering himself. An innocent young man, Marius is nonetheless
capable of great things and manages both to fight on the barricades and successfully court
the love of his life, Cosette.

F. M. Myriel
- The bishop of Digne. M. Myriel is a much-admired clergyman whose great kindness
and charity have made him popular throughout his parish. He passes on these same
qualities to Valjean and initiates the ex-convict’s spiritual renewal by saving Valjean
from arrest and making him promise to live as an honest man.

G. M. Thénardier
- A cruel, wretched, money-obsessed man who first appears as Cosette’s keeper and
tormentor. Thénardier extorts money from whomever he can, and he frequently serves as
an informant to whoever will bid the highest. His schemes range from robbery to fraud to
murder, and he has strong ties to the criminal underworld in Paris. Blinded by greed,
Thénardier is incapable of loving other human beings and spends every minute in pursuit
of money.

H. Madame. Thénardier
- M. Thénardier’s wife. Mme. Thénardier is just as evil as her husband and takes special
pleasure in abusing Cosette. In later years, she becomes her husband’s most devoted
accomplice and is particularly enthusiastic about his schemes to rob Valjean and Cosette.

I. Eponine
- The Thénardiers’ eldest daughter. Eponine is a wretched creature who helps her parents
steal, but she is eventually redeemed by her love for Marius. She proves that no one is
 beyond redemption, and she ultimately emerges as one of the novel’s most tragic and
heroic figures.

J. M. Gillenormand
- Marius’s ninety-year-old maternal grandfather. Gillenormand prevents Marius from
seeing his father, Georges Pontmercy, because he fears that Pontmercy will corrupt
Marius. A devout monarchist, Gillenormand rejects the French Revolution outright and
also rejects Pontmercy’s Napoléonic beliefs. Although Gillenormand’s classist views
sometimes offend Marius, he truly loves his grandson and ultimately does what is
necessary to make Marius happy.

K. Gavroche
- The Thénardiers’ oldest son. Gavroche is kicked out of the house at an early age and
becomes a Parisian street urchin. He is a happy-go-lucky child who enjoys the small
pleasures of life and demonstrates unusual generosity toward those even less fortunate
than he is. He is also fierce and brave, and plays a decisive role in the barricade even
though he does not have a gun.

L. Colonel Georges Pontmercy

- An officer in Napoléon’s army and Marius’s father. Pontmercy is severely wounded at
the Battle of Waterloo, and mistakenly believing that Thénardier has saved his life, he
asks that Marius honor this debt. Although we know little about Pontmercy’s personal
life, his politics greatly influence the young Marius.

M. Enjolras
- The leader of the Friends of the ABC. Enjolras is a radical student reontreuil-sur-mer
under the assumed name of Madeleine. Fauchelevent becomes indebted to Valjean when
Valjean saves him from a carriage accident. When they meet again years later,
Fauchelevent returns the favor by hiding Valjean and Cosette in a convent.

N. Champmathieu
- A poor, uneducated man who unfortunately resembles Valjean so much that he is
identified, tried, and almost convicted as Valjean. Champmathieu proves to be too dim-
witted to defend himself successfully, revealing the callousness of the French justice
system.

O. M. Mabeuf
- A churchwarden in Paris who tells Marius the truth about his father. Mabeuf and Marius
become friends during tough times, and Mabeuf later dies a heroic death on the barricade.

P. Patron-Minette
- Actually four people, Patron-Minette is a Parisian crime ring so close-knit that its four
members—Montparnasse, Babet, Claquesous, and Gueulemer—are described as four
 heads of the same violent beast. Patron-Minette controls all the crime in one section of
Paris and assists in the Thénardiers’ ambush of Valjean.

III. SETTING
The story of Les Miserables begins in 1815, more than two decades after the start of the
French Revolution. It takes place in France; primarily the cities of Arras, Digne, Montreuil-
sur-mer, Montfermeil, Paris, and Toulon.

IV. THEMES
The importance of love and compassion; social injustice in nineteenth-century France;
the long-term effects of the French Revolution on French society.

V. POINT OF VIEW
The novel is narrated from the third person; the narrator is never named, and offers an
omniscient perspective on the events that are unfolding.

VI. CONFLICT
Valjean struggles to transform himself from a thief into an honest man; over the years he
struggles to stay a step ahead of the zealous police officer Javert and tries to raise his
adopted daughter, Cosette.

VII. DICTION AND TONE

Most English readers call Les Misérables by its original French name because it's not
hard to figure out what it means in English – the Misérables. It can also be translated as
"The Wretched," "The Poor," or "The Downtrodden." In other words, Victor Hugo wants to
make sure we know that this book is about all the people who slip through the cracks of
modern society. There's one passage in particular where Hugo refers directly to the book's
title.
In Les Miserables, Hugo uses tone to his advantage while painting the dark and
courageous scenarios that the characters are put through, especially in cases of Valjean's
imprisonment, and Fantine's foray into the underbelly of the city and her time as a
prostitute. Hugo often uses diction that conveys a sense of disapproval towards the systems
of France, especially towards the government and army. The tone is often extremely about
sadness and sorrow during the events of the story illustrating the feeling of the poverty that
most of the characters are facing in the novel, often mellowing even the happiest of events
within the story.

VIII. FORESHADOWING

- The novel hints that Monsieur Madeleine is in fact Jean Valjean.

- Jean Valjean is telling Cosette that he sees her as a scared lost little girl that he found
in the woods.
- In the scene where Javert is singing “Stars” for the second time he is foreshadowing
death.
- Javert talking about he was born as a scum like Jean Valjean.