Beth Martin

May 12, 2016

French 1, Period 2
Les Miserables
Jean Valjean
Cosettes 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. His
whole life is a quest for redemption, and he ultimately finds it on his deathbed.
Cosette
Fantines daughter, who lives as Valjeans adopted daughter after her mother dies. Cosette spends her
childhood as a servant for the Thnardiers in Montfermeil, but even this awful experience does not
make her angry. Under the care of Valjean and the nuns of Petit-Picpus, Cosette ultimately blossoms
into a beautiful, educated young woman. She finds herself love with Marius. Cosette is innocent and
docile, but her participation in Valjeans many escapes from the law show that she also possesses
intelligence and bravery.
Javert
A police inspector who strictly believes in law and order and will stop at nothing to enforce Frances
harsh penal codes. Javert is incapable of compassion or pity. 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.
Fantine
A working-class girl who leaves her hometown of Montreuil-sur-mer to seek her fortune in Paris.
Fantines innocent affair with a dapper student named Tholomys leaves her pregnant and
abandoned. Although she is frail, she makes a big 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.
Marius Pontmercy
The son of Georges Pontmercy, a colonel in Napolons 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.
M. Myriel
The bishop of Digne. M. Myriel is a 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-

convicts spiritual renewal by saving Valjean from arrest and making him promise to live as an honest
man.
M. Thnardier
A cruel man who first appears as Cosettes keeper and tormentor. Thnardier 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, Thnardier is incapable of loving other human beings and spends every
minute in pursuit of money.
Mme. Thnardier
M. Thnardiers wife. Mme. Thnardier is just as evil as her husband and takes special pleasure in
abusing Cosette. In later years, she becomes her husbands most devoted accomplice and is
particularly enthusiastic about his schemes to rob Valjean and Cosette.
Eponine
The Thnardiers eldest daughter. Eponine is a wretched person 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
emerges as one of the novels most tragic and heroic figures.
M. Gillenormand
Mariuss 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 Pontmercys Napolonic beliefs.
Although Gillenormands classist views sometimes offend Marius, he truly loves his grandson and
does what is necessary to make Marius happy.

Gavroche - The Thnardiers 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.
History of the Story
The story starts with Jean Valjean with his family. He relalizes that his family is starving, and he goes
and steals a loaf of bread. He is caught by the police and is thrown into jail for 5 years. HE then has
numerous escape attempts and gets 14 more. HE then is put on parole and he breaks it. He
disappears and make a new name for himself. He becomes a mayor of a big city. HE own factories
and on the factory workers named Fantine is fired because she had a child out of marrage. She is
attacked in the streets and then is arrested and is sentenced to 6 months in prison. Valjean is graceful
and releases her from her sentence. She then gets very sick and is dying. Javert finds out that Valjean
is the mayor and he tells Fantine when she is dying and the shock surprises her and she dies.

Valjean then went to get Cosette, and had her raised by the nuns. When Valjean then came back to
get her and they moved to a hidden mansion is a garden. Cosette sees Marius Pontmercy, when he
and his friends were protesting against the king. He also sees her and he sends Gavroche to find
where she lives. He finds the place and Marius goes to visit. Cosette and him meet at the gates and
talk. When Valjean is certain that Javert has found out where he lives he take Cosette and tells her
that they are going to a apartment and that they will then go overseas to England soon. She then
leaves Marius a note saying what is happening. He then has Gavroche take a letter to her at the
apartment. Valjean intercepts the letter and he goes to the barricade to help make sure that Marius id
not killed. Gavotte goes back to the barricades but is shot. Marius is eventually shot and Valjean takes
him through the sewers to get him to a hospital. Thnardiers is in the sewers and steals Mariuss ring.
Javert relizes that he can't live in the debt of a thief so he jumps of a bridge to kill himself. Marius and
Valjean talk about Marius marrying Cosette. They get married in a small church with Valjean and
Mariuss grandfather.
One of my religious themes is when after Valjean got out of jail he hated the world. He then seems to
redeem himself after he is caught by stealing the silver from the Priest. The police find him with it and
brings him back to the Priest and they show him the silver that he has. They say that the Valjean says
that the Priest gave him the silver. They Priest says that he did give them to him and that he left before
he could give him the two sliver candle sticks.
My second is that after Valjean is given the candlesticks he makes an alter to God and uses them for
religious purposes. He is a faithful prayer and a faithful christian. He prays often and speaks of his
faith.
My last one is when he sends Cosette to study under the protection of the nuns. That shows that he is
wanting to have his child to have the upbringing of a proper catholic girl. When she is done studying
under them, she goes with her father to give to the poor.
My first social theme is how there is a caste system. You were given a place in society based on if you
were rich or poor, male or female. If you were a female you were usually looked down appon, you
could not find decent jobs. If you were a child you probably would be treated like dirt. Most beggars
were children, because if your parents didn't want you or you were poor you were usually tossed into
the streets.
My second theme is that most women became prostatutes. If they were out of a job or they couldn't
get a job they would sell their bodies. Sometimes girls as young as 14 would become prostitutes to
bring in money. They would most likely die from hypothermia or tuberculosis.
My last social theme is beggars, they poor people lived in slums. What usually consisted in slums is
that they were dirty and usually infected by disease. When the rich had to pass through the slums they
would put up the windows on their carrages up so that they could ignore the poor.They would act as if
the poor were animals and they were going to be infected by them.

How this connects to society today is we I feel always compare ourselves to other people. We
compare their wealth with that of our own, we look at how celeberties have really expensive things.
They sometimes flaunt them in our faces, like the rich would back in the slums. We kinda put people
into caste systems we think that people who don't have as much money as us are lower in the social
status, or just having someone dress differently we tend to judge and rank them in our minds. I think
we loose sight that some people might not have the same opportunities as us. People in other
countries for example, the third world countries don't have as much money as the United States, but
keep in mind maybe at one point they were a very successful country in some ways, but when
technology got more advanced they might have lost all their income and sales.
I think that we need more people like Jean Valjean, because I see a lot of people in this world who just
have a lot of hatred in them. I wish they could be more like Valjean and realize that they can always
redeem themselves and become better people. Valjean hated the world when he got out of jail, but
then he figured out that there was more to life than being mad about the things that he couldn't change
or have, so he changed his ways.

Sources
Les Miserables (movie)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misrables_(1978_film)