BOLINAO, GABRIEL A.

12-2HUMSS
Les Miserables Summary

Les Misérables is a French historical novel

by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that
is considered one of the greatest novels of
the 19th century. In the English-speaking
world, the novel is usually referred to by its
original French title

Jean Valjean is an ex-convict who was

imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. Upon
his release, he finds that he is treated like an
outcast everywhere he goes, until the Bishop
Myriel helps him to create a new life for
himself. He adopts the name Monsieur
Madeleine, and becomes a successful factory
owner. However, he is hunted by the dogged
police officer Javert, who believes that no
criminal can ever truly reform.

Fantine is an impoverished but beautiful

young woman who falls in love with a
pompous young student, who eventually
abandons her shortly after she gives birth to
their child. Fantine names this daughter
Cosette, and leaves her in the care of the Thénardiers in order to find work. The
Thénardiers treat Cosette cruelly, and charge Fantine high sums of money for the care
of her daughter. After her illegitimate child is discovered, she loses her job at Valjean's
factory and is forced to turn to prostitution.

Javert takes her into custody after she assaults a young man who shoves a snowball
down her blouse. Valjean intervenes and brings Fantine to a hospital; she is deathly ill
after the snowball incident. Valjean promises Fantine that he will take care of her
daughter Cosette, but this task is interrupted when Valjean hears that a man named
Champmathieu has been mistakenly identified as him, and faces life imprisonment as a
recidivist convict. After much soul-searching, Valjean testifies in front of the court that he
is actually Valjean. Fantine dies, and Valjean is imprisoned once again.

Valjean escapes prison after falling from a rope, and he rescues Cosette from the
wicked Thénardiers. They start a new life in Paris that is soon interrupted by Javert, who
has discovered that Valjean escaped from prison alive. The two take shelter in the Petit-
Picpus convent, and Cosette grows into a young woman.

Marius is a wealthy young man who adores his grandfather Gillenormand. However,
Gillenormand has cut off Marius from his father, Georges Pontmercy, because the two
men disagree on politics. Marius thought his father abandoned him, but the friendly
churchwarden Monsieur Mabeuf tells him the truth, and Marius begins to idolize his
father (who has died). Eventually, this leads to a falling-out between Marius and
Gillenormand, and Marius starts a new life. He becomes friends with the revolutionary
ABC Society, and falls in love with Cosette, and beautiful young woman that he sees in
the Luxembourg garden. Marius is unable to find this young woman again, and falls into
despair.

However, the past catches up to them. The Thénardiers attempt to extort money from
Valjean by kidnapping him, but Marius intervenes and saves him. The eldest Thénardier
daughter, Éponine, has fallen in love with him. Marius has eyes only for Cosette, and
the two establish a relationship when Marius leaves a notebook of love letters in her
garden. Their romance is cut short when Valjean decides that he and Cosette must
leave France and move to England, because of the social upheaval.

In despair, Marius joins an uprising against the government. He finds his friends from
the ABC Society at a barricade, where they are doing battle against the police and the
army. Javert has attempted to infiltrate their ranks as a spy, but he has been discovered
and lashed to a pole. Éponine dies protecting Marius on the barricade.

Valjean, who has discovered Marius' love for Cosette, joins the group at the barricade.
He volunteers to execute Javert, but then lets him go instead, much to Javert's
bewilderment. Valjean returns just as the army is overwhelming the barricade. He
seizes a gravely injured Marius and disappears down the sewers. Javert is waiting for
Valjean at the exit, but rather than arresting him, he shows Valjean mercy and allows
him to bring the wounded Marius to safety (Marius never learns the identity of the man
who saved him). Disgusted and horrified at his lapse of duty, Javert commits suicide.

Marius recovers from his wounds and, with the blessing of Gillenormand and Valjean,
marries Cosette. Valjean has confessed his criminal past to Marius, who is horrified that
the man is a criminal. Marius and Cosette grow closer as Valjean and Cosette grow
farther apart. Valjean's life loses its meaning without Cosette, and his health fades.
However, Valjean's heroism is made clear to Marius when Thénardier unwittingly
reveals to Marius that it was Valjean who saved him on the night the barricade fell.
Marius and Cosette arrive in time to comfort Valjean on his deathbed and the old man
dies in peace, with the satisfaction of a life well and righteously lived.
PERALTA, CHARLIZE KATE B.
12-1HUMSS
EL FILIBUSTERISMO

INTRODUCTION

The second and last novel completed by José

Rizal (though he left behind the unfinished
manuscript of a third one), El Filibusterismo
is a sequel to Noli Me Tangere. A dark,
brooding, at times satirical novel of revenge,
unfulfilled love, and tragedy, the Fili (as it is
popularly referred to) still has as its
protagonist Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra. Thirteen
years older, his idealism and youthful dreams
shattered, and taking advantage of the belief
that he died at the end of Noli Me Tangere, he
is disguised as Simoun, an enormously
wealthy and mysterious jeweler who has
gained the confidence of the colony’s
governor-general.

A number of other characters from the Noli

reappear, among them: Basilio, whose mother
and younger brother Crispin met tragic ends;
Father Salví, the devious former curate of San
Diego responsible for Crispin’s death, and
who had lusted after Ibarra’s love, María
Clara; the idealistic schoolmaster from San
Diego; Captain Tiago, the wealthy widower
and legal father of María Clara; and Doña Victorina de Espadaña and her Spanish husband, the
faux doctor Tiburcio, now hiding from her with the indio priest Father Florentino at his remote
parish on the Pacific coast.

Where Ibarra had argued eloquently against violence to reform Manila society, Simoun is eager
to foment it in order to get his revenge: against Father Salví, and against the Spanish colonial
state. He hopes to liberate the love of his life, María Clara, from her suffocating life as a
cloistered nun, and the islands from the tyranny of Spain. As confidant to the governor-general,
he advises him in such a manner as to make the state even more oppressive, hoping thereby to
force the masses to revolt. Simoun has a few conspirators, such as the schoolmaster and a
Chinese merchant, Quiroga, who aid him in planning terroristic acts. In sum, Simoun has become
an agent provocateur on a grand scale.

Basilio, now a young man, has risen from poverty to become Captain Tiago’s charge. Close to
acquiring his medical degree, he is pledged to Julí, the beautiful daughter of Cabesang Tales, a
prosperous farmer whose land is taken away from him by the friars. Tales subsequently murders
his oppressors, turns to banditry, and becomes the scourge of the countryside.
In contrast to Simoun’s path of armed revolution, a group of university students—among them,
Isagani, Peláez, and Makaraig—push for the founding of an academy devoted to teaching
Castilian, in line with a decree from Madrid. Opposed even to such a benign reform, the friars
manage to co-opt the plan. Subsequently the students are accused of being behind flyers that call
for rebellion against the state. Most observers see the hand of the friars in this whole affair,
which results in the incarceration of the student leaders, even of Basilio, though he was not
involved, and the break-up between Isagani and the beauteous Paulita Gómez, who agrees to
marry the wealthy Peláez, much to the delight of Doña Victorina, who has favored him all along.

In the meantime, Tiago, addicted to opium, dies of a drug overdose while attended to by Father
Irene. A meager inheritance is all that is given to Basilio and all the incarcerated students are
soon released except for him. Julí approaches Father Camorra to request him to obtain Basilio’s
release. The friar attempts to rape her but she commits suicide rather than submit to his lustful
designs. Released from prison, with Julí dead and his prospects considerably dimmed, Basilio,
one of the few who knows who Simoun really is, reluctantly becomes a part of the latter’s plot.

The lavish wedding celebration is to be held at the former residence of Captain Tiago, purchased
by Don Timoteo Peláez, the bridegroom’s father. Simoun has mined the residence, so it will
blow up once a fancy lamp—packed with nitroglycerin, it is Simoun’s wedding gift—has its
wick lit. The resulting assassination of the social and political elite gathered at the feast will be
the signal for armed uprising. But Isagani, informed by Basilio of what will happen, rushes into
the house, snatches the lamp, and throws it into the river, and in the confusion is able to escape.

The planned uprising is aborted, and Simoun’s true identity is finally revealed, partly through a
note he leaves for Father Salví at the feast. Wounded, he eludes capture and manages to seek
refuge at Father Florentino’s residence. There, he commits suicide but not before revealing to the
priest what he has wrought. He leaves behind his case of jewels, which the good father throws
into the sea, with the injunction that the precious stones yield themselves only when the country
needs them for a “holy, sublime reason” (p. 328).