Victor Hugo

 born in 1802 in the French town of Besançon

 leftist
 The Hunchback of Notre Dame
 Imaginative Realism
 Les Miserables is primarily a great humanitarian
work that encourages compassion and hope in the
face of adversity.
 The Miserable Ones
 1845-1862
 Historical novel
1830 July Revolution (Paris Uprising)
Setting: 1789-1832, France (Arras, Digne,
Montreuil-sur-mer, Montfermeil, Paris, and
Toulon)
 Jean Valjean  M. Thenardier
 Cosette  Mme. Thenardier
 Javert  Eponine
 Fantine
 Gavroche
 Marius
Pontmercy  Azelma
 M. Myriel
 M. Gillenormand  Champmathieu
 Col. Georges  Petit-Gervais
Pontmercy  Felix Tholomyes
 Enjolras
 Fauchelevent
 M. Myriel was assigned as bishop of Digne – holds
on to two little luxuries: a set of silverware and two
silver candlesticks.

 October of 1815, an ex-convict enters Digne

carrying his yellow passport.

 M. Myriel welcomes Valjean in his place, but then

leaves in the night with Myriel’s silverware.
 Police caught Valjean, but Myriel supports his claim
that it was a gift given to him.

 He takes a silver coin from a little boy named Petit

Gervais.

 1817. Felix Tholomyes and Fantine encounter.

 Fantine entrusts Cosette to the Thenardiers.

 Montreuil-sur-mer. M. Madeleine was appointed
mayor of the town.

 Javert has suspicions of the mayor’s identity,

especially when he witnessed how Madeleine
helped Fauchelevent.

 The illiterate Fantine works in Madeleine’s factory

and was caught having an illegitimate daughter
when she asked for assistance in writing a letter.
 Fantine resorts to selling her hair, her front teeth,
and finally becomes a prostitute to pay 100 francs to
the Thenardiers.

 A potential client harasses Fantine, fights back, but

gets arrested by Javert, sentencing her 6 month
imprisonment.

 Madeleine intervened in Javert’s decision and

offered Fantine and Cosette help.
 Fantine develops chronic chest ailment.

 Javert demands to be fired and confesses that he

thought Madeleine was Valjean until he identified a
person in the name of Champmathieu in the town of
Arras as Valjean.

 Valjean is faced with an agonizing decision to turn

himself in.
 Madeleine stops the trial and reveals his identity.

 Javert appears to capture Valjean. Valjean begs to

retrieve Cosette from the Thenardiers. Fantine dies
of shock.

 Valjean breaks free, returns home, and leaves all

his fortune to the poor and heads of Paris.
 1815. Battle of Waterloo. Georges Pontmercy
thought M. Thenardier saved his life.

 1823. Orion. Accident in Toulon.

 1823 in Monfermeil. Eponine, Azelma, Gavroche.

 Cosette was asked to fill a bucket in the forest; a
man came to help.

 Valjean pays Thenardiers 1500 francs for Cosette.

 They live in a tenement called Gorbeau House.

Valjean is known as the “beggar who gives alms.”
 Valjean and Cosette escaped a group of policemen
hunting them down; find themselves in a vast, dark
garden (Petit-Picpus convent).

 Meets Fauchelevant again.

 Monasticism (the practice of organizing secluded

religious sects such as convent and monastery)
leads only to social isolation and religious
fanaticism.
 Fauchelevent offers to help Valjean find work as the
convent’s associate gardener.

 Valjean pretends to be a corpse to be buried. Later,

Valjean pretends to be Fauchelevent’s brother,
Ultimus.
 Valjean’s near-burial in the coffin is a metaphor for the burial of his

criminal past and assumption of a new identity. For the third time in the novel,

Valjean resolves his problems by assuming a new identity, which means that

his old persona must die for his new one to begin. We have seen this

resurrection before, when Valjean falls off the Orion and fakes drowning

before resurfacing in Montfermeil. Here, a literal coffin is used to emphasize

the idea that the adoption of a new identity requires the death of the old one.
Each time Valjean seemingly dies and assumes a new identity, however, he

does more than simply repeat the same process. Each new identity puts more

distance between Valjean and his criminal past. In his first reincarnation,

Valjean discovers philanthropy and becomes Madeleine. When he rescues

Cosette, he discovers love and takes on yet another identity. Now that Valjean

has found genuine peace and seclusion, he sheds his previous identity and is

reincarnated as a truly happy gardener and father figure.

 Gavroche lives as a street urchin; Thenardiers live
as the Jondrettes.

 Marius lives with his maternal grandfather M.

Gillenormand.

 Marius visited his father and received a note

asking to help the Thenardiers in any way he can.
 Patron-Minette (Montparnasse, Claquesous, Babet, and
Gueulemer)

 Napoleon vs. Bourbons

 Courfeyrac introduces Marius to the Friends of ABC

(secret political society, mostly law students) which
aims for social change.

 Napoleonic democracy vs absolute democracy

Marius quits Friends of ABC, passed law, refuses
favor from family
 Marius sees Cosette. Initially calls her “Lanoire”
(meaning black) and her companion “Leblanc”
(meaning white).

 Marius discovers a handkerchief with letter U

stitched to it, so he began calling her Ursula.

 Valjean and Cosette moves out without a return

address.
 Eponine Jondrette and Marius.

 The Jondrettes recognize Leblanc and plan to kill

and rob him.

 Marius reports this to the police station.

 Valjean escapes.
 The narrator explains the causes and consequences of the 1830 July
Revolution in France. After Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the
monarchy tries to reassert the rights that it enjoyed before the French
Revolution of 1789. Since the post-1815 government has been hampered by
unsuccessful military campaigns and social injustice, the monarchy
mistakenly believes that it can slowly rescind the rights it granted in 1815.
When it attempts to do so, the government collapses, resulting in the July
Revolution of 1830.
 The new government, however, faces as many problems as the old one. The
new king, Louis-Philippe, tries to find a middle ground among the different
political factions but succeeds only in alienating all sides. His miscalculations
lead to another revolution in 1832. Led by Enjolras, student revolutionaries
begin to organize a massive political insurrection in the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine, a district of Paris.
 Marius continues to root for Cosette, so Eponine
tracks her down. Marius tries to pay Eponine 5
francs.

 Cosette thinks of the young man he sees in the

gardens and realizes Valjean is hiding her away
from this young man.

 Marius declares love for Cosette.

 Thenardiers plan revenge to Valjean, Eponine
hinders.

 Cosette and Marius.

 Valjeans plans to take Cosette to England. Marius

asks his grandfather for permission to marry
Cosette.

 Marius and Gavroche join the Friends of ABC.

 June 5, 1832 during the funeral procession of
General Lamarque, a popular defender of liberty
and the people.

 ‘Liberté ou la Mort’ (Liberty or Death)

 Students build a barricade around Corinth wine-

shop (surrounding the rue Saint-Martin and rue
Saint-Danis)

 A young fellow joined the group.

 Gavroche recognizes Javert and the group takes
him as a prisoner.

 Mad with grief and eager to die, Marius takes the

two pistols that Javert gives him earlier and heads
toward the center of Paris. He walks toward the
barricades like a man already dead.

 Mabeuf climbs over the barricade to raise the flag

once again, but the army shoots him dead.
 Enjolras decides that they will execute Javert ten
minutes before the barricade falls. The soldiers
attack the barricade and Marius shows up just in
time to save Courfeyrac and Gavroche. Marius
drives away the troops by threatening to blow up
the barricade.

 The mysterious young laborer, who is Eponine in

disguise, saves Marius’s life by throwing herself in
front of a soldier’s rifle.
 Gavroche runs through the streets with Marius’s
letter. Valjean intercepts the boy and says that he
will deliver the letter to Cosette himself.

 Valjean, dressed as a member of the National

Guard, he heads toward the barricade.
 Enjolras urged all the revolutionaries with wives
and children to return home

 Group voted on which five men to send away

 Valjean appears and offered his own uniform for

the disguise

 When the revolutionaries run low of ammunition,

Gavroche bravely scrambles over the barricade to
gather ammunition from dead bodies of soldiers.
 Enjolras orders Javert’s execution. Valjean
volunteers to do it.

 Enjolras orders retreat to the wine-shop. Marius is

shot. Valjean carries him to escape through the
sewer.

 Army shot Enjolras and everyone in the wine-shop.

 Valjean reaches a locked exit (river Seine);
Thenardiers asked for money to open the gate.

 Upon entering the banks of Seine, Javert was

waiting. Valjean turns himslef in but begs two favors:
to let him return Marius to his grandfather and see
Cosette for the last time.

 Javert, for the first time in his life, is rattled with

indecision.
 Marius makes full recovery after 6 months, unaware
that Valjean saved him.

 Marius asks Gillenormand permission to marry

Cosette. Grandfather was surprised of the 600,000
francs dowry Valjean is offering

 Valjean fakes an accident with his writing hand so

he won’t fake sign legal papers
 Valjean confesses his criminal past to Marius.

 Marius slowly pushes Valjean out of her life.

 Thenardiers disguised themselves as statemen and sold the

information about Valjeans whereabout, later on revealed his
real backstory

 Still thinking that Valjean was a thief, they discovered that it

was actually Valjean who saved him from the barricade

 The couple immediately visit Valjean, just in time before he

dies.