Preview

Les Miserables

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2369 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Les Miserables
le
Analysis of Les Miserable’s

By Victor Hugo

PLOT

The story beautifully begins with the miserable life of Jean Valjean. He was imprisoned for nineteen years for the reason of, he stole loaf of bread in wanting to feed his sister’s starving children. After receiving the parole, Valjean searched for a job. The society doesn’t accept him for he was a convicted. Fortunately, Valjean met Bishop Myriel. This Bishop let him stay in his house and gave him something to eat. Behind of his goodness, Valjean still stole silvers from him. Then the rangers caught him and brought him to the house of Bishop. Instead of madness, the Bishop helped Valjean and presented two lampstands as a gift and afterwards Valjean decided to live a new.

In order to be accepted in the society, Valjean changed his identity. He was known as Monsieur Madeleine owning two Factories in Paris. He became one of the richest people in his area. Fantine worked in Valjean’s factory. She was fired for some misconception and suddenly, became a prostitute to feed her daughter Cosette. Eventually, Fantine got ill. She still worked while she has high fever. One costumer forced her to do something, Fantine hit the man. In this scene, Javert the ranger inspector tries to arrest Fantine, she explained the reason why she hit the man but Javert rejected her explanation. Valjean came and quarrelled against Javert wanting Fantine to set free because of her condition. Valjean brought Fantine to the hospital. In the hospital, Fantine hallucinated seeing her daughter in nowhere. Valjean came. In Fantine’s last breath, she gave the authority to Valjean to take care of her daughter. Cosette became slave in Thenardiers house. Monsieur and Madame Thenardiers mistreated her. Luckily, Valjean came to save Cosette while Javert hunt him. Valjean sent Cosette in school. Years after, Cosette became pretty matured girl, Marius Pontmercy, the son of Georges Pontmercy, a colonel in Napoléon’s army, attracts to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    1. On page 311, for what is Valjean grateful to God? For allowing someone as innocent as Cosette to love him as much as she did…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jean Valjean Quotes

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jean Valjean represents change, cleverness, innovation, and a toughened peasant (before being mayor) whom society rejected due to his criminal history. He represents change because he used the silver that he stole/was given to become an honest business owner and mayor. His cleverness and innovation allowed him to do this. He invented a new way to make many things, and started a factory that employed many poor people. He was rejected in the city of D_______ by the mayor and the innkeeper. When he arrived in the other town, he didn’t show his passport, therefore giving him a blank slate with the town.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The beginning of the story introduces the characters, discussing their backgrounds and family history. The two men that participate in mortal combat were once friends, and now enemies due to jealousy, envy, and success. Jean de Carrouges was born into a family line of blood and violence, but from this blood "sprang a line of fierce warriors". Jean's rank of nobility started as a squire, but after returning from a six month French military expedition to Scotland, the only real prize he had to show was his new rank as a knight. Before he left on this expedition he set a quest to find a wife, and thats when he met and married an heiress named Marguerite. The young bride was well-bred, beautiful and loyal, but her only flaw was growing up "a traitor's daughter". Her father, Robert de Thibouville, was a Norman knight who was known for betraying the kings of France. This could…

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    les mis cosette

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One of the most obvious themes in this section is love. On page 123 it says, “Something new was entering his soul. Jean Valjean had never loved anything… When he saw Cosette, when he had taken her, carried her away, and rescued her, he felt his heart moved. All that he had of feeling and affection was aroused and vehemently attracted towards this child.” Throughout the book of Fantine, Valjean acts on his natural instinct to escape. He escapes from the prison, he leaves Myriel’s house, and he flees from Javert’s presence. It is the first time where he does something that is not natural to him. In the quote stated it says that he had never loved anything. Since Cosette is now in…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jean Valjean lived as mayor and helped better the lives of many people. His true test of character comes when an honest worker, Champmathieu, is wrongly accused of being the criminal, Jean Valjean. Valjean battles with himself about giving himself up as Jean Valjean for the freedom of an innocent man. Three convicts identify, so to speak, Champmathieu as Jean Valjean. Valjean thinks it over a long while weather it is worth it or not to come clean and save this man. Valjean goes to Champmathieu’s court hearing and sits, listening with a heavy heart until the closing arguments. Jean Valjean then stands up and tells the three convicts to “look this way.” He then admits to being the real Jean Valjean. “Do you not recognize me,” he asks. (116) Valjean continues to redeem himself and keep his promise to the bishop of being an honest man. He does this by sacrificing his freedom for that of an innocent…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Monsieur Villefort works as a public prosecutor in Paris in 1815. At this time period, Bonapart is on the rise, Monsieur Villefort’s job consists mostly of incarcerating those with Bonapartist political views. As he is at a dinner party with his soon to be wife and family in law, he recieves news that he has to see a young sailor who is going to be tried for delievering a package to the Isle that Bonapart is located on. The young man comes in and pleads his innocence, explaining that he only visited the island due to the fact that it was the dying wish of his late captain. The young sailor, Edmond Dantes, gives Villefort a letter which states information on Bonapart which mentions Villefort’s father, Noirtier.…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Moulin Rouge

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge presents a dilemma for viewers as this movie displays the consequences of mixing obligations with personal interests and values. We see this with Satine as she is caught between two worlds in her role as a courtesan of the Moulin Rouge and also as Christian’s lover. She is obliged by her duty as a courtesan to protect Zidler’s interests, yet she also wishes to embrace the Bohemian values of Christian, those values being beauty, freedom, truth and most importantly to Christian, love. Luhrmann effectively portrays the Duke as the realistic aspect of the two worlds Satine is caught between, as he is the chief investor of ‘Spectacular Spectacular’ and owner of the deeds of the Moulin Rouge. In order for Satine to realistically fulfill her dreams as an actress, she must first escape her fantasy of love with Christian.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Great Expectations

    • 5693 Words
    • 23 Pages

    9. Why did the first convict ask for a file? –He asked for a file so he could remove the iron on his 9. leg.…

    • 5693 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Les Miserables Flaws

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the film Les Miserables, Jean Valjean is a hero because he often sacrifices himself in order to be fair and to protect his loved ones. Valjean, a reformed convict, sacrifices himself and gives up his freedom after a long period of his life time hiding from Javert, because he would never let an injustice occur. Javert an inspector from the French police, has been trying to prove that Jean Valjean is a convict ever since the day he saw Valjean helped a man who was about to the crushed by wagon. He had a type of a flashback of Valjean back in prison. Javert was sure he was right,…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Moulin Rouge

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge adapts the ancient Greek Orpheus myth to the context of early 19th century France. The film celebrates Bohemian ideals through reshaping the archetypal story of The Orpheus Myth to illustrate the importance of love through music. Within the classical context, freedom is achieved through music and through love, both of which offer the individual emancipation from the confines of a materialistic and hierarchical society as shown by Baz Lurhmann in Moulin Rouge.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Both of them are relentless and kindness, but the opposite of obeying the law. Jean stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister's hungry children and was sentenced to five years in prison. While there, he tried to escape several times and the five years stretched to nineteen. He became bitter and filled with hatred. Finally he was released, but was given a yellow passport so that wherever he went, people would know he had been in prison. Because of this, he was turned away from every place he went to. Just when he had given up hope, he was directed to a kindly bishop's house, where he was welcomed with open arms. There the bishop challenged him to leave his old life behind and start a new life dedicated to God and to good.…

    • 283 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I agree with the statement, “In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo is trying to say that human nature is basically good”. Victor Hugo is doing this by having his book consist of many characters who symbolize human nature’s goodness within the story. This is because he creates goodness within the characters by making them be forgiving, thankful, become morally righteous, and possess good intentions towards helping others therefore, Hugo’s message is to tell people that human nature is good but society is what makes them sometimes posses a bad personality. Another way Hugo is saying that human nature is good is when he makes all the characters, which resemble human beings, forgive their antagonist, be compassionate, and become unselfish just like Jean Valjean and Javert did by both freeing each other. Human nature is not bad because in the book human beings do not let their id take complete control of their decision making instead they let their superego and ego take part in their decision making. Another reason why human nature is not bad is because people learn fear and hatred thus meaning that in the beginning they were good but toward the end they learned but not are bad just like some characters in the book. I agree with the statement, “In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo is trying to say that human nature is basically good”.…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    American lawyer and political leader, Robert Green Ingersoll, once said that “kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.” In book one, “Fantine,” in the novel Les Miserables, author Victor Hugo uses the helpless and beast-like character of Jean Valjean to demonstrate that when an individual, at his lowest point of being, is exposed to kindness, he may rise up and become virtuous, so that he may help others achieve this virtue in return. A helpless individual in the midst of a radically unequal society, Jean Valjean begins his journey without virtue and compassion, and until he meets a person who offers him the help and affection he requires, he struggles to find himself, since his previous persona is buried deep within the court system of the state. After spending nearly nineteen years in the galleys of Toulon, for a measly crime of stealing a mouthful of bread to feed him and his family, Jean Valjean is put on parole with a yellow passport, labeling him as a convict.…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, Jean Valjean is released from a French prison in the Galleys. He travels to a town and is rejected from any inn so he finds a bishop and he turns his life around. Years later he becomes M. Madeleine and becomes town mayor. He gives money and jobs and made the town a very prosperous town. He also promises Fantine that he will rescue her daughter, Cosette, from a cruel family that Fantine gave Cosette to so that Cosette could have a better life. Jean Valjean is an ex-convict who got 5 years for stealing bread for his family and then 14 years for trying to escape multiple times. Jail has changed Jean Valjean from a sweet humble man to a bitter, sinful, mean man.…

    • 524 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Les Miserable

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages

    * Jean Valjean embezzle some silverware from the Bishop. After the Bishop took him in.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics