LES MISRABLES

The

author
Backgrounds
Main characters
Summary
Value
Theme
Classical songs in movie
My thoughts

Backgrounds

Hugo began planning a major no

vel about social misery and injustice
as early as the 1830s, but it took a fu
ll 17 years for his most popular wor
k, Les Misrables, to be realized and
finally published in 1862.

 Victor

Hugo was a French poet,

novelist, essayist, visual artist,
statesman, human rights activi
st .
In France, his literary reputatio
n rests primarily on his poems
and dramas and only secondar
ily on his novels.
He is sometimes identified as t
he greatest French poet. Outsi
de France, his best-known wor
ks are the novels Les Misrabl
es and Notre-Dame de Paris.

he

main characte

 Jean

Valjean
the prisoner.
Javert
the policeman.
Cosette
Fantines daughter.
Marius
Cosettes lover
Fantine
a woman cheated by a dissolute manage.
Thnardiers
the couple raise Cosette at first, Mariuss fathers lifesaver.
p onine
elder daughter,love Marius very much .

Jean

Valjean was convi

cted for stealing a loaf
of bread, he is punishe
d in prison for ninetee
n years. Rejected as for
mer convict, Bishop M
yriel turns his life arou
nd. He assumes a new
identity to pursue an h
onest life, becomes a f
actory owner and a ma
yor. He adopts and rais
es Fantine's daughter,
Cosette, and dies at an
old age.

 Javert

An

obsessive police i
nspector who contin
uously hunts, tracks
down, and loses Jean
Valjean. He goes
undercover behind t
he barricade, but is u
nmasked. Jean Valjea
n has the chance to k
ill Javert, but lets him
go. Later Javert allow
s Jean Valjean to esc
ape. Javert is in a sit
uation in which to ac
t lawfully is immoral.
His inner conflict lea
ds him to jumping in
to the River Seine.

Fantine
A beautiful girl abandoned by
her lover, she leaves her
daughter Cosette in the care of
the Thnardiers. She finds work
at the factory runned by Jean
Valjean, but is fired by a woman
because she is an unmarried
mother. To meet the demands
for money from the
Thnardiers, she sells her hair,
then her front teeth, and finally
turns to prostitution. Jean
Valjean learns of her situation
when Javert arrests her. She
dies before Jean Valjean is able
to reunite her with Cosette.

Cosette
The daughter of Fantine, sh
e is raised by Jean Val jean
after her mother dies.

For

the first few years she is

raised, she is used as a wor
ker and beaten by the Thn
ardiers. She falls in love wit
h Marius , and marries him
at the end of the novel.

Marius

An aristocrat who fell

out with his royalist gr
andfather after discov
ering his father was a
n officer under Napol
eon. He studies law, j
oins the revolutionary
ABC students and late
r falls in love with Cos
ette.

They

Thnardiers

take in Cosette in
her first years, mistreati
ng and abusing her. The
y end up losing the inn
and move to Paris. Thn
ardier is later the head
of a criminal gang calle
d the Patron-Minette. T
he family also live next
door to Marius, who rec
ognizes Thnardier as t
he man who saved his f
ather at Waterloo.

 p onine

The Thnardiers' elder daughter. S

he participates in her father's crim
es to obtain money. She is also in l
ove with Marius. At Marius' reques
t, she finds Cosette's address for hi
m and leads him to her. She dies at
the barricades when she reaches o
ut her hand to stop a soldier's bull
et heading for Marius: she is morta
lly wounded as the bullet goes thro
ugh her back and dies. Her final re
quest is that once she has passed,
Marius will kiss her on the forehea
d. Of course ,he does.

Summary

The novel basic plot is Jean Valjeans

pitiful life. He once is a poor
background worker, because the
incomes cant be enough for the family
members life, once upon a time , he
stole the bread and was arrested,
which makes him pass 19 years firm
bitter service life.

After the punishments , he uses an

alias Madland, works as the
entrepreneur, and is
pushed for mayor. But soon and
further because his exposing , he was
arrested again , after another escape ,
he rescues the poor female worker -Fantins daughter --Cosette. Then , he
and Cosette have the peaceful life .
When Cosette grows up , she marries
to a young man called Marius . At
last ,this old man dies at an old age
,quiet just like the angle .

The value
" Les Miserables " (1862) is the representat
ive work of Victor Hugo, as one of the famous
novels in the worldwide literature. It is the rep
resentative work of realism and romantic

The theme

This

story tells us about kind.

Hugo hopes the society becomes clear
and human.
All these stories have common that is th
e miserable life because of the persecut
ion of the upper class. In facts, Hugo wa
s raging of the present society.

Thank You !