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Representations
The System
Famous Crime
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"'How dark my life
has become!' he said to himself. 'Young girls pass before me. Only before
they were angels; now they are ghouls.'"
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Les Misérables, Marius, Book 8
In Les Miserables,
Hugo describes the underclasses as
being the "third sub stage" of society. However, he didn't end with that.
Hugo segregated the underclasses into his own substages; these
took the form of four different types of characters: gamin
(and gamine), convicts,
prostitutes and criminals
at large. He has varying views of sympathy for these subclasses
as well, which are listed below under the character that stands as their
best representative:
- Sympathetic
- Jean
Valjean: Reform of convicts
- Gavroche:
Innate goodness of children/gamin
- Fantine:
Pureness of women
- Unsympathetic
- Thenardier
and his gang:
Slyness and treachery of scoundrels
Why did he represent
different subgroups this way? This is a good question. Why would Hugo
be sympathetic to only three of the four classes? We can see a visible
difference in his treatment of the classes through final scenes of each
character as quoted below:
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Fantine
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Thenardier
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| "What
did he say? What could this condemned man say to this dead woman?
What were these words? They were heard by none on earth. Did the dead
woman hear them? There are touching illusions which perhaps are sublime
realities. One thing is beyond doubt; Sister Simplice, the only witness
of what passed, has often related that, at the moment when Jean Valjean
whispered in the ear of Fantine, she distinctly saw an ineffable smile
beam on those pale lips and in those dim eyes, full of the wonder
of the tomb" (Hugo 256). |
"Let
us finish with this man at once. Two days after the events which we
are now relating, he left, through Marius's care, for America, under
a false name, with his daughter Azelma, provided with a draft upon
New York for twenty thousand francs. Thenardier, the moral misery
of Thenardier, the broken down bourgeoisie, was irremediable; he was
in America what he had been in Europe. The touch of a wicked man is
often enough to corrupt a good deed and to make an evil result spring
from it. With Marius' money, Thenardier became a slaver" (Hugo
1250). |
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An image of
M. Thenaud from Les Misérables
on-line text edition; first published in 1862; by Thomas Y.
Cromwell & Co. This is a representation of Thenardier from the
end of the novel. Note the sharpness of his features, his baldness,
and the narrow darkness of his eyes. His body language is cordial
enough, but one can tell his intent and character clearly by the
detail of his face: it is crafty and miserly.
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Clearly, we
can see that Thenardier's exit from the novel is marked with much
more spite than that of Fantine. What makes Thenardier so much more
different than Fantine, Gavroche or Jean Valjean? Perhaps it is
his greed, or his lack of innocence. Then again, it could be the
fact that Thenardier has experienced some of Hugo's "light" or education
and decided to use it for his own desires. His canniness makes him
the trickiest character in the book. However, there is much to be
said about his condition, because even if he is a man of "evil deeds,"
he survives until the end. And not only does he survive until the
end, but he flourishes. Perhaps it is the meager education which
sustains him throughout the novel. This point seems to be both his
key to survival and the downfall of his morals. It is the point
which separates him from all other lower class characters in the
novel, and makes him "a mixture of vulture and pettifogger, the
man of tricks making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey
making the man of tricks horrible" (Hugo
645).
It is interesting
to note that while Hugo bestows Thenardier with some education,
he also makes this character the most villainous of the novel. While
one feels sorry for Eponine, Gavroche, Valjean, Fantine, and the
other poor denizens of Les Miserables, they cannot help but feel
intrigued by the terrible little ingenuity that is Thenardier. Hugo
is too harsh with him at some points, because if it weren't for
his intelligence, Thenardier and his family would never have survived
as long as they did. If he was evil, it was due to circumstance.
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This
page was created by M. Childs
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