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Les Misérables

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This article is about the original 1862 novel. For the musical theatre production, see Les Misérables (musical).
Les Misérables
Portrait of "Cosette" by Emile Bayard, from the original edition of Les Misérables (1862)
AuthorVictor Hugo
LanguageFrench
GenreNovel
PublisherA. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Ce. in Brussels
Publication date
1862
Publication placeFrance
Media typePrint

Les Misérables (translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims) (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty year period in the early 19th century that includes the Napoleonic wars and subsequent decades. Principally focusing on the struggles of the protagonist—ex-convict Jean Valjean—who seeks to redeem himself, the novel also examines the impact of Valjean's actions for the sake of social commentary. It examines the nature of good, evil, and the law, in a sweeping story that expounds upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, law, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Hugo was inspired by the real-life criminal/policeman François Eugène Vidocq, and split his personalities into the two main characters in his novel. Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, of which the most famous is the stage musical of the same name, commonly known as "Les Mis" or "Les Miz" (pronounced /leɪ mɪz/).

Plot summary

Main article: Plot of Les Misérables

Les Misérables contains a multitude of plots, but the thread that binds them together is the story of the ex-convict Jean Valjean, known in prison only by his prisoner number, 24601, who becomes a force for good in the world, but cannot escape his past. The novel is divided into five parts, each part divided into books, and each book divided into chapters. Each chapter is relatively short; usually no longer than a few pages. Nevertheless, the book in its entirety is quite lengthy by usual standards, well exceeding twelve hundred pages in unabridged editions. Within the borders of the novel's story arc, Hugo fills many pages with his thoughts on religion, politics, and society, including his three lengthy digressions, one being a discussion on enclosed religious orders, another being on argot, and most famously, his epic retelling of the Battle of Waterloo.

After nineteen years of imprisonment for stealing food for his starving family, the peasant Jean Valjean is released. However, he is required to carry a yellow ticket, which marks him as a convict. Rejected by innkeepers, who do not want to take in a convict, Valjean sleeps on the street. However, the benevolent Bishop Myriel takes him in and gives him shelter. In the night, he steals the bishop’s silverware and runs. He is caught, but the bishop rescues him by claiming that the silver was a gift and at that point gives him two candlesticks as well. The bishop then tells him he must become an honest man and must perform good deeds for others.

Six years later, Valjean has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor of his adopted town, having broken his parole and assumed the pseudonym of Monsieur Madeleine to avoid capture by Inspector Javert, who has been pursuing him. Fate takes an unfortunate turn when another man, mistakenly accused of being Valjean, is put on trial, forcing the real Valjean to reveal his true identity. At the same time, Valjean meets the dying Fantine, who has been fired from her job at his factory and has resorted to prostitution. She has a young daughter, Cosette, who lives with a corrupt innkeeper and his selfish, cruel wife. As Fantine dies, Valjean, seeing in Fantine similarities to his former life of hardship, promises her that he will take care of Cosette, despite imminent arrest by Javert. He pays off the innkeeper, Thénardier, to obtain Cosette, and flees with her to Paris. Once in Paris, they find shelter in a convent. Not allowed to search the convent, Javert is unable to find the pair.

Ten years later, as Cosette and Valjean are leaving the convent, angry students, led by Enjolras, are preparing a revolution on the eve of the Paris uprising on June 5–6, 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. They are also joined by the poor, including the young street urchin Gavroche. One of the students, Marius Pontmercy, who has become alienated from his family because of his liberal views, falls in love with Cosette, who has grown to be very beautiful. The Thénardiers, who have also moved to Paris, lead a gang of thieves to raid Valjean’s house while Marius is visiting. However, Thénardier’s daughter, Éponine, who is also in love with Marius, convinces the thieves to leave.

The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of Paris. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, joins them, not certain if he wants to protect Marius, or kill him. Éponine also joins to protect Marius, and ends up taking a bullet for him and dying happily in his arms. During the ensuing battle, Valjean saves Javert from being killed by the students and lets him go. Valjean carries off the injured Marius, but all others, including Enjolras and Gavroche, are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius' body on his shoulders. At the exit, he runs into Javert, whom he persuades to give him time to return Marius to his family. Javert grants this request and another, then realises that he is caught between his belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him, as he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert throws himself into the Seine. Marius and Cosette are soon married. Valjean loses his strength to live, since Cosette no longer needs him. Marius is convinced Valjean is of poor moral character and steers Cosette away from him. Marius learns of Valjean's good deeds too late and rushes to Valjean's house, where he lies dying. Valjean reveals his past to the pair, and in his final moments realises happiness at long last with his adopted daughter and son-in-law by his side. He expresses his love to them, and then dies.

Primary Characters

  • Jean Valjean (aka Monsieur Madeleine): A poor man who steals bread for his starving sister and nieces. He is convicted, and upon being released from prison nineteen years later, is given a yellow ticket which identifies him as an ex-convict. After having his life turned around by the Bishop, he destroys his ticket and assumes a new identity. He becomes a Mayor named M. Madeleine. He adopts and raises Fantine's daughter, Cosette. He dies at an old age.
  • Bishop Myriel (aka Monseigneur Bienvenue; Bishop of Digne): A kindly old priest who is promoted to bishop by a chance encounter with Napoleon. He convinces Valjean to change his ways, after Valjean steals some silver from him.
  • Javert: An obsessive police inspector who continuously hunts, tracks down, and loses Valjean. He goes undercover behind the barricade, but is unmasked. Valjean has the chance to kill him, but lets Javert go. Later Javert allows Valjean to escape. Unable to accept that a felon has shown him mercy, and that he in turn allowed that convict to go free, Javert commits suicide by jumping into the River Seine.
  • Fantine: A worker in Mayor Madeleine's factory, she is unjustly fired by a foreman. Since she has no husband and must care for her daughter, Cosette, she begins working as a prostitute. She pays the Thénardiers owners of an inn, to care for Cosette. She later dies of tuberculosis.
  • Eponine: Thenardiers' daughter, She is obsessed with Marius and extremly jealous of Cosette.
  • Cosette: The daughter of Fantine, she is raised by Jean Valjean after her mother dies. She falls in love with Marius Pontmercy, and marries him at the end of the novel.
  • Marius Pontmercy: One of the main characters of the novel. In the first part is a "noble boy", then he joins the revolutionary ABC students and falls in love with Cosette.
  • Thénardiers: An innkeeper and his wife. They raise Cosette in her first years.
  • Gavroche: Thenardiers' son and "Gamin de Paris", takes part in the revolution
  • Enjolras, leader of the revolutionary students.

Secondary Characters

  • Mademoiselle Baptistine - Bishop Myriel's sister. She loves and venerates her brother.
  • Madame Magloire - Domestic servant for the Bishop and his sister. She grumbles at the life of poverty the Bishop insists upon, and is fearful that he leaves the door open to strangers.
  • Sister Simplice - A nun who cares for Fantine on her sickbed.
  • Petit Gervais - A small boy who drops a coin. Valjean, lost in thought, puts his shoe over the coin, but doesn't hear the boy's protests. When he exits the reverie, and the boy is gone, he realizes what happened, and searches for the boy in vain.
  • Fauchelevent - Fauchlevent's life is saved by Valjean when Valjean is able to lift a carriage he is caught underneath. Fauchlevant later will return the favor by providing sanctuary for Valjean and Cosette at a convent, and by providing his name for Valjean's use.
  • Monsieur Gillenormand - Marius's grandfather. A Monarchist, he disagrees sharply with Marius on political issues, and they have several arguments. He attempts to keep Marius from being influenced by his father, an officer in Napoleon's army. While in perpetual conflict over ideas, he does illustrate his love for his grandson.
  • Mademoiselle Gillenormand - M. Gillenormand's daughter, she lives with her father.
  • Colonel Georges Pontmercy - Marius's father, and an officer in Napoleon's army. Wounded at Waterloo, Pontmercy erroneously believes his life is saved by M. Thénardier. He tells Marius of this debt.

Translations

English translations

At least six English translations of the novel exist, by:

  • Charles E. Wilbour. New York. June 1862. The first American translation, published only months after the French edition of the novel was released.
  • Lascelles Wraxall. London. October, 1862. The first British translation.
  • Translator Unknown. Richmond, Virginia. 1863. Published by West and Johnston publishers.[1]
  • Isabel F. Hapgood. Published 1887, this translation is available at Project Gutenberg.
  • Norman Denny. Penguin Classics. 1976. This edition is sometimes erroneously considered to be unabridged; however, in Norman Denny's introduction, he states that several of the longer passages that did not directly relate to the plot were removed. Paperback ISBN 0-140-44430-0
  • Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee. Signet Classics. March 3, 1987. An unabridged edition based on the Wilbour translation with modernization of language, generally considered the most readable of current translations. Paperback ISBN 0-451-52526-4

Arabic translations

Several translations of the novel exist, notably by:

  • Munir al-Baalbaki — both abridged and unabridged copies (the latter in five volumes) exist. They were published for the first time in 1955 in Beirut, Lebanon.
  • Hafiz Ibrahim — an abridged translation which appears in two small volumes.

Adaptations

Film adaptations

Adaptations in other media

In 1935, Solomon Cleaver published a short English-language adaptation titled Jean Val Jean. It remains a popular children's version of Les Misérables.

In 1937, Orson Welles wrote, produced and directed a seven-part series for radio. Welles himself narrated the story and played the part of Valjean. The series co-starred Martin Gabel as Inspector Javert, and featured his then wife Virginia Nicholson Welles as the older Cosette, with Gwen Davies (young Cosette), Alice Frost (Fantine), William Johnstone (Marius), and in other roles, Frank Readick, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, and Everett Sloane, many of whom would perform for The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

In 1980, a musical (see Les Misérables (musical)) opened in Paris which has gone on to become one of the most successful musicals in history. It was written by the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and the librettist Alain Boublil.

A versus fighting game, Arm Joe, was made in 1998 by a Japanese game developer known as Takase. The name is pronounced Āmu Jō, which is a pun on the title of Les Misérables in Japanese ("Ā, Mujō," meaning "Oh, Cruelty"). The game incorporates the major characters as they appear in the musical, namely Jean Valjean, Enjolras, Marius, Cosette, Eponine, Thénardier, and Javert—as well as a policeman, a robotic clone called Robojean, an embodiment of Judgement, and a stuffed rabbit.[2]

In 2001, BBC Radio 4 produced a 25-part radio dramatisation, with a cast of 27 featuring Joss Ackland narrating, Roger Allam as Valjean, and David Schofield as Javert. (Allam also originated the role of Javert in the English language version of the Boublil/Schönberg musical.)

In May 2001, François Cérésa published Cosette, or the Time of Illusions, a sequel to Les Misérables. Victor Hugo's descendants attempted to have the book banned, condemning it as a money-seeking enterprise and an attack on Hugo's work (more subjective offences aside, it is undeniable that Ceresa retconned a key scene in Hugo's novel to avoid the death of a character he wanted to use in his novel). Victor Hugo's heirs and the Société des gens de lettres lost the first trial [3] but won on appeal [4].

The plotline of Terry Pratchett's 28th Discworld novel, Night Watch, is inspired by uprisings such as the one in Les Misérables.

There has also been an Asian adaptation from a school located in Hong Kong. King George V School (King George the Fifth School) was the first ever school to perform 'Les Misérables' in Asia.

A Les Misérables adventure game [5] is due for release Christmas 2007.

In January 2007, Nippon Animation released a "Les Miserables" anime series (consisting of 52 episodes) under the title "Les Misérables: Shōjo Cosette," airing Mondays at 7:30. [6]

A North Korean animated series, of about 26 episodes, was made in the 1990s. It was faithful to the novel in the main narrative sense, though at times the story strays to dark and more adult oriented themes. The series focused more on Cosette than many other adaptations. It was produced by SEK Studio. [citation needed] [7]

Cultural references

24601

Main article: 24601 (number)

Jean Valjean's convict number was 24601. Popular myth states that the number was chosen by Hugo because it was the date that he was conceived (24th of June, 1801). It is only known that he was born on Feb 26, 1802, approximately 8 months later. As an homage to the novel, the number often appears in popular culture. Many characters, most notably Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons, Oscar Bluth from Arrested Development, and the player character from the computer game System Shock, have the prisoner number 24601. The number has been referenced in many other instances.

Musical Adaptation

The musical adaptation has also made a lasting impact on popular culture because of its immense popularity. Les Miserables the musical is the third [8] longest running show in Broadway history. Episodes from the television shows South Park, Family Guy, Scrubs, Animaniacs, Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld have all parodied the musical.

Other

  • The Australian alt-rock band TISM has a member called Les Miserables. 'Les' is pronounced as though his first name is 'Leslie'.
  • The Californian band Ozma has a song titled "Eponine" that appears in 2 of their albums: Spending Time on the Borderline and Pasadena.

Trivia

  • Many dates of Valjean's life coincide, almost exactly, with the dates in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Valjean's 19-year imprisonment is an example, it matches with the rise and fall of Napoleon (from 1796 to 1815); also Valjean's escape attempts are in the same years as some of Napoleon's more important battles. Both are born in 1769, but Napoleon dies already in 1821, Valjean only in 1833. 1821 on the other hand, is the year the Bishop of Digne died.
  • There is a story that Victor Hugo, wanting to know how sales of the novel were going, sent his publisher a telegram containing just one character: "?" He received a fitting response, also by telegram: "!" [9]

References

  1. ^ Pickett and His Men. La Salle Corbell Pickett. 1899. p. 358.
  2. ^ Four Years under Marse Robert. Robert Stiles. 1904. P. 252
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