More Characters and the Significance of Literacy

So, onto Books 3 to 6 where we begin to meet even more characters, including Fantine, Cosette and the mysterious Pere Madeleine (otherwise known as Jean Valjean’s alter ego).  The plot moves along at a good pace, Hugo is not getting into too many irrelevancies or digressions and the characters are nicely drawn. So far, I am enjoying this more than I expected, this is probably why I have ended up reading a couple of books before posting, but I want to post something before I get too ahead of myself here. This is quite a long post which I fear has gone too far into description rather than analysis, but this is my attempt to get back into literary analysis so I’m a little out of practise. 

 I love how Hugo describes Fantine’s beautiful physical appearance, innocence and modesty when we first see her, then we see how this is all gradually, tragically stripped away from in her; how easy this is to happen.  Theolomyes is portrayed as being a pretty worthless specimen, a thirty year-old student, an ‘ill-preserved rake, wrinkled and gap-toothed, with a bald patch...’ (Les Miserables edited by Denny, Penguin 1976, p125). He is the self-appointed leader of the group, so probably quite responsible for the ‘joke’ of leaving the women. Fantine loves him but he mixes her up with Favourite and leaves her alone with her child. In Fantine’s innocence and ignorance, he is able to use and discard her. 

What little power Fantine has over her fate is taken away from her, as she has no concept of financial matters she end up in debt she is unable to pay back. She tries to do the best for her daughter by paying the Thernadiers to look after her, not realising that they are using Cosette to blackmail her. Madame Victurnien finds out that she has a daughter out of wedlock and ensures that she is sacked from the factory where she is able to earn a living wage, and then her wages as a seamstress are cut when she is undercut. In Victurnien’s haste to pronounce a moral judgement on Fantine’s status as a single mother, she leaves Fantine pretty much no option other than to become a prostitute. Once Fantine sells her hair and teeth she has nothing left to sell and no other way to support herself and her daughter.  Hugo makes the important point that ‘Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution’, a sentiment that is still relevant today.

Javert is another wonderfully described character, and I can see how well he contrasts with Valjean and how he has become the person that he is through trying his hardest to escape the ignominy of being born in prison, the son of a convict and a fortune teller. Rather than making him more merciful, it has had the opposite effect and he has no mercy on Fantine. His rigid attitude is representative of the justice system as a whole, as Hugo points out when he arrests Fantine for putting attacking a man who put snow down her back:

Under present laws women of this class are wholly at the mercy of the police. The police can do with them what they like, punish them as they see fit and, if they choose, deprive them of those two sad possessions which they term their calling and their liberty. (p183).

Javert is blinded by his prejudice towards prostitutes and can only see that a prostitute has attacked a citizen (and landowner). He doesn’t need to ask Fantine what happened because he has already automatically blamed her and sentenced her to six months in prison, and there is nothing he can do about it because his word is law. It is only lucky for her that Madeleine intervenes, a man that she has hated and blamed for her plight since she sold her hair. Unfortunately, it makes Javert examine Madeleine more closely, and I am looking forward to finding out what happens between them as well as between Fantine and Madeleine.

   

The significance of literacy in my opinion is that it represents enlightenment and empowerment. With many of the characters so far, Hugo has made a point of telling the reader how literate they are what their relationship is with reading and books. Bienvenu opens the novel with his great love of books and learning. As he is the most enlightened character he not only reads books, he also writes them. When Valjean becomes the mysterious Madeleine we are told that he always has a book beside him when he is eating dinner.  On the other hand, Fantine can only write her name, she has to get someone to write letters to the Thernadiers about her daughter, this goes for her friend Margueritte, who teaches her poverty. Both women lack literacy and have little or no control over their situations. Javert hates reading – although he is describes as being ‘not wholly illiterate’ (p167). Although he is empowered by his job as a police officer, he is not enlightened and is described as being cold and judgemental. Madame Thernadier is literate but only reads historical romances (described as ‘vulgar’ and ‘silly’, p151), she has no love of books and has no intelligence, so although the books she reads briefly cause her to ‘adopt an attitude of romantic subservience towards her husband’ (ibid), she ultimately remains a spiteful ignorant woman. Madame Victurnien’s literacy is not mentioned, although she is presumably literate from the description of her background, like Javert she has no enlightenment. Finally, Tholomyes, who fancies himself a philosopher but from his speeches it is clear that he is not as intelligent as he believes himself to be – he does not read and study for enlightenment, merely for the power that it gives himself to impress people like the illiterate ‘working girls’.