Satisfied that there was no robbery, the police drop the accusation, causing Valjean to seriously consider the bishop's recommendation. The book opens on Montreuil-sur-Mer, where a laborer by the name of Madeleine has set up several jet factories. His products are cheaper, since he has found a way to make them more simply and faster, and in no time he becomes a millionaire--or rather he should be a millionaire, but he spends most of his fortune helping Montreuil: setting up two schools, whose teachers he pays out of his own pocket; endowing beds at the hospital; and so on.
This gets him a lot of attention, and the king appoints him mayor twice and nominates him as a Chevalier Knight of the Legion of Honor. He turns down both the first appointment and the nomination, though he accepts and becomes mayor the second time. In , Fantine comes and is employed at his women's factory, only to be dismissed some time later when word reaches the foreman that she has a child out of wedlock. Being unaware of this, Madeleine is unable to do anything about it.
Fantine enters a decline, which she blames on Madeleine, and finally comes to his attention in , when she assaults a citizen named Bamatabois and is arrested by Inspector Javert. He releases her--to Javert's chagrin--and puts her up at the hospital.
The nuns tell him--but not her--that she's dying, so he begins working on bringing her daughter Cosette to Montreuil. To his surprise, Javert demands to be dismissed disgracefully--for denouncing him as Jean Valjean.
He orders Javert to remain at his post, but learns where and when the trial is to be held. Madeleine--who in fact is truly Valjean, like Javert suspected--promptly has a crisis: should he remain to help the needy of Montreuil, thereby allowing an innocent man to die in his place, or should he save the old man by confessing his true identity, thereby condemning the town that is mostly dependent on him? In the end he decides to go to Champmathieu's trial in Arras, and confesses to being the convict Jean Valjean.
No one believes him at first, especially since Javert is not around being back in Montreuil , so he's able to walk out of the courthouse freely and with the determination to fulfill Fantine's last wish. However, he's barely arrived by Fantine's bedside when Javert wrathfully confronts him.
She wakes up during their argument and is carelessly informed by Javert that her benefactor is none other than a convict and her daughter isn't here like he promised--she dies, a combination of shock and her illness which isn't named but is strongly implied to be tuberculosis.
Javert arrests Valjean and throws him in jail. Valjean escapes a day later. He retrieves the candlesticks from his house and his savings from Lafitte's bank in Paris, then buries them near Chelles on the road to Montfermeil.
Returning to Paris, he's arrested again just as he's boarding the coach to Montfermeil. This time he's sentenced to death, since he's also falsely believed to be part of a band of highwaymen, but at the last minute an intervention from the king sentences him to hard labor for life instead.
He returns to Toulon about eight years after he was paroled, this time as prisoner While aboard the boat Orion, he asks to be freed so he can help a man whose life is in danger.
In the process of returning from doing so, he slips and falls into the ocean. Everyone takes him for dead, but they never find a body for the very good reason that the body is still alive--he swam to safety. Although Hugo doesn't linger as long over this moral crisis, the issue is the same: if Valjean does nothing the easy thing to do , then all his problems are over. Instead, though, he chooses to do the hard thing and take action.
Let this be a lesson to all of us. For much of this book, it looks as though Jean Valjean is incapable of hurting or even thinking poorly of anyone. But after he adopts the young Cosette as his own daughter, Valjean develops a jealous and protective attachment to her. The first time he realizes that she has an admirer Marius , for example, Valjean realizes that "He who had thought himself no longer capable of any malice now felt the return of an old, wild savagery, a stirring in the depths of a nature that once had harboured much wrath" 4.
And from what we've heard about Valjean's strength in this book, it doesn't sound like Marius wants to cross him. But this Grizzly Dad instinct also leads Valjean to make the ultimate sacrifice for his adopted daughter's sake.
When Cosette eventually marries Marius, Valjean feels that he must tell Marius the truth about his Valjean's previous life as a convict and prisoner. He knows that this confession will take Cosette away from him forever, but he makes this final sacrifice in order for Cosette to be completely free of the shadow hanging over his life. The repercussions of the decision eventually kills Valjean. In the ends, though he dies knowing that he has fulfilled his promise to God.
He has vowed to be a good man until the day he dies, and he has done just that. Okay, we admit it. After the first part of the book, Valjean is … well, kind of boring. He can be reliably counted on to do the right thing; he always acts with love and mercy; and he's generally the kind of flawless paragon who, frankly, is not that interesting to read about.
Especially if he's played by Sacha Baron-Cohen. There's a reason for that. In creating Valjean, Hugo has created a character who embodies the absolute best that humanity can be: merciful, patient, kind, loving, both father and mother, and absolutely opposed to the rigid, blind, narrow-minded justice that Javert represents.
In that way, Valjean reminds us a little of that other paragon of humanity—the big J. That's Jesus, for those of you not up on the latest lingo. We're not exactly saying that Valjean is a Christ figure, but we're not not saying it, either. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources.
Study Guide. By Victor Hugo. Previous Next. So how does our unconventional hero go from sinner to saint? Let's find out. This ability to change makes him a universal symbol of hope—if he can learn love and charity after suffering so much injustice, anyone can. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Important Quotes Explained. Characters Jean Valjean.
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