Les Misérables Summary and Complete Study Guide

**Jean Valjean**: Nineteen years in prison for stealing bread transforms him from desperate into something harder and angrier. The bishop's mercy—giving him silver candlesticks after Valjean robbed him—cracks open possibility for change. Valjean's whole arc is proving people can transform if given a chance. But transformation isn't linear. He constantly struggles with his past identity versus who he wants to be. When he reveals himself in court to save a man wrongly identified as him, that's heroism—he sacrifices his freedom for a stranger. His love for Cosette redeems him fully. He's a Christ figure but also genuinely human: afraid, struggling, sometimes failing. Hugo shows that saints aren't born; they're made through choosing good over and over despite circumstances. **Javert**: The antagonist who's not exactly a villain. He genuinely believes law equals morality. Born in prison to criminal parents, he rejected that legacy by embodying law enforcement. To him, Valjean broke parole and must be punished—mercy and context don't matter, only rules. His suicide after Valjean saves his life isn't weakness; his entire worldview shattered. If a criminal can be good and show mercy, if law and justice aren't the same, then what's Javert been doing his whole life? Rather than rebuild his understanding, he chooses death. Tragic because he's trapped by rigid thinking. Hugo sympathizes with him while condemning the inflexibility. **Fantine**: Abandoned by her lover with a child, forced to leave Cosette with the Thénardiers who bleed her dry. She loses her factory job when her "immorality" is discovered. She sells her hair, then her teeth, then her body—each step more desperate. Her descent shows how society punishes women for men's failures. She dies thinking she failed Cosette, but Valjean's promise to care for Cosette gives meaning to her suffering. She represents all the invisible women destroyed by a system that offers them no options. **Marius**: The idealistic revolutionary who's also kind of useless. He loves Cosette with all the passion of youth but abandons Valjean when he learns his past. Only when it's too late does he realize Valjean saved his life, cared for Cosette perfectly, and deserved respect. His political idealism is beautiful but ineffective—the rebellion fails. Hugo wrote this after failed 1848 revolutions, knowing idealism without strategy doesn't win. Marius survives but many don't, showing revolution's cost.

**Redemption is Possible**: The whole book hinges on this. Valjean proves people aren't permanently defined by their worst moments. Society wants to mark criminals forever (parole papers, prejudice). Hugo argues this is wrong—people can change fundamentally if shown mercy. The bishop's gift of candlesticks might be fiction's most important act of grace. It doesn't fix everything instantly, but it makes transformation possible. This contradicted 19th-century thinking about criminal nature being fixed.