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lesmisscraper · 4 months

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Valjean and Cosette's small talk, returning from the well in the forest. Volume 2, Book 3, Chapter 7.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday!

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ueinra · 9 months

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When they entered, the Thénardier said to them in a grumbling tone which was full of adoration, “Ah! there you are, you children!” Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their hair, tying their ribbons afresh, and then releasing them with that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she exclaimed, “What frights they are!”

— Les Misérables, II.III.VIII Illustrated by Jacques Pecnard (Hachette Editions, 1956)

#les miserables #les mis #madame thenardier #eponine #azelma #thenardier Sisters #Pecnard illustrations #illustration

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expired-applejuice · 9 months

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Based on:

Dark paradise by Lana Del Rey

Grantaire takes the bullets.

Enjolras pretends to be shot but he was spared. No words were spoken. None could be. Grantaire was choking on his own blood, while Enjolras was trying to keep his sobs quiet. Still they had a conversation. Grantaire smiled, holding Enjolras hand. Enjolras kissed his head while squeezing his hand tightly. He felt useless as Grantaire slowly died in pain.

When the women came to clean, one, who resembled Grantire, found him still clinging on his hand whispering a tearful apology. She too started to weep and helped the young leader up, pulling him into a silent hug. Enjolras apologized for getting blood on her dress, but she said not to mention it.

Days later Marius found the leader in the abandoned Cafe setting in a chair. The place was empty besides the furniture and two school boys. Marius sat across from him. He took note of Enjolras's bloodshot eyes, and his tear stained face. He held a tight grip on his handkerchief as he stared off into the room. He no longer wore his red coat, nor was his hair at his shoulders. No, he wore a black trench coat that was buttoned, with his hair pulled back into a low ponytail.

Marius looked no better with his bullet wound, broken bones, and shattered heart. Cosette, who took care of him, said he had gain some color back but was still awfully pale. His hair seemed to darkened, and he felt like he aged 20 years. He wasn't sure if he was alive without a soul, or just lost.

"What are we to do now?" Enjolras's weak voice broke Marius from his thoughts. He looked back at the blonde, who was still staring into space.

"I'm not sure, brother," Marius answered as they fell back into their silence.

After a sad sigh, Marius turned to the door. He haft expected their friends to walking into the door laughing. He waited for it, but they never came.

Enjolras found that he missed their laugher the most. The roar of it after one of Combeferre's remarks. The not so hidden chuckles when Bossuet trips. The gleeful victory "haha"s when Bahorel or Grantaire won a sparing match. The sneaky snickers that accured when a prank was being played. Their smiles. Their voices. Their presence. Them.

Feuilly always worked hard. Harder than any other in Paris. Joly was so compassionate and helpful to everyone. Jehan Prouvaire was simply a bright star that always helped them get through rough patches. Bahorel would always have your back in the best and worse way. Courfeyrac could influence anyone to do anything, but was still respectable. Combeferre, with his smarts could outwit a sly fox. Bossuet could give some of the best hugs. Grantaire, as much as he hid it, would have done anything for the group. Oh and how could he forget Gavroche? The little guy had more spirit in him than any of them. And poor Eponine, she was tougher than any of the national guards' men.

Enjolras spent so much time on the revolution that he had no idea who or what he was without his friends and movement. Really he didn't want to remember who he was, because it wasn't. It was not him. Not anymore.

"Their funeral is tomorrow," Marius reminded him still looking at the door.

Enjolras finally pulled his eyes towards Marius, "Yeah. Musichetta promised to help cook the food."

"That's nice."

"Yes, and Montparnasse promised to help Bury them."

"I'm thankful for him," Marius looked at him, "How's Grantaire's sister?"

Enjolras looked down at the table, "She saying it wasn't my fault. I'm just glad she agreed to move in with me, you know? With out Grantaire she probably wouldn't be able to make rent."

Marius nodded.

A few months later, Enjolras walked to the graveyard. He said hi to each of his friends, and even Javert, placing a flower on each stone. He stopped at Grantaire, sitting by his headstone in the snow. The blonde, who wore a green heavy coat, pulled out a bottle of wine and placed it by his stone.

"Marius' wedding is today," He said out loud, "I just got back from the tailors. I'm honored to be his best man."

The wind blew into his face making a roar in his ears. It was freezing, but Enjolras didn't leave, "We've helped each other a lot in these past few months, Marius, your sister, Musichetta, Montparnasse, and I. Talked a lot about old times. It's been hard."

Snow started to float softly down around him. It was beautiful and peaceful. "People say we should move on, past the revolution, love, and friendship. They tell us to forget the songs and memories."

Enjolras laid down in the snow, feeling as numb as his legs. He looked at the sky, "Sometimes I close my eyes, you lot are still here. You're drinking your wine. Courf' and 'ferre are talking about something Courfeyrac said to get Combeferre heated up. Joly and Bossuet are talking about Bossuet's soup he made for him. Jehan, Feuilly and Bahorel are singing a song. And 'Poni and Gavroche are happy. I feel save in this place behind my close eyes."

"That's when it scares me. It scares me because when I go to join you one day, will I see you? Will I be punished for causing this to happen? Will you guys want to see me?" Tears fell from the corners of his eyes making his face colder.

He closed his eyes and he was still there, everything was the same. The only difference was Grantaire laying beside him, holding his hand, "Red, you say the stupidest things. We're waiting for you guys."

"Are you really here?"

Grantaire smiled sadly, "I love you Apollo."

Enjolras opened his eyes and he was alone.

"I love you too, Icarus."

#grantaire #enjolras #les amis de l'abc #exr #enjolras x grantaire #enjoltaire #e x r #rxe #combeferre #courfeyrac #bahorel #bossuet #eponine thenardier #marius pontmercy #joly #jehan prouvaire #feuilly #Grantaire's sister #les miserables

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androgynous-bhajipav · 9 months

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writeyourletters-inthesand · 1 year

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saw the les mis tour and?? they literally .

#raf rambles :)#choices were made.#the marius is so fucking cute i want to see it again just for him. so bumbling and gentle and his voice was like. warm butter #and the eponine!!!! the fantine!!!!!!! so so talented omfg #i swear i had a point in making this post. i prommy .#it's this:#they queercoded the fucking thenardiers???#which like. fun ''villain'' types i guess it's just an occupational hazard esp on stage #but. to have thenardier at the end of beggars at the feast like 'this ones a queer... but i try that too' was like. so out of pocket #like diversity win! this con artist and his abusive wife are mlm/wlw!! slayy sisters!!#anyway. i love that marius. mr pontmercy my sweetheart my dearest darlingest boy. mr gabriel lee rodriguez i hope u know . somehow #also gavroches death was fucking DEVASTATIMNG. i GASPED ALOUD. the way he got up onto the barricade silhouetted against the backlight and #then was only able to lift his fist mirroring his lil spirit and also reflecting enjolras' hand raised to support him...#like two sides of a mirror. one fist (of a child) raised in defiance. in opposition. the other (of a warrior) raised in defense.#out of fear and adrenaline. love and care for a child of an affluent broken society #a reflection of himself .#im okay! im fine #i also spent the entire intermission teaching my mum to say enjolras bc she thought he was Good Stuff and she still refuses to say it #whatever.#les mis

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mycurrentobsessionis · 28 days

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I think "On My Own," which is admittedly very sad on its own, is so much more tragic when you realize that the "him" she's singing about isn't really Marius. Instead, Eponine has built up this savior in her head that's going to come save her from her awful life and projected that role onto the first man to show her kindness. Which is even sadder still when you consider what kindness Marius does show her is impersonal and based on the debt he believes he owes her father.

In a way, it feels less like a song about unrequited love and more like a child grieving the loss of her last shred of innocence -- the hope that she would be rescued like in a fairytale. And why shouldn't she maintain this fantasy? After all, she must remember the Christmas eve long ago when Valjean arrived at her family's inn and bought Cosette an expensive doll (one which she and her sister had also longed for), left coins in her shoe (Cosette had held out hope that she too would get a coin, though the Thenardiers never planned to give her one), and spirited her away. Why shouldn't that happen for her too?

#les mis #eponine #cosette

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very-serendipitous · 11 months

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Les Miserables is, at it's very core, a love story.

Sure there's Cosette and Marius but there are so many more stories of love being told with theirs.

Jean Valjean loved his sister and her child so much, he risked his life and freedom to feed them. Then risked it again and again trying to get back to them.

The bishop Myriel loved humanity so much he gave up every penny he could for his people. He gave up his big house to use for hospital beds. He risked his safety to show Jean love. He gave him everything he could to show him the good in the world because Myriel had so much love and compassion for people. He didn't try to convince Jean to stay. He knew he needed his freedom to become a better man.

Fantine loved her child so much that she gave away pieces of herself (hair, teeth, comfort, safety) to keep her alive.

Jean turned his entire life into protecting Cosette when he couldn't save Fantine. That's love.

Even Thenardier's love of himself, fame, money, & power and Javerts love of the law count for something.

Gavroche cared for his younger brothers and for the Amis de l'abc. His died for them and for freedom and for his love of tomfoolery.

Eponine loved Marius enough to give him Cosette's letter, knowing that that piece of paper meant more to him than she did. She died protecting him. It's a tragic, one-sided, unhealthy love but it's still love.

And Grantaire??? He is described as a man who believed in nothing. He didn't believe in the revolution, he believed in Enjolras. He stumbled out of a drunken slumber to die hand-in-hand with Enjolras. He died for the revolution, he died for his friends, and he died for Enjolras.

All of the barricade boys did, really. They loved the future they could see for France. They loved hope. They loved the future generations. That's what revolution is. Loving a future that isn't yet visible and doing all that you can to care for and create that dream.

Les mis is a love story. From the ugliest, most rotten forms of love to the most pure and beautiful.

#im just really emotional #les mis #les mierables #every few months i hyperfocus on this fucking book

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bobcatmoran · 10 months

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There's a new stage adaptation of Les Mis going on right now in Japan!

Official website: http://www.lesmise-stage.com/

Official twitter: https://twitter.com/LesMise_stage

I'm not even going to try to translate cast names, because name kanji are HARD, but here's the character names in this cast rundown, left-to-right:

Top row: Jean Valjean, Cosette, Thenardier, Fantine, Enjolras, Government Soldier 2nd row: Eponine, Marius, Little Cosette, Mme Thenardier, Combeferre (with blue scarf), Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Bahorel, Feuilly, Lesgles, Joly, Jean[ne Prouvaire?] 3rd row: Government Soldier, Government Soldier, Gavroche, Gavroche's gang, Gavroche's gang, Gavroche's gang, Gavroche's gang, Gavroche's gang, Sister [Simplice?], Factory Manager, Magloire (yes she's a nun) 4th row: [Patron] Minette Boss, Montparnasse, Gueulemer, Babet, [five women in a row whose name is a slur for Romani people], Fairy (idek) big pics at bottom: Javert, Bishop Myriel

#les miserables #レ・ミゼラブル

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syrupsyche · 8 months

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Instead of working on the actual fic, I'm going to be sharing headcanons on my canon era Enjsette siblings au. I would probably mention some parts of it in the fic(s) I'll be sharing but if they never see the light of day, here are some of them! Shoutout to @pumpkinspice-prouvaire for inspiring this post <3

Fantine absolutely adored getting matching EVERYTHING for her kids: that goes for their names (Eugène and Euphrasie), their outfits, and even their hairstyles. She likes to match her hairstyles with them as well :')

Speaking of hair, since Enjolras has the same hair as her, she lets it grow out so that she can comb and style it. He may be 3 years old but he sure has a ton of hair

When they get placed with the Thenardiers, just as how Mme. Thenardier was Cosette's main tormentor, M. Thenardier would be Enjolras'

Other than the canonical heavy labour Cosette had to do, Enjolras would be sent out to pickpocket from the inn's customers and the rest of the town's inhabitants as well

Whenever Enjolras got caught, Thenardier would put on a big act and punish him in front of whoever was the victim ("My sincerest apologies, good monsieur/madame! He must have gotten his nastiness from his good-for-nothing mother.") before taking him away and just punishing him once more for getting caught

(And I'm not saying this is where Enj would get his immensely deep-rooted sense of injustice from but im NOT not saying that either :))

Cosette and Enjolras would try to take the brunt of the punishments for each other but that just became getting twice the punishment. Eventually, they learnt to just rely and comfort each other afterwards

When Valjean comes to find them, he buys Catherine for Cosette and a toy soldier for Enjolras. He named him Jacques.

Enjolras took longer than Cosette to warm up to Valjean (M. Thenardier was his tormentor after all, so his trust in male authority figures was already low), but eventually grew to trust him once his sister did

Enjolras especially loved hearing Valjean read to him. Valjean read the usual children's books and fairytales but when Enjolras began begging for more, he just gave up and started reading anything he could get his hands on: history, philosophy, etc. (which is why Enjolras turned out Like That)

When they move to the convent, while Cosette went to school, Enjolras stayed in the hut and continued being taught by Valjean (and Fauchelevent!) While Cosette was intended to become a nun, Enjolras was to take over as the convent gardener

Cosette would run up to the hut and chat with Enjolras whenever it was playtime- they would exchange whatever they had learnt during the day

Slowly, Enjolras got his hands on more and more radical books, teaching himself about the current political climate of France and devoting all his time to reading and (attempting to) write his own essays

Eventually, when the family left the convent, it was partially to allow Enjolras to pursue his new-found interest in politics as well as the canonical reason of letting Cosette explore society.

Due to their difference in interests, Enjolras and Cosette grew apart, though all 3 family members clearly still cared for one another deeply

Understanding the dangers of dabbling in politics, he decided to go by a moniker in order to keep his private family away from his public affairs. Thus, Enjolras was born.

This is where my fics begin to pick up from so I guess no more spoilers (??) Hope this made some bit of sense or at the very least, the drawings were enjoyable! :D

#les mis #les mis fanart #cosette fauchelevent #enjolras #cosette #fantine #jean valjean #syrup ramble #syrup art tag #syrup writing #enjolsette #OFEA

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psalm22-6 · 3 months

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Adequately done in full for the first time --- It marks a distinctive epoch in the educational work of motion pictures.

In selecting material the authors have made some departures from the original. For example, they cause Valjean to steal a loaf for his sick mother instead of for the seven children of his sister. But for the most part the film drama adheres closely to the Hugo text. The episode of the bishop's candlesticks, the incidents of Valjean's career as M. Madeleine, his flight with Cosette, the intrigues of the Thenardiers, Marius' courtship of Cosette, and the scenes of the rebellion of 1832 are given with fidelity. Glimpses of old Paris and beautiful rural scenes will delight people who have seen France.

The Daily Illini, 28 September 1913

#lm 1912 #like the first five times people made les mis into a movie they were like wow it's so educational #after that they were like hmm is this a movie about Javert?#les miserables #vintage advertisment

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lesmisscraper · 4 months

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Cosette being adopted by Valjean in the Christmas Morning of 1823. Volume 2, Book 3, Chapter 9.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

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ueinra · 2 years

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Les Misérables, One Mother Meets Another Mother (Illustrated by Filiberto Mateldi, 1940)

#les miserables #les mis #fantine #cosette #mother & daughter #madame thenardier #eponine #azelma #Thenardier Sisters #Two Mothers Meet #filiberto mateldi illustrations #illustration

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unicorngunter · 10 months

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No but me and my sister laughed so hard while watching this that i hurt my head x) I loved how JvJ was just walking around throwing fists with everyone than murdering Thenardier. And also Grantaire at his prime 🤌what a fanfic!

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ur-favorite-basil-enthusiast · 9 months

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hi @fireplace-ashes ! i have a few gifts for you for the @drinkwithme-exchange :)

first: enjolras, courfeyrac, and combeferre start a punk/rock band !! this is an au ive been thinking about for a while so it's cool to be able to write for it

and second ! i've got super short gavroche and grantaire babysitting shenanigans. it takes place in the band au !! it's under the cut bc its a little too short to put on ao3

Grantaire isn't quite sure how he ends up babysitting Gavroche. Ep's bandmate, Enjolras (who Grantaire is slightly obsessed with, but like, in a healthy way) has a sister who's apparently "angelic," and Eponine somehow convinces Grantaire to babysit Gavroche while they go on a date. Azelma is at her friend's house, at least, so Grantaire only has to watch one kid.

Only, he realizes that he's underestimated Gavroche. The kid is like 20 hyper children who are also shockingly politically aware were stuffed into one small, blonde body. And the 20 children also want to dye their collective hair pink.

"But Eponine said I could!" Gavroche whines.

This is why Grantaire hates babysitting. He never knows what the guardian actually had allowed. And he thinks that Ep is probably fine with it—her hair is literally blue—but there's that little feeling of doubt that worms itself in and gets Grantaire to doubt himself. He supposes that he could call her—no, she's on a date. Fuck. "I mean…" Grantaire croaks out, heavily regretting the words on their way out of his mouth. "If you already have the dye? And it isn't like you need to bleach it or anything."

Seeing the huge smile that creeps its way onto Gavroche's face, Grantaire cringes internally at his decision.

"Yolo," He thinks bitterley.

-

He should stop saying yolo. It's fucking stupid. Also, he shouldn't let something like 'yolo' make him feel okay with bad decisions. Because this was a bad decision.

Grantaire hasn't dyed his hair in 13 years (he was 14 the first and only time he dyed it—he never did it again because he decided that the bleach wasn't worth it) so he doesn't quite know what he's doing, and Gavroche is ten years old with not the best motor skills. So, it's very messy and very pink in the Thenardier bathroom.

While Gavroche sits on the toilet waiting for the dye to process, Grantaire tries to get dye out of the grout on the floor.

"Grantaire?" Gavroche says.

"Yes?"

"Are you in love with Eponine?"

"Not how you're probably thinking, no," Grantaire smiles fondly. "In our own strange way, I guess so. But I don't have a crush or something."

"I thought so." Gavroche hums. After a few seconds he says: "Are you in love with Enjolras?"

Grantaire sputters. "What—no! They hate me, and also why would I—"

Gavroche grins. "I think I've got my answer. Can I have my IPad?"

Grantaire, cheeks still pink, checks his phone to see that it's 8:30. "Does Ep usually let you have it after eight?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't she?" Gavroche shrugs. He sounds a little bit too innocent, especially with the way his voice curls up at the end of the sentence. It's suspicious.

"You stay here," Grantaire says, and points to the closed toilet where Gavroche had been sitting. Grantaire finds the IPad to see that (surprise, surprise) Eponine had put a post-it on the case that says, in scrawling letters, "No IPad after eight."

Wow, it feels great to get played my a ten year old.

"Gavroche," Grantaire says, with a played-up scolding tone. "Did you lie about the dye—"

There is hair dye all over the sink, and also all over Gavroche.

"Too. What the hell, Gav? I was gone for a minute—Ep is gonna kill me."

"Nah, she'll be thrilled," Gavroche grins.

Eponine is not thrilled. Grantaire and Gavroche are lectured, but the date must have gone well because it isn't too angry of a lecture. Eponine seems to be in good enough spirits that she can see that it's at least a little bit funny—and Grantaire apologizes profusely many more times than he needs to until he can admire Gavroche's trickery. The kid is smart, if not a bit infuriating. Grantaire wouldn't mind babysitting again—although, with the state of the bathroom, he thinks that Eponine wouldn't be very quick to let him do it again.

#drinkwithme2023 #les miserables #les mis #enjolras #courfeyrac #combeferre #triumvirate #enjolras courfeyrac and combeferre #band au #grantaire #gavroche #grantaire and gavroche #babysitting fic

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les-mis-guy-supreme · 1 year

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an update: we have a bracket

i say we do it in 8 lots of 8! there'll probably be 16 polls a day (in 2 clumps). this was done via blind draw and i don't think i'll be randomizing further

matchups under cut!

PART A

grantaire vs the instruments in the intro to rue plumet

gueulemer vs m. fauchelevent

bossuet vs montparnasse

cosette fauchelevent vs panchaud

napoleon vs mother plutarch

mabeuf vs the flute guy who lives near the convent

persona 5 valjean vs robojean from arm joe

the oboe solo after everyone dies on the barricade vs madeleine's guinea pig

PART B

the artist who said that if favourite’s gloves were fritters he would eat them vs joly

france (country) vs the elephant from the movie

babet vs boulatruelle

the french horns from the musical vs the pool table from enjolras and grantaire's death scene

jean valjean vs the candlesticks

musichetta vs the bridge on the seine

dahlia vs javert from sid story

feuilly vs cosette's doll (katherine)

PART C

javert vs azelma

bread vs brujon

claquesous vs the rich guy who threw bread to the geese in luxembourg garden

sister simplice vs theodule gillenormand

babet's mistress vs enjolras

chou chou from shoujo cosette vs the carrot guy from the movie

combeferre vs tutti

the bedbugs in thenardier's inn vs jehan prouvaire

PART D

cambronne vs bahorel's mistress

navet vs fantine's neighbour who taught her how to conserve candles (ie. marguerite. thanks tumblr)

javert's singular braincell vs the closeups in the movie

bahorel vs the porter who refuses to narc on valjean

courfeyrac vs discojolras from the french concept album

gavroche thenardier vs petit gervais

eponine thenardier vs member of the convention, g----

valjean the nun from 24601 releases a sammich on parole vs marius pontmercy

#les mis character bracket #round 1 #round 1a #round 1b #round 1c #round 1d #tournament poll #feel free to boost! :))))#les miserables #les mis #not a poll

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la-pheacienne · 1 year

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What are your thoughts on Eponine? (I haven’t read the novel, I have only watched the Liam Neeson movie (which didn’t have Eponine) and a recording of the musical).

Thank you for the ask I love getting Les Mis asks 💖

So keep in mind that I have read this book 13 years ago so I don't remember a lot of details. I remember the core idea of her character though and she was one of the most badass characters in the book, I loved her.

So Hugo initially had another named planned for her but changed it after Baudelaire dedicated a poem to him (Les petites vieilles from Les Fleurs du mal) that goes like this:

These dislocated wrecks were women once,

Were Eponine or Lais! hunchbacked freaks,

Though broken let us love them! they are souls.

And that is a very good introduction to her character.

Her first trait that needs to be mentioned is hunger. Eponine was a hungry, very hungry young teen, starved, to be more exact, she had a horrendous appearance, some teeth missing, she was extremely dirty, her clothes had huge wholes, she walked barefoot I think. Hunger was so absolute and omnipotent in Eponine, as in a lot of characters from the book, that it seemed to completely erase any hint of personality, or agency, or personhood really. She seemed to not even be a human being at all, she was just a starved girl who resembled a starved animal more than a person. And that's the thing with hunger, it's so catastrophic and definite that it completely annihilates a person. You can't have free will, you can't have spiritual autonomy, you're just that, hungry. Hunger in Les Mis is the ultimate and most substantial form of violence, and Eponine embodies that.

"The grace of her youth was struggling against the hideous old age brought on by debauchery and poverty".

What hunger also does is it gives birth to the lowest, most debased, most inhuman form of monster. That's Eponine's parents, les Thenardiers, and I honestly cannot recall a single literary character that is more appalling than them. They were appalling people before they became so poor, but poverty turned them into actual vultures. So in this "cocktail Molotov" of moral depravity plus extreme poverty and hunger, what chance does Eponine have of becoming something more than a vulture herself? A vulture, or a living, lifeless, soulless corpse, like her sister.

Yet that's not Eponine's arc. Eponine starts as a bully to Cosette while she was a kid, then becomes this hungry street smart kid, then an accomplice in a gang of criminals (burglars, thieves etc) then she goes to prison for a short time. She is in love with Marius, and so she's torn between her jealousy and the desire to make him happy, that is why she helps Marius find Cosette's house and leads him there, then she observes them every night they meet in the garden. She even prevents her gang from entering Cosette's house, because she knows that Marius would be destroyed if anything happened to Cosette. That's the part of the book where she stops them :

"Please yourself, you won't get in. I can't be the daughter of a dog seeing as I am the daughter of a wolf! There are six of you. What's that to me? You're men. Well, I'm a woman. You don't frighten me, that's for sure. I'm telling you, you won't get inside this house because I don't want you to. If you come any nearer I'll bark. I told you, I'm the 'cab'. I couldn't care less about you. Now be on your way, I've had enough of you! Go anywhere you like, but don't come here, I won't let you! You use your knives, I'll use my feet, it's all the same to me. So come on, then!"

And then, after this very selfless act, she actively manages to separate Cosette and Marius. She scares Valjean so he decides to move, and takes Cosette's letter for Marius with no intention of giving it to him, then leads Marius to the barricades so that they can die together there. And then, she dies for him after giving him Cosette's letter :

“She let her head fall back upon Marius' knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless; but just when Marius supposed her for ever asleep, she slowly opened her eyes in which the gloomy deepness of death appeared, and said to him with an accent the sweetness on which already seemed to come from another world:

"And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius, I believe I was a little in love with you."

She essayed to smile again and expired.”

So Eponine was a morally ambiguous person but an exceptional character, moving from debauchery, spite and depravity to bravery and love. She doesn't believe in the Cause, but she loves Marius and she dies for him in the barricades, thus her death is as honorable as any other person that gave their lifes in the barriades. I think Eponine's function in the narrative is to show that it is in fact, possible, for an exceptional character to be born out of total material, moral and spiritual decay. It is possible for a human being to preserve the quality of a person, even an exceptional person, and rise above theIr horrendous circomstances. She's a tragic character but the underlying message is ultimately optimistic, in a way.

Of course she was not presented accurately in the musical, she was sexualised in a way that the supposed "conflict" between her and Cosette looks like the conflict of a the popular high school girl vs the high school underdog which is SO not the case in the book.

#les miserables #eponine #asks #marius pontmercy

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