Les Miserables Analysis

For each reading, respond to the prompt that Mr. Chandler provides. Each response should be 1-2 paragraphs in length, using 3-4 direct quotes from the novel for evidence. Be sure to cite page numbers for each quote.

This journal is your final exam for Les Miserables. Unless directed otherwise, please complete these journals without external help. As always, be sure to avoid plagiarism, and follow the class writing rubric to guide your writing.

À bientôt!

1/30/14

Characterize either Monseigneur Bienvenu or Jean Valjean

In this novel, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Monseigneur Bienvenu is portrayed with his personality. For instance he is very kind and forgiving. “At the first view, and to one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing more than a good person” (5). He also believes that people deserve a second chance. But I expect to see this character to develop throughout the story because he is very uneducated during the beginning of the story. I also think that he will be influenced by other characters around him.

2/3/14

Characterize Javert.

Javert is a very dedicated police officer and is committed to help others. He performs his work with such passion that he feels “nothing but disdain, aversion, and disgust for all who had once overstepped the bounds of the law” (55). Javert’s has his problems just like everyone else but he is so passionate with his job that he forgets to show mercy once in awhile. His feelings towards people that take part in crime is hatred, and he “cannot be deceived; a magistrate never does wrong” (55). Javert thinks that all crime is a form of rebellion. The way he acts is affected by his past. In his past “his [way of living] was a life of privations, isolation,self denial, and chastity” (...

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... first instinct is to arrest Jean for taking part in the uprising but then he realizes that this is his friend and if Jean gets removed from his life he will have no one else in this world that he loves. So instead he decides to take a different path and seek new meaning for his life.

3/18/14

How do Jean Valjean’s actions and words in the final reading (pp. 548-595) relate to or develop a theme of the novel?

At the end of the novel Jean starts to wonder if he has been living his whole life the wrong way. Jean starts to have a lot of doubts about the chooses that he has made. He wonders if he should have been nicer and not have been so uptight with the law. Javier finally makes a decision that he can live with himself any more. He drowns himself in the raging river. I think that this relates to the theme of the story because Javier should have been more outgoing.