Out of the dozens of characters I have read about over the years, very few have prominently stuck out over the course of my life, such as this one. This particular character is an underdog, a philanthropist, a Christian, and a redeemer. He is known by many names such as Prisoner 24601, Prisoner 9430, Monsieur Madeleine, Monsieur LeBlanc, Ultime Feauchelevent, and his name given to him at birth, Jean Valjean. Why has this character stuck out from all the other characters I have read about? What makes him so special? Before I can answer these two questions, let's go over his story and struggles as told in the pages of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, published in France in 1862.
Before his journey began, Valjean was a simple woodcutter who worked to provide for his sister and her starving children. However, that changed one Winter night. To obtain food for his sister's children, he threw a stone into the baker's window and stole a loaf of bread from the shop. As a result, Valjean is arrested on the charge of theft for five years, and is sent to Toulon prison under the name "Prisoner 24,601". However, Valjean strongly desired to return to his family, and made numerous escape attempts which only extended his prison sentence from five to nineteen years. At the end of his sentence, he is put on parole with a yellow passport in his hand. However, there was a bit of a "monkey's paw" to this yellow passport, as wherever he went across the countryside of France, he was unable to obtain lodging, work, and food, as the people he encountered did not trust him, except for one. This man was known as Bishop Myriel of Digne.
For the first time in nineteen years, he felt as if he were an actual human and not an animal. However, Valjean's thieving intentions lingered from the bread incident years ago, and he stole the silverware of the Bishop, only to be arrested the next morning. In a surprising turn of events, Bishop Myriel gives Valjean the silverware and a pair of candlesticks to sell, telling him that he used the candlesticks as an offering for Valjean's soul to God. While travelling, Valjean inadvertently steals a fifty-sous piece from a young chimney sweep named Petit-Gervais, which causes him to break his parole. Desiring to change his life, Valjean abandons his life as an ex-convict and in the course of eight years he becomes a successful mayor in the town of Montreuil-Sur-Mer.
Unfortunately, the shadows of his past loom over him as he is soon greeted by former Toulon guard turned police inspector, Javert. While it may seem that Javert was simply assigned to the town, he had an ulterior motive as he had a feeling that Valjean was hiding somewhere in the town. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to him when he found out his boss was the criminal he was searching for. How did he find out, you may ask? Valjean put it upon himself to rescue a man named Feauchelevent, who had been trapped under a toppled and broken cart. While rescuing him, he accidentally reveals his strength to Javert, who begins to piece together that Madeleine is Valjean. After rescuing the old man, Valjean manages to secure him a job as a gardener in a convent in Paris. Later on, he rescues a woman on the streets named Fantine and assists not only in nursing her back to health, but attempting to obtain her daughter from an inkeeper couple in Montfermeil. However, he is interrupted when he learns another man has been arrested under the false pretense that he is Jean Valjean, so he rushes to Arras and confesses that he is indeed the real Jean Valjean. Unfortunately upon returning to Montreuil-Sur-Mer, Fantine passes away from the shock of this revelation and Valjean is arrested once again and branded with the new number of 9,430.
Months later after faking his death, he arrives in Montfermeil and adopts Cosette. However, as was the case in Montreuil-Sur-Mer, Javert is once again in pursuit of him and transfers over to the police in Paris.
Years pass, and throughout, Valjean is caught in a wild series of adventures and events, from becoming a gardener in a convent to assisting in a student revolution. If you wish to learn about more of those adventures, Les Miserables can be easily found online or for free from a digital book seller such as iBooks, as the entirety of the novel is in public domain. Valjean unfortunately dies of grief an unspecified amount of time after his adoptive daughter Cosette's wedding. As he dies, he sees visions of Fantine and Bishop Myriel carrying his soul into heaven.
I asked at the beginning, why is Valjean so significant? Why is he of importance? Valjean shows that despite coming from a rough upbringing, one can overcome adversity and be successful. Valjean manages to go from being a thief to a philanthropist in the course of almost twenty years, nearly the same time span in which he was imprisoned. He evokes change in the people he encounters, change in those with rough upbringings such as Feauchelevent, Fantine, Cosette, and surprisingly Javert. The change he evokes in Javert is so powerful, it drives the police inspector mad to the point of drowning himself in the Seine, unable to accept the fact that this convict he has been pursuing is indeed an honest and changed man. Javert believed that "he should have perished by [Valjean's] hand", and was utterly destroyed when Valjean chose to let him escape rather than kill him when given the opportunity, another aspect of Valjean that causes him to stick out in my mind. Valjean is a man who highly follows Christian morals and values, in a time where science and education were becoming prominent in developing countries.
I leave you with this, no matter what the upbringing, no matter what the circumstances, and no matter what trials and tribulations one may face, any man can change, and any man can turn his life around. Prime examples have occurred through history, such as Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, JK Rowling, and Victor Hugo himself. I bet it has even occurred to many of you in life, or I bet many of you have seen or known people that it has happened to.
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