Jean Valjean

Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. The story depicts the character's struggle to lead a normal life and redeem himself after serving a 19-year-long prison sentence for stealing bread to feed his sister's starving children and attempting to escape from prison. Valjean is also known in the novel as Monsieur Madeleine, Ultime Fauchelevent (sometimes called Tranchelevent), Monsieur Leblanc, and Urbain Fabre. Valjean and police Inspector Javert, who repeatedly encounters Valjean and attempts to return him to prison, have become archetypes in literary culture. In the popular imagination, the character of Jean Valjean came to represent Hugo himself. Outline of the novel As a parolee, Valjean is issued a yellow passport with marching orders to Pontarlier, where he will be forced to live under severe restrictions. This document, often called a "passeport jaune" (yellow passport), identifies him to all as a former convict and immediately brands Valjean an outcast wherever he travels. His life turns around when Bishop Myriel of Digne, from whom he steals valuable silverware, tells the police that he has given the treasure to Valjean. Out of this encounter, Valjean becomes a repentant, honorable, and dignified man. He becomes kind, a devoted father-figure to a girl, Cosette, who loses her mother, and a benefactor to those in need. Although a known criminal and a parolee, Valjean yet grows morally to represent the best traits of humanity. Despite being classified as a criminal outcast, Valjean maintains the highest of human virtues and ethics. His antithesis, Javert, a dedicated and capable police officer, occupies a place of honour in society. The relationship of Javert and Valjean develops as a binary opposition between law and love. Javert sees Valjean only as the convict he once was, rather than the benefactor of humanity he has become. Javert's struggle against this dichotomy leads to his eventual suicide.