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Fictional character from Les Misérables

Fantine
Les Misérables graphic symbol
Fantine past Margaret Hall
Created past	Victor Hugo
In-universe data
Gender	Female
Occupation	Factory worker, prostitute
Pregnant other	Félix Tholomyès
Children	Cosette (daughter)
Relatives	Marius Pontmercy (son-in-law)
Nationality	French

Fantine (French pronunciation: [fɑ̃.tin]) is a fictional grapheme in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. She is a young grisette in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich educatee. After he abandons her, she is forced to await after their child, Cosette, on her own. Originally a beautiful and naive girl, Fantine is somewhen forced by circumstances to get a prostitute, selling her hair and front teeth, losing her beauty and health. The money she earns is sent to support her girl.

She was start played in the musical by Rose Laurens in French republic, and when the musical came to England, Patti LuPone played Fantine in the West End. Fantine has since been played by numerous actresses.

Fantine became an archetype of self-abnegation and devoted motherhood. She has been portrayed by many actresses in stage and screen versions of the story and has been depicted in works of art.

In the novel [edit]

Clarification [edit]

Hugo introduces Fantine equally one of 4 off-white girls attached to young, wealthy students. "She was called Fantine because she had never been known by whatever other name..." She is described equally having, "gilded and pearls for her dowry; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her rima oris." Hugo elaborates: "Fantine was fair, without being as well witting of it. She was off-white in the ii ways—style and rhythm. Style is the course of the platonic, rhythm is its movement."^[i]

Tholomyès and Cosette [edit]

Fantine is passionately in dearest with Félix Tholomyès, one of a quartet of students. One day, the four men invite their four lovers on an outing. They end the day at a eatery, just for the women to be abased by the men with a goodbye note. While the other 3 girls take information technology in skillful humour and laugh it off, Fantine afterward feels heartbroken. Tholomyès had fathered their illegitimate girl Cosette, and Fantine is left to care for her alone.

The Thénardiers [edit]

By the time Cosette is approximately iii, Fantine arrives at Montfermeil and meets the Thénardiers who are owners of an inn. She asks them to treat Cosette when she sees their daughters Éponine and Azelma playing outside. They hold to do so as long as she sends them money to provide for her. Fantine'southward only volition to live is keeping Cosette alive. She becomes a worker in Mayor Madeleine's (a.yard.a. Jean Valjean's) factory in her hometown of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and has a public letter-writer compose her messages to the Thénardiers for her because she is illiterate. However, she is unaware that the Thénardiers severely corruption Cosette and have forced her to exist a slave for their inn. She is also unaware that the letters they send to her requesting financial aid for Cosette are their own fraudulent fashion to extort money from her for themselves.

Loss of work [edit]

Fantine is fired by a meddlesome supervisor, Madame Victurnien, without the knowledge of the mayor, when she finds out that Fantine is an unwed female parent. Fantine begins to work at home, earning twelve sous a twenty-four hours while Cosette'southward lodging costs 10. Her overworking causes her to become sick with a cough and fever. She likewise rarely goes out, fearing the disgrace she would face from the townspeople.

The Thénardiers and so send a letter stating they need ten francs so they can "buy" a woolen brim for Cosette. To buy the skirt herself, Fantine has her hair cut off and sold. She then says to herself "My child is no longer cold, I have clothed her with my hair." Yet, she soon begins to despise the mayor for her misfortunes. She subsequently takes on a lover, merely for him to trounce her and and then carelessness her. The Thénardiers send another letter of the alphabet saying they need forty francs to buy medicine for Cosette who has become "sick." Desperate for the coin, Fantine has her two front teeth removed and sells them.

Prostitution [edit]

Meanwhile, Fantine's health and her ain lodging debts worsen while the Thénardiers' messages continue to abound and their financial demands become more than costly. In social club to continue to earn coin for Cosette, Fantine becomes a prostitute. During a January evening, a not bad called Bamatabois heckles her and shoves snow downwards the back of her apparel when she ignores him. Fantine ferociously attacks him. Javert, the town's constabulary inspector, immediately arrests her while Bamatabois sneaks away. She begs to be let go, just Javert sentences her to half dozen months in prison. Valjean arrives to aid Fantine, only upon seeing him she spits in his face. Dismissing the human action, Valjean orders Javert to complimentary Fantine, which he reluctantly does. Valjean comes to find out the reasons Fantine became a prostitute and why she attacked Bamatabois. He feels sad for the innocent Fantine and Cosette, and tells her that he volition call up Cosette for her. He sends Fantine to the hospital, equally she is suffering from tuberculosis.

Death [edit]

After Valjean reveals his true identity at Champmathieu'south trial, he goes dorsum to see Fantine at the infirmary. She asks virtually Cosette, and the doctor lies to her saying that Cosette is at the hospital only cannot run across Fantine until her health improves. She is appeased past this, and fifty-fifty mistakenly thinks that she hears Cosette laughing and singing. Suddenly, she and Valjean meet Javert at the door. Valjean tries to privately ask Javert for three days to obtain Cosette, but he loudly refuses. Fantine realizes that Cosette was never retrieved and frantically asks where she is. Javert impatiently yells at Fantine to be silent, and additionally, tells her Valjean's true identity. Shocked by these revelations, she suffers a severe fit of trembling, falls back on her bed and dies. Valjean then walks to Fantine, whispers to her and kisses her hand. Later on Valjean is taken into custody, Fantine's torso is unceremoniously thrown into a public grave. Later, subsequently escaping imprisonment, Valjean rescues Cosette and raises her on Fantine's behalf.

Graphic symbol [edit]

The expiry of Fantine; Valjean (as Mayor Madeleine) closes her eyes.

Fantine has been interpreted every bit a holy prostitute figure who becomes a quintessential mother past sacrificing her own body and dignity for the purpose of securing the life of her kid. She is an example of what has been chosen "the cliche of the saved and saintly prostitute that pervades nineteenth-century fiction",^[2] which is likewise found in the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens. Oscar Wilde presented her as a effigy whose suffering makes her lovable, writing of the scene after she has her teeth removed, that "We run to buss the bleeding mouth of Fantine".^[3] Kathryn M. Grossman says she moves into a form of "maternal sainthood" and that "When Madeleine (Valjean'southward pseudonym as mayor) affirms that she has remained virtuous and holy before God, Fantine tin finally release her hatred and dear others again. Or rather, it is considering he perceives the reality beyond her advent that she finds the mayor worthy of renewed devotion. For Valjean, the bedraggled prostitute verges on 'sanctity' through 'martyrdom' (640; sainteté . . . martyr)."^[4]

John Andrew Frey argues that the character has a political significance. Fantine is "an example of how women of the proletariat were brutalized in nineteenth-century French republic...Fantine represents Hugo'south deep compassion for human suffering, specially for women born into depression estate".^[5] Mario Vargas Llosa takes a less positive view, arguing that Hugo in upshot punishes Fantine for her sexual transgression by making her endure so horribly. "What disasters follow from a sin of the flesh! On the matter of sex, the morality of Les Misérables melds perfectly with the most intolerant and puritanical interpretation of Catholic morality."^[vi]

Fantine'due south image as a saint-like symbol of female victimhood appears in the writings of the union leader Eugene V. Debs, founder of the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1916 he wrote the essay Fantine in our Day, in which he compared the sufferings of Fantine to abased women of his ain day:

The very name of Fantine, the gay, guileless, trusting girl, the innocent, betrayed, self-immolating young mother, the despoiled, bedraggled, hunted and holy martyr to maternity, to the infinite love of her child, touches to tears and haunts the memory similar a melancholy dream....Fantine—child of poverty and starvation—the ruined girl, the abandoned female parent, the hounded prostitute, remained to the very 60 minutes of her tragic death chaste equally a virgin, spotless every bit a saint in the holy sanctuary of her own pure and undefiled soul. The cursory, bitter, blasted life of Fantine epitomizes the ghastly story of the persecuted, perishing Fantines of modern society in every state in Christendom.^[7]

In the musical [edit]

In the stage musical of the aforementioned proper name, Fantine is one of the fundamental characters.

Differences in the musical [edit]

• Fantine's relationship with Cosette'south father lasts a matter of months ("He slept a summertime by my side...He filled my days with endless wonder...He took my babyhood in his stride...Merely he was gone when autumn came"). In the novel, they are together for iii years, and Cosette is already ii years sometime when Fantine is abandoned.
• Rather than being fired by a female supervisor for being an unwed mother, a fellow female person worker steals her letter from the Thénardiers challenge some other demand for coin; the worker presumes that she is a prostitute to embrace her debts with the depression wages. Valjean sees this, but leaves this to his foreman; the foreman, his advances having been rejected by Fantine, fires her.
• Fantine is not illiterate and does non sell her teeth, simply she does sell two teeth in the motion picture adaptation of the musical, as in the novel ("You'll get twice if I take 2", the doctor sang implying they took two teeth.)
• Bamatabois wants to purchase Fantine'due south services, and is angered when she rejects his advances. In the novel, he is a young layabout who humiliates her by putting snow downwardly her dress every bit if she is an object of fun.
• Fantine dies peacefully in hospital with Valjean at her side after entrusting him with Cosette. Javert never reveals Valjean's true identity to her, as he arrives after her expiry.
• Fantine appears as a ghost to back-trail Valjean to Heaven. In the novel, by contrast, Valjean describes her to Cosette on his deathbed.

Adaptations [edit]

Since the original publication of Les Misérables in 1862, the character of Fantine has been in a large number of adaptations in numerous types of media based on the novel, including books, films,^[viii] musicals, plays, and games. Anne Hathaway won the Academy Honour for Best Supporting Extra for portraying Fantine in the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables.

References [edit]

1. ^ Hugo, Victor (2013) [1862]. Les Misérables. New York Urban center: Signet Books. pp. 103, 107. ISBN978-0451419439.
2. ^ Seigneuret, Jean-Charles, ed. (1988). Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs: L-Z - Vol. 2. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 901. ISBN978-0313229435.
3. ^ Wilde, Oscar (1905). "The Critic as Artist". Intentions: The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Toxicant, the Critic as Creative person, the Truth of Masks. New York City: Brentano']. p. 167.
4. ^ Grossman, Kathryn G. (1994). Figuring Transcendence in Les Miserables: Hugo'southward Romantic Sublime. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Printing. p. 120. ISBN978-0809318896.
5. ^ Frey, John Andrew (1999). A Victor Hugo Encyclopedia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 96. ISBN978-0313298967.
6. ^ Vargas Llosa, Mario (2007). The Temptation of the Incommunicable: Victor Hugo and Les Misérables. Translated past Rex, John. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Printing. p. 72. ISBN978-0691131115.
7. ^ Debs, Eugene V. (1948). Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs. New York Urban center: Hermitage Press. pp. 392–393. ASIN B007T2MF0U.
8. ^ Fantine (Grapheme) at the Net Movie Database

External links [edit]

• French text of Les Misérables

• Les Misérables at Project Gutenberg – English translation.
• Search for Fantine at the Internet Broadway Database

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantine

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