#i never really drew a parallel between that one time with eponine & that one time with gavroche

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

i just realized that there's two whole separate times in les misérables when thénardier runs into one of his kids and literally has to have one of the other members of patron-minette point it out to him that the random kid he just ran into was in fact. related to him. like they know his kids better than he does

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 2.3.8 “Inconveniences Of Entertaining A Poor Man Who May Be Rich”

This chapter is so long. Here goes.

Is it normal for Cosette to have to knock to get into the house she lives in? Or is Hugo just using that as a vehicle to make Mme Thenardier meet Valjean first?

It’s times like this that I desperately wish I knew more about biblical stories and fables and things. This, a rich man in disguise as a poor man being treated poorly by innkeepers and taking something from them, sounds like a bible story or a similar type of fable. But the only two bible stories I know with similar themes are the nativity story and Sodom and Gomorrah and neither of those seem quite right. Still, this entire episode reads like a fable or fairytale.

We’ve already seen how Evil the Thenardiers are re: their treatment of Cosette. Now we are seeing their Evil in the form of treatment of the poor.

You know, that’s an interesting thing that I’m not going to get into in this longass chapter. Javert’s evil and Thenardier’s evil are different because I feel like Javert’s evil is a lot more muddied or obscured by morality and duty and things like that. Where are the Thenardiers are bad but the badness of their actions is much more black and white. I think it’s also because, technically, they never have social power over anyone unless they are manipulative, whereas Javert always has the social power. I’m not sure where to go with either of these ideas but I will look back on it for a shorter chapter.

Cosette is ugly because she’s sad. It’s like the exact opposite of Roald Dahl’s description of ugliness. I called it on the orphanage thing and kids looking years younger than they are; she looks 6 when she’s 8. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference when you look at it written down but the difference between the size and maturity of a 6 year old vs an 8 year old is surprising.

In the way that the description of the doll was a distant echo of young Fantine, the description of Cosette here is a faded echo of dying Fantine.

“Fear was spread all over here; she was, so to speak, covered with it; fear squeezed her elbows against her sides, drew her heels up under her skirt, made her shrink into the least possible space...” I’m sure this description comes from Hugo observing children in his lifetime, but I also wonder if any of this comes from his brother who had schizophrenia and was institutionalized?

“The expression on the face of this child of eight was habitually so sad and occasionally so tragic that it seemed, at certain moments, as if she were on the way to becoming an idiot or a demon.” What an interesting pair of choices. Fear and sadness either stun and numb you completely or they turn you aggressive and evil. Hugo said the same thing before when talking about Valjean’s prison time. Again, like I said before, Cosette here is Valjean when we first met him: exhausted, scared, sad, numb, hatefully terrified of the people around her; the difference is that she still has hope. She had that moment of hoping someone would rescue her, she had the moment of pausing and wondering what the doll’s paradise was like; when we met Valjean he was past that kind of hope.

(Funny that Mme Thenardier doesn’t suspect the trick Valjean just pulled, despite Valjean “finding” a 20 sous piece instead of 15 sous piece.)

I love the description of Eponine and Azelma because it’s so innocent. They as little human beings aren’t morally bankrupt at the level of their parents yet. They’re still pretty and glowing. Partly because they are well-cared for unlike Cosette, and partly because they are still innocent.

“Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. To them she was like the dog. The three little girls did not have twenty-four years among them, and they already represented the whole of human society: on one side envy, on the other disdain.”

Ah, human microcosms. Hugo loves those. The Thenardier children and Cosette are the pared down, simplified version of society. It’s also an excellent example of how Privilege works in layers. The girls’ doll is worn and old and broken, but the fact of them having a real doll and Cosette having nothing is already a layer of privilege Someone else, another little girl with wealthy parents and a new intact doll would have privilege over the Thenardier girls. There are layers.

I really love this passage too because it shows the start of the zero-sum game between Eponine and Cosette. At no point are Eponine and Cosette able to be equals. But the important thing is that neither of them are aware of this. Later, when Cosette and Eponine encounter each other again in the Gorbeau house, Eponine doesn’t have the awareness to be angry about the reversal of their fortunes. She seems sad, mostly, a jealousy born from a feeling of worthlessness rather than feeling slighted. And Cosette doesn’t even recognize Eponine, so there’s no room at all for disdain on her part, unless she’s disdainful of Eponine et al due to their poverty, though that never seems to be the case. But Eponine cannot be happy while Cosette is and Cosette cannot be happy while Eponine is, because their goals occupy the same fulcrum (Marius) and they can’t both be on the same level at the same time.

Fanfiction has explored this a lot in modern AU but I wonder the kind of havoc that could have been wreaked had Cosette and Eponine met and become proper acquaintances. Their teenage personalities are two sides of the same coin. I’ve always been of the opinion that had they switched places as children Cosette would have ended up like Eponine and Eponine like Cosette. Because Eponine has the capacity for kindness within her, except that she doesn’t know how to use it selflessly; and Cosette has the same stubborn ruthlessness as Eponine, except that she is held back by convention and reduced to talking a lot in order to try and somehow glean information from Valjean or Marius.

“Now your work belongs to me. Play, my child.” This is the second (or third?) Myriel moment for Valjean. Cosette is a child, an innocent child, but her soul doesn’t need to be bought for god. As far as I can tell, for Hugo, children are always holy. Instead, he’s buying her work. But that makes sense. For Valjean, his soul needed to be bought for god because he had already lost it to sin and to evil and to doubt. Cosette still has hope; what she needs bought from her is suffering.

And here is where the parallel continues. Cosette up until now has been Valjean as we first met him: sullen, suffering, scared, dulled, close to becoming “an idiot or a demon” and now, like Valjean’s soul, her work has been bought so she can be free.

I think it is within the walls of the convent that their parallels will catch up to each other and they will become more equal.

I feel as though the cat in a dress vs the sword in a dress must be some sort of parallel to Eponine and Cosette’s personalities but I’m not quite sure how to pull the meaning out.

“A little girl without a doll is almost as unfortunate and just as impossible as a woman without children.” Ugh. Gross, Hugo. This whole chapter was so lovely and then this misogynist bullshit.

I can explain the “water on her brain” line! Mostly because it’s a medical condition I actually have! So, “water on the brain” is another term for hydrocephalus, which is a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. It can be caused by being born prematurely (like mine was) or by infections/head trauma. Nowadays they can put a shunt in your head that pumps the fluid into the abdominal cavity (which is what I have), but obviously they didn’t have the technology back then. So what happens to the head if the fluid doesn’t drain, is the head will start to increase in size, and the fluid buildup will squish the brain against the sides of the skull, causing seizures and brain damage/intellectual disabilities and vision problems and other such things. I function perfectly fine except for mild dyscalculia and ADHD (which might have been genetic anyway) but back in the 19th century hydrocephalus probably would have resulted in either mild-to-severe disabilities or death.

Cosette doesn’t have hydrocephalus, but what she does have is severe malnutrition, which can make a person’s head look much too large for their body. So Mme Thenardier is likely using Cosette’s appearance due to neglect to fake that she has a neurological problem and explain why they have to “take care of” her.

Jesus fucking christ this next bit is so much. There’s so much going on. Mme Thenardier is talking to Valjean about Cosette’s mother, the drinkers are singing vulgar songs about the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, and Cosette is under the table singing “My mother is dead.” to herself. Woof. It is, yet again, an instance of the memory of “Fantine” (in the symbolic, saintly form of the Virgin) being sullied both by the foul songs of the drinkers and the callous, flippant commentary of Mme Thenardier. And Cosette is there under the table, staring at the fire, suddenly playing the role of her own mother, rocking the sword-baby (herself) to try and comfort herself from the shock of this new knowledge that her mother is dead.

(Anyone else read As I Laying Dying, by the way? All I could think of when I read that line was “My mother is a fish.”)

We start to see Cosette’s bold personality come out in fits and starts. She’s brave enough to sneak out and grab the doll Eponine and Azelma have abandoned. But it’s also an example of how desperate she is for something pleasurable and good, considering she’s doing that at the risk of a beating.

For the second time, we see Cosette so absorbed in her moment of “I Want” that she doesn’t see or hear anything else. Again, this seems unusual considering her constant hypervigilance. But her success in getting the doll and her increased confidence due to Valjean’s presence probably have something to do with her lack of awareness.

Cosette is caught with the doll. Is this the parallel of Valjean being caught with Myriel’s silver? Mme Thenardier says “That beggar has dared to touch the children’s doll.” The gendarmes don’t say as much when they return Valjean to Myriel, but it’s pretty obvious they’re thinking something similar.

“We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue.” COSETTE IS SO CUTE I LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE DESERVES THE WORLD. Also I just love the way Hugo writes children, it’s so real.

Why did Hugo choose Catherine for the name of the doll? Is it to do with St Catherine? She (the saint) became Christian at 14 and converted hundreds of people before being martyred at 18 after rebuking the Roman emperor for his cruelty and winning a debate with his best philosophers.

“This solitary man, so poorly dressed, who took five-franc pieces from his pocket so easily and lavished gigantic dolls on little brats in wooden clogs, was certainly a magnificent and formidable individual.” Valjean is now Myriel. Outsiders are fascinated by him because he dresses so shabbily and yet is so benevolent and charitable with his money. Again, the difference is that Myriel’s name is always known, and Valjean’s is never known.

I know I say this so often but the distance with which Hugo treats Valjean is absolutely fascinating to me. Valjean has this incredible power to just go inside himself and not move, but we never get that kind if internality unless it’s really really important (like with the Champmathieu affair). Otherwise, Hugo keeps a respectful distance, and even when we get Valjean’s emotions described to us, I feel like Hugo is always holding back a little, like he’s not letting himself see all the way into Valjean, or Valjean isn’t letting him in.

Valjean asks for a stable; I think this is the first time we see his whole thing about sacrifice of physical comfort. Things like this asking for the stable and sleeping in the shed behind the house at Rue Plumet and not having chairs and only eating black bread etc. This is the first example we see of him feeling unworthy of physical comforts to such a degree.

(It’s interesting to me that we don’t see this characteristic when he was mayor, or at least not to this extreme. Is it because it would be unbecoming of a mayor and therefore would blow his cover? Or did going back to prison hammer in that feeling of worthlessness and lesser-than and warp his perception of what he is compared to others?)

“What a sublime, sweet thing is hope in a child who has never known anything but its opposite!” We’ve said this already, but Cosette is full of hope and life and light and that is Important because it is exactly what Valjean did not have when he was in her position. But it means that she doesn’t have to work as hard in her ascent towards happiness and goodness.

And, lastly, I love that the placement of the gold Louis in Cosette’s shoe isn’t just a sweet Christmas gesture or a gesture towards Cosette: it’s also an echo of M Madeleine breaking into houses to place gold pieces on the table.

Wow. Long af post for a long af chapter. Congratulations if you read through all of my rambling thoughts.