Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Miserables, a man imprisoned for nineteen years after stealing bread to feed his sister's starving children and repeatedly attempting escape. Transformed by an act of unearned mercy from a bishop after his release, Valjean breaks his parole, assumes a new identity, and spends the rest of his life performing quiet acts of charity and raising the orphaned Cosette, all while pursued across decades by the relentless police inspector Javert, who cannot accept that a convict might genuinely reform. Valjean's arc from bitterness to selfless goodness, and the novel's sweeping treatment of law, mercy and social injustice in nineteenth-century France, made him one of the most morally resonant protagonists in Western literature. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Narrative RoleSourced to the subject's own accountProtagonist, an ex-convict whose lifelong pursuit of redemption structures the novel 1 Defining TraitSourced to the subject's own accountCapacity for moral transformation, from embittered convict to self-sacrificing benefactor, sustained across decades of pursuit by the law 1 Narrative role (class)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Character In
Source Jean Valjean (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Jean Valjean (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Jean Valjean is the protagonist of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Miserables.
- Character In: Les Miserables
View the Source Frequently Asked Questions
Was Jean Valjean based on a real person?
Partly on two real men: Pierre Maurin, imprisoned for stealing bread for his sister's children, and Eugene Francois Vidocq, an ex-convict turned philanthropist whom Victor Hugo knew personally.
Hugo drew the novel's opening premise, a disproportionate sentence for a small theft of bread, from the real case of Pierre Maurin. He drew much of Valjean's later transformation from Eugene Francois Vidocq, a former convict who became a well known Parisian philanthropist and whom Hugo knew socially. Vidocq once lifted an overturned cart off a pinned worker by main strength, a real feat Hugo gave to Valjean in the rescue of old Fauchelevent. Some scholars think Hugo split Vidocq in two, giving his reformed side to Valjean and his relentless law-enforcement side to Inspector Javert.
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