This Parallel! - Tumblr Posts
I made a throwaway comment on my last post, talking about how Fantine dies knowing Cosette isn’t with her.
It got me thinking about Marius and Cosette as parallels via their (biological) parents.
Fantine spends all of her time in Montreuil-sur-Mer trying to stay afloat so she can pay for Cosette. The Thenardiers cheat her out of a lot of money; she doesn’t have a way to travel that far to see her, so letters are all she gets.
As Fantine is dying, she is desperate for Cosette. When Valjean returns from Arras without Cosette, she believes that he actually has her. The doctor encourages this belief, and Valjean goes with it. She thinks she hears Cosette playing outside. She wants to get up, to go out and see her daughter, but the doctor tells her to wait. It’s not until Javert enters the room that she thinks anything differently.
But she hears the conversation between Valjean and Javert, hears Valjean ask for time to go to Montfermeil. She dies knowing that Cosette is still with the Thenardiers and that she cannot see her daughter. Moments ago she was dying but happy at the prospect of being able to see Cosette, at the belief that her daughter is safe and nearby; she dies terrified and disappointed.
George Pontmercy is forbidden to see Marius by Gillenormand. Hugo mentions that Marius “would have been the colonel’s joy in his solitude” if Gillenormand had not forbade him to visit or else he’d disinherit Marius. Pontmercy spends what time he can watching from behind the pillar at Saint-Sulpice. But Marius is brought up to believe he is a “brigand of the loire” and to be ashamed of him. Because Marius does not take the night carriage to Vernon, Pontmercy dies without ever seeing his son. He gets up to try and go meet him, and falls down dead.
“The colonel did wrong perhaps to accept these conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right and was sacrificing himself alone.” This is a slightly distorted reflection of Fantine’s situation. She was forced to accept the conditions of Cosette’s keeping and had no real way to fight them; but she believes that she is doing right and is sacrificing only herself because (she believes) Cosette will be well cared for.
Both the Thenardiers and Gillenormand use the prospect of monetary support of a child to manipulate and deceive the parent. Both parents are mostly oblivious to their child’s true treatment. Fantine believes that Cosette is healthy and well cared for; Pontmercy does not know his son is being brought up to hate him. GIllenormand hides the letters Pontmercy sends to Marius; the Thenardiers write back to Fantine because it’s how they get money from her, but it’s all lies.
It’s interesting that Marius learns who his father was after his father’s death. Because of who his father was (a soldier and a baron), Marius is able to read about him and learn about his victories and his actions in battle, and to befriend Mabeuf and ask about him. Cosette doesn’t learn about Fantine. Valjean doesn’t speak about her, and because she was just a poor working woman, there’s nothing for Cosette to read about her, and presumably Marguerite is dead. This feels like another commentary on class differences. There’s a difference in preservation of memory. Pontmercy’s acts have been written about; once Valjean dies, no one will actually remember Fantine. She becomes a sort of phantom.
Cosette and Marius’ journeys regarding their parents are in opposition as well. Valjean is “fond of talking with her about her mother” when Cosette is a little girl, but as she gets older, he can’t. He’s scared of telling her about Fantine and having her be unhappy or obsessed with a person she can no longer see or speak to. Marius’ journey is in the opposite direction. Gillenormand refuses to mention or speak about Pontmercy when Marius is a boy; he learns about his father through silences and overheard whispers and a general sense of shame. It’s only when he’s older that he learns about his father.
Cosette and Marius’ parents are mirrors of each other. Their respective orphaning parallel each other in the ways that the parents suffer and also in the way that both parents die with the knowledge of never seeing their child. Marius and Cosette’s personal journeys are a vague drift toward each other, each kind of going in a weird direction until they meet in the middle.
As characters go, they’re the only two in the novel that are actively attempting to meet in the middle. Most other characters are either running from or in opposition to others, or meetings are happenstance (I’m sort of counting Les Amis as a singular entity here). But Cosette and Marius have the same goal, and are actually trying to meet in the middle. It’s a break in the cycle of their families, who are either left by or never meet their loved ones.
This is also really important for the very end of the novel. Both Fantine and Pontmercy died without seeing their children, lost and disappointed. But Cosette and Marius are both there when Valjean dies. He tries to continue that cycle, tries to die alone and away from Cosette, even though he doesn’t want to. Both Fantine and Pontmercy die in the midst of an effort to get up, to go to their child, to find that love. Cosette is the one that goes to Valjean. Unlike Fantine and Pontmercy, he gets to see his child before he dies, he gets to know her love and he gets to express his own love for her. And she gets to express hers for him, to reassure him and herself of their connection and devotion. Yes, Valjean dies at the end, but that cycle of parents dying without the love and presence of their child is broken.
BOTTOMS (2023) | SALTBURN (2023)