Fantine

Fantine
Les Misérables character
Fantine by Margaret Hall.
Created by	Victor Hugo
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Factory worker Prostitute
Significant other(s)	Félix Tholomyès
Children	Cosette
Nationality	French

Factory worker

Fantine is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. She is a young orphaned grisette in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich student. After he abandons her, she is forced to look after their child, Cosette, on her own. Originally a pretty and naïve girl, Fantine is eventually forced by circumstances to become a prostitute, selling her hair and front teeth, losing her beauty and health. The money she earns is sent to support her daughter.

Fantine became an archetype of self-abnegation and devoted motherhood. Possibly due to her status as an orphan, Hugo never labels her with a surname. She has been portrayed by many actresses in stage and screen versions of the story and has been depicted in works of art.

Hugo introduces Fantine as one of four beautiful girls attached to young, wealthy students. "She was called Fantine because she had never been known by any other name..." Hugo describes her as having "gold and pearls for her dowry; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth." He elaborates: "Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it.... She was beautiful in the two ways—style and rhythm. Style is the form of the ideal, rhythm is its movement."

Fantine is passionately in love with Félix Tholomyès, one of a quartet of students. One day, the four men invite their four lovers on an outing. They finish the day at a restaurant, only for the women to be abandoned by the men with a goodbye note. While the other three girls take it in good humor and laugh it off, Fantine later feels heartbroken. Tholomyès had fathered their illegitimate daughter Cosette, and Fantine is left to care for her alone.

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

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