A few days ago I was making a list of the best sequences in the novel of “Les Misérables.” My list, which I’ll put below, was heavy on actions taken by Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, and one item stood out: Eponine barring her father and his thugs from entering the house where Cosette and her father live. It’s a somewhat short sequence but I found it one of the most memorable of the novel. Eponine, especially after what she does at the barricade, really has to be considered one of the genuine heroes of the story.
Eponine does what she does purely out of love for one person, Marius, but she ends up saving far more than him.
I’ve seen the sequence in front of the house adapted in a few movies, though I don’t think it comes off in any of them nearly as well as it does in the book, where her tenacity is slowly revealed in a very tense buildup. In the musical of “Les Misérables,” Eponine’s big number is “On My Own”, and for many including me it’s a great highlight, even if it doesn’t depict that particular sequence in front of the house:
Eponine got me thinking of a similar character, Sonya, who quietly saves Natasha from making a catastrophic mistake, by blocking her flight from her house, in “War and Peace”. And Sonya’s solo is my favorite song from that musical that was playing a few years back, about a war and a comet:
Oh, and about that list. These are my favorite sequences in the novel of Les Misérables:
- Jean Valjean steals from the Bishop, is returned by the police, and is unexpectedly saved and forgiven, with a few white lies from the bishop
- Jean Valjean, as Mayor Madeleine, forces Javert to release Fantine
- Jean Valjean gives himself up publicly in the courtroom, renouncing his life as mayor and businessman
- Jean Valjean, at Fantine’s bedside, is arrested by Javert and narrowly escapes the inspector, with the help of a few white lies from a nun
- Jean Valjean helps Cosette in the forest and takes her away from the Thenardiers
- Jean Valjean’s escape from the Gorbeau tenement and eventually into the convent, with Cosette at his side and Javert on his heels
- Jean Valjean’s near-burial in the cemetery, and his taking refuge in the convent as Monsieur Fauchelevent
- the ambush and escape at the Gorbeau tenement, Javert arresting Thenardier and all but Jean Valjean whom he does not recognize
- Gavroche taking the two orphans (his brothers whom he does not recognize) into the Elephant
- Eponine turns her father (Thenardier) and his band away from the Garden at Rue Plumet
- Jean Valjean’s escape through the sewers with Marius on his back, encountering both Thenardier (who does not recognize him) and Javert
- Final lengthy conversation between Thenardier and Marius (the methodical unspooling of everything, landing blow-by-blow upon Marius)
