Les Miserables - Fantine

Soon after I chose to feature Les Miserables for this week's Musical Monday, I decided to have a whole week of Les Miserables.  Today I will focus on Fantine, the most tragic of all Victor Hugo's characters.  Stay tuned for spotlights on all your favorites.  

When I listened to the original London and Broadway  Les Mis soundtracks as a teenager, I thought Fantine sounded very matronly, so I was surprised when I read the book and found out Fantine was only twenty years old when we first meet her.  

"Fantine was beautiful and remained pure as long as she could.  She was a pretty blond with fine teeth.  She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth" 

"She loved Tholomyes.  To him, it was a fling; to her a passion."

I didn't register in my mind the first time I read "She wept.  It was her first love, as we have said; she had given herself to this Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child."

Cosette is almost two years old when Tholomyes leaves and never looks back.

"It will be seen that Fantine possessed the stern courage of life.  She had already valiantly renounces her finery, was draped in calico, and had put all her silks, her ribbons, and laces on her daughter - the only vanity that remained, and that a holy one."

"The woman had nothing in the world but this child, and this child had nothing in the world but this woman."

Mistaking Madame Thenardier as a decent woman, Fantine asks if she would take care of Cosette while she goes to find work.  "The sight of your little ones, so pretty, and clean, and happy, has overwhelmed me.  I said: there is a good mother; they will be like three sisters, and then it will not be long before I come back.  Will you keep my child for me?"

After Fantine loses her job at the factory, she sells whatever she can in order to pay the Thenardiers for "taking care" of her daughter Cosette.  She sells her last piece of jewelry, her hair and then her teeth; finally she resorts to prostitution, always desperate to provide for her precious daughter.

Then she looked at Fantine, who sadly turned her shorn head.  Fantine had grown ten years older since evening. 
 "Bless us!" said Marguerite,"what is the matter with you, Fantine?" 
 "Nothing,"said Fantine.  "Quite the contrary.  My child will not die with frightful sickness for lack of aid.  I am satisfied "  So saying, she showed the old woman two Napoleons that glistened on the table. 
 "Oh!" said Marguerite.  "Why there is a fortune!  Where did you get these louis d'or?" 
"I got them," answered Fantine.  At the same time she smiled.  The candle lit up her face.  It was a sickening smile, for the corners of her mouth were stained with blood, and a dark cavity revealed itself there.
The two teeth were gone.  She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil. And this was a ruse of the Thenardiers to get money.  Cosette was not sick.

Fantine loses another job and declares"Come! I will sell what is left."  The unfortunate creature became a woman of the town.

After years of not being able to properly care for herself, Fantine collapses from a weak chest and is never  reunited with Cosette in this life.  Here is her heart wrenching song "I Dreamed a Dream."

                                   This is Lea Salonga performing at the 25th Anniversary concert.


You know a new movie version is coming out this Christmas don't you?  Here's a taste of Anne Hathaway.