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Innocent desperate, passionate, is the Fantine pictured above seems to be all of those things. The picture does not depict Fantine as a prostitute who "has become marble in becoming corrupted" (Hugo, 163). It illustrates the scene in Les Miserables which Fantine "had again become beautiful," as she begs Javert for her freedom (Hugo, 167). In other novels of nineteenth-century France, the prostitute would not be depicted as a fallen saint, but as a lowly criminal. Victor Hugo, however, belonged to the Romantic school-of-thought, which was rapid in France in the mid-1800s. He believed in the instinctive good of the common man, a theme that is prevalent in Les Miserables.

Before her fall into prostitution, Fantine was the ideal Romantic woman: virtuous and uneducated in life. Even after she falls into poverty and is forced to prostitute herself, Hugo continues this romantic depiction of Fantine as a woman of virtue, which can be seen in the illustration. Hugo used his novels to challenge the traditional perceptions of an honorable woman, and the urban class in general. As a Romantic, Hugo used Les Miserables to show that the destitute in France are not impoverished because they are evil, but because society has forgotten them.

Although a pivotal character, Cosette is almost static and flat. She is innocent throughout, passive with respect to the men in her life, and obedient to a fault even when such subservience makes her unhappy. The brief moments of self-awareness occur when she first realizes that she is pretty and when she meets Marius in her garden. Even then, she is powerless to do anything other than what Valjean wants. Her passivity is transferred to Marius once they are married. She is the doll, the saint of blind goodness and purity, the Cinderella who cannot function without her prince. The narrator simply presents her, allowing the other characters to fawn over her. He offers less editorial comment about her than any of the...