A Bad Example
Hugo turns from Digne to 1817 Paris and a woman who springs, he says, from the dregs of the people. Fantine never knew father or mother. The working women were naming children Fantine that year. She leaves the provinces at fifteen to seek her fortune, still beautiful at twenty-three, living near a barrier of evil repute. Class geography has already sorted the risk. The city will notice her later as gossip, not as kin.
Key Insight
Poverty often begins as a missing net, not a missing virtue. If your reading of a person's choices skips the absent family, the accidental name, and the neighbourhood, you are already writing the later indictment.
“She was one of those women who spring up, so to speak, from the dregs of the people.”Explore full theme analysis
