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The youngest two Thénardier children luck out by being raised by someone else and supported by someone with money...until their adoptive mother is arrested while they're out playing. The five-- and seven-year-old come home to find a neighbor telling them their family's gone, and they need to go to the address of the man who's been providing for them (well, his representative, anyway)...and then they lose the address.
supported by someone with money
It's ironic: Marius spent years searching for the man as looking for the man who saved his father, hoping to repay him. His grandfather, who hated George Pontmercy, was already providing for two of Thénardier's children. None of them ever find out, though. Gavroche doesn't even know when they run into him and he takes them under his wing, showing them the ropes and taking them to the home he's built in a disintegrating unfinished monument.
As for Gavroche, he's no worse off on the street than his sisters are at home. And growing up without their parents has allowed him to turn out kind-hearted. Mischievous, sure. Irreverent, yes. A pest to those more fortunate than him, absolutely! Still, he instinctively helps those who need it the most, giving the coins to Mabeuf, his shawl to a homeless girl, the biggest piece of bread to one of the two lost kids he picks up, and so on. The Thénardiers would have jealously kept everything, and they taught their daughters to do the same.
Thénardier's jailbreak is a page-turner. And then there's the moment at the end, after Gavroche has climbed up a three-story wall with a rope to get him safely down.
Gavroche pauses, hoping for some sort of acknowledgement from his father. When he realizes it's not coming -- Thénardier is already planning his next "job" -- Gavroche saunters off, casually remarking that he's going to take care of "his" kids. It's a rebuke that also passes unremarked. And the fact that those kids he's taken in are also Thénardier's abandoned children just adds another layer.
Montparnasse, who asked for Gavroche's help in the first place, is already gone. Babet thinks the kid looked familiar. But Thénardier couldn't even be bothered to look closely enough to recognize his own son.
— Kelson Vibber, 2018-05-07
Next: Slang, Theme and Digressions: Getting the Point Across
Thoughts and commentary on Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.