#lm 2.3.4

[piierogis]

a doll!!! a doll for my girl!!!! now!!!!!!

[les-mis-daily-doodles]

aww cuteeee

[cliozaur]

Entrance on the Scene of a Doll

[maybeitsapineapple]

LM 2.3.4

can’t believe hugo's complaining about light pollution in 1823/62. good thing he missed the eiffel tower

the fact that you can’t see the stars is significant though because of its association with spiritual darkness, and particularly as it’s shop candles — literal splendid matter, to reference lm 2.1.18 — that are blocking the stars, and they’re only lit at the moment to catch people on their way to mass. people are being distracted and led astray from what matters: in 2.1.18, the ideals of the revolution; in this chapter, god/jesus, which christmas is supposed to be about. they’re even physically being led astray — the line of stalls goes from the church to the thénardiers’ inn

cosette is heartbreaking give that girl a REST and a HUG

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 87: II.iii.4 vs II.iii.5

Which chapter title do you prefer?

A Doll Enters the Scene

The Little One All Alone

Voting ended onMay 2, 2025

[gavroche-le-moineau]

Une poupée dans la vitrine

C'est une poupée dans la vitrine / There is a doll in the shop window Qui me regarde et qui s'ennuie. / Who looks at me and who gets bored Je crois qu'elle se cherche une maman, / I think she's looking for a mom Et moi je veux qu'elle soit ma fille / And I want her to be my daughter Dans une maison pleine de jouets, / In a house full of toys Où les petites filles de mon âge / Where the little girls my age Cousent les toilettes de leurs poupées / Sew their dolls' outfits Et ne font jamais le ménage. / And never do the housework. Je la vêtirai de dentelles, / I will dress her in lace Elle aura des jupons de soie / She will have silk skirts Je veux que ma fille soit la plus belle / I want my daughter to be the most beautiful Et qu'elle soit fière, / And for her to be proud Qu'elle soit très fière de moi. / For her to be very proud of me. C'est une poupée dans la vitrine; / There is a doll in the window; Je la regarde et elle m'appelle. / I look at her and she calls me. Si seulement je savais écrire / If only I knew how to write J'la demanderais au Père Noël. / I would ask her of Father Christmas.

Lyrics: Les Misérables musical, Paris 1991 English translation by me (let me know if I mistranslated anything!) Other song versions: Mon Prince est en Chemin, Castle on a Cloud

If anyone knows where I can find a higher resolution version of this image, let me know!

[dolphin1812]

This chapter is short, so I probably won’t have a lot to say, but the doll’s presence in Montfermeil is interesting in itself. First, we can suspect that this doll’s existence depends on the exploitation of the poor in some way. The hair is real, and while it’s possible that a woman simply sold her hair, we know from Fantine’s story that selling one’s hair was often a sacrifice of sorts. Fantine was willing to go to great lengths to save Cosette, but even at that moment, she rationalized it as acceptable because it was temporary; hair could grow back and she could wear caps to hide that it didn’t look great, so it was tolerable. Someone who wasn’t as desperate as Fantine likely wouldn’t have sold their hair in the first place, suggesting that this product depends on the existence of women like Fantine. 

The doll is also out of place in Montfermeil. It’s not just Cosette who’s too poor to buy this doll; no one in the town can afford it. As a result, it feels quite performative to display it, as the shopkeeper is surely aware that it’s unlikely to ever be sold. The doll is at once a taunt - “look at this beautiful thing that you can’t have” - and a promise - “this masterpiece could be yours if you had more money.” It’s ultimately a marker of class as much as it’s a toy, but of a class that doesn’t even exist in Montfermeil. 

Of course, that same trait makes it a wonderful advertisement. As seen with Cosette, the doll is captivating to little girls, who would likely encourage their mothers to take them closer to the store to see the doll. At that point, the shopkeeper could then try to sell them toys that are more suited to their budgets. Still, it feels cruel to flaunt this doll in front of children to draw them in.

Spoilers below:

I do feel a bit bad being so critical of the doll when it means so much to Cosette later on. Still, the spectacle of the doll is exactly why Valjean buys it for her: he wants her to have a doll to play with, and he saw this one because of how dramatically it was displayed. It’s heartwarming to see her play when she’s never had a real toy before, and the fact that the child who has never had a toy now has the fanciest one in town is beautiful in its own way. But both things can be true at once; the kindness of Valjean’s gesture can exist alongside the doll’s performativity and exploitative elements.

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 2.3.4 “A Doll Enters The Scene”

The description of the candles lighting all the booths reminds me of Grantaire’s “who’s been unhooking the stars without my permission and placing them on the table in the guise of candles.” This is equally as poetic and ethereal, though far less drunk. There is no star in the sky, they have been removed and replaced with the candles lighting the booths. This means that Cosette will have no stars to light her way once she passes into the wood.

“In the first row in front, the merchant had placed, on a bed if white napkins, a huge doll nearly two feet tall in a dress of pink crepe with gold garlands on its head and enamel eyes.” This reminds me of the description of Fantine back in Paris, who wore “a dress of mauve challis” and whose “gold was on her head and the pearls were in her mouth.” This doll is like a toned-down, child’s simple imagination version of a distant memory of young Fantine. The mauve has turned pink and the gold is now garlands. The teeth maybe aren’t what Cosette would remember, especially if by the time Fantine gave Cosette to the Thenardiers, she wasn’t smiling much anymore. But she would maybe remember her mother’s eyes instead, and subconsciously notice that similarity as well.

And maybe this is Freudian as fuck but Cosette has no feminine, motherly figure in her life. Hugo has already established that Mme Thenardier is Not A Woman, and that any amount of motherliness goes only to her daughters. This gazing up at this beautiful feminine doll with real hair and an almost larger-than-life presence (at least for the fact that it’s 2 feet tall which is absurdly large for a doll) is an imagining of some sort of stable, admirable, feminine, motherly presence that she never gets.

I feel like Valjean giving Cosette the doll is kind of an attempt to give Cosette an icon of her mother, without having to explain himself or go much into it emotionally. He doesn’t think he himself can replace Fantine. I’m not sure if he actually believes a doll could either, but I wonder if this is the closest thing he can think of. This will be his second Benevolent Stranger moment towards Cosette (the first being carrying the water bucket in the next chapter) and I think a lot of Valjean’s Benevolent Stranger moments is him knowing he can’t solve a problem (or not understanding how to) but throwing money at it to try and help some way. Buying the doll also further establishes him as a Different Kind Of Adult in Cosette’s eyes. We don’t really get to see how she views other adults, but I can imagine that to her, every person that enters the inn is the same kind of person with power over her, who can ignore her entirely or kick her around (or make the Thenardiers kick her around) but will not ever help her or notice her or care about her. This doll establishes Valjean as something Different. And later on I think they both grow dependent on each other and on each other’s love so that Valjean no longer needs to be the Benevolent Stranger towards Cosette, and yet he will always have this weird sort of emotional block where he gives her things to try and help her rather than sitting down and talking to her and figuring out how they both feel and what they both want.

Cosette is so, so conscious of her class and her place in the world as she gazes up at this doll. Not that she isn’t constantly reminded of it with the Thenardier’s abuse and all that, but this whole amazement and wonder feels bigger than just being aware of her class status.

“Cosette was measuring with the sad and simple wisdom of childhood the abyss that separated her from that doll.” She’s not only comparing herself to who could access the doll, but the imagined existence and life of the doll itself. She thinks someone who is a queen would be able to own the doll. But that makes this doll is some sort of fairy queen as well, some sort of magical being. The doll isn’t just a doll here, the doll is some imaginary world of escape. This is the “Castle On A Cloud” moment; this is Cosette staring up at this strange magical being and imagining this queen (human and doll) living in a paradise that she knows she has no access to. It’s interesting that to her a doll living in paradise would also live close to god/the Eternal Father.

This is also a huge moment for her. It’s implied in the last few chapters that Cosette spends every moment of every day in a mode of hypervigilance, constantly aware of what the Thenardiers are doing and where they are, constantly aware of what has to get done, constantly aware of the tasks she dreads or the mood of the room. And here she has forgotten all of that, including how close to the door of the house this booth is, including the watchfulness of Mme Thenardier, including her errand. She is staring up at this doll and she’s transported entirely. It’s a moment of escapism that washes over her, only to be barged in on and broken by Mme Thenarder yelling at her again.

This is Cosette’s first real I Want moment, the first time we see her gaze and thoughts and desires stretch out beyond her immediate surroundings and the need for survival.