Les Miserables By Victor Hugo: Character Analysis

Love at first sight is a common phrase known to almost everyone. However, as we grow up, we know that love is more complicated than a first sighting. There’s more to it than looks. However, in Les Miserables written by Victor Hugo, the immaturity shown throughout his writing leads to Eponine losing out in the long run. With almost everything about women being physical characteristics written in the book, Eponine is looked down upon even though her personal traits had more to offer. Eponine was a better fit for Marius, rather than Cosette, since Eponine knew him all his life, didn’t love him based off his looks, was smarter, and incredibly creative. Eponine loved Marius for who he was whereas Cosette supposedly loved Marius only after looking at him. There …show more content…
They could have bad breath, no respect, be too cocky, have bad eating habits, or more. Because Cosette only saw Marius, she based everything about him off of the looks. She didn’t know anything about who he was as a person. Cosette could say that she was in love with Marius’s outward appearance, but since she didn’t know anything else about him, she couldn’t be in love with all of him, at least not yet. The same idea goes with Marius and his supposed “love” for Cosette. Everything was focused on her physical characteristics. “Beautiful chestnut hair, shaded with veins of gold, a brow which seemed chiseled marble, cheeks which seemed made of roses, a pale incarnadine, a flushed whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence came a smile like a gleam of sunshine, and a voice like music” (Hugo 162). Everything that Marius saw in Cosette was physical. Nothing was internal. The only focus that Marius had for Cosette was on her beauty because “As three April