page_title: Éponine
section_title: Significance of the character
hierarchical_section_title: Éponine / Significance of the character
caption_attribution_description: English: Eponine, character by Les Misérables. Français&#160;: Une rose dans la misère&#160;: Éponine fait irruption dans la chambre de Marius. Gravure de Louis Muller (1864-19..) d'après un dessin de Pierre Georges Jeanniot pour Les Misérables de Victor Hugo, tome III, livre huitième, chapitre 4.
context_page_description: Éponine Thénardier, also referred to as the "Jondrette girl", is a fictional character in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.
  The character is introduced as a spoiled and pampered child, but appears later in the novel as a ragged and impoverished teenager who speaks in the argot of the Parisian streets, while retaining vestiges of her former charm and innocence.
context_section_description: John Andrew Frey identified Éponine as a parallel figure to Fantine: "Eponine is symbolic of redeemed types found in Hugo's work—the Mary Magdalene fallen woman redeemed by a deep, albeit romantic and impossible love." He sees her death as typically operatic, a drawn-out farewell scene with an aria-like speech exploring all her feelings. As in Romantic opera: "The dying Eponine recounts her long-held feeling of love for Marius, feelings she interprets as both moral and physical defects making her unworthy." He compares her to the character of La Maheude in Émile Zola's novel Germinal, who also contemplates an alternative life, and "hypothetically thinks about the possibility that they could have been lovers". Kathryn M. Grossman also identifies the redemptive aspect of the character and the parallel with Fantine: "In a much different way [from Fantine], Eponine's devotion to Marius saves her from reiterating the sins of her parents. Her love redeems her, as Valjean and Fantine are redeemed by their love for Cosette."
  George Saintsbury argued that Éponine is the most interesting character in the novel, but that Hugo, like Marius, did not take enough notice of her:
  The gamin Gavroche puts in a strong plea for mercy, and his sister Eponine, if Hugo had chosen to take more trouble with her, might have been a great, and is actually the most interesting, character. But Cosette—the cosseted Cosette—Hugo did not know our word or he would have seen the danger—is merely a pretty and rather selfish little doll, and her precious lover Marius is almost ineffable.
caption: Éponine: A Rose in Misery (1890) by Pierre Jeanniot
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