Gavroche

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Gavroche is a fictional character from the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

Illustration of Gavroche by Émile Bayard (1837-1891)

1 Plot
2 Argot
3 Differences in the musical
4 Cultural references
5 Sources
6 References

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Gavroche is the eldest son of M. and Mme Thenardier. He has two sisters, Eponine and Azelma, and two unnamed younger brothers. He is also technically unnamed; the reader is told he chooses the name for himself, but is not provided with his real name. Mme Thenardier only loves her daughters, and M. Thenardier shows no affection for any of his children. Gavroche chooses to live in the streets.

The Thenardiers sell/rent their two youngest sons to a woman named Magnon. Magnon was getting paid for her two illegitimate sons by her former employer, M. Gillenormand, Marius's grandfather. When those two sons die, she 'replaces' them with the two from the Thenardiers. The Thenardiers get a portion of the payment. Due to a freak accident, the two boys get separated from Magnon without identification, and run into Gavroche. They don't recognize each other, but Gavroche invites them to live with him. They reside in the hollow cavity of a giant elephant statue, conceived by Napoleon as a fountain, but abandoned unfinished. This was no imaginary construction; located at the Place de la Bastille, it had been designed by Jean-Antoine Alavoine.

During the student uprising of June 5-6, 1832, Gavroche joins the revolutionaries at the barricade. Partially in order to protect him from injury, Marius hands him a letter to deliver to Cosette. After delivering it to Jean Valjean, Cosette's guardian who promises he will hand it to Cosette, Gavroche returns to the barricade.

After an exchange of gunfire with the National Guards, Gavroche overhears Enjolras remark that they are running out of cartridges. He decides he can help. He goes through an opening in the barricade and collects the cartridges from the dead bodies of the National Guard. In the process of collecting the cartridges and singing a song about Voltaire and Rousseau he is shot and killed.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Argot

Argot is the slang used by thieves, criminals, and others who live in the streets. Victor Hugo was one of the first to note the slang and write it down. The character of Gavroche is used to introduce the concept of argot to the reader.^[1]

[edit] Differences in the musical

There are a few notable plot differences in the Cameron Mackintosh stage musical.

The playbill for the musical indicates that Gavroche's parents are the Thenardiers, but this is not indicated in the context of the musical itself.
Gavroche's two younger brothers, and the Elephant, are cut completely.
Marius instead gives the letter to Gavroche's sister, Eponine, to deliver.

[edit] Cultural references

In French, the word "Gavroche" has come to mean "street urchin" and "mischievous child".
There is a homeless organization in Varna, Bulgaria named the Gavroche Association.^[2]
There are several restaurants across the world which use the name.
There is a French-language magazine about Thailand named Gavroche.
While it predates the novel by three decades, the boy brandishing the pistols in Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is often associated with Gavroche. Gavroche fires a pistol in the novel; it is possible Hugo meant to allude to the painting.
Bulgarian poet Hristo Smirnenski has a poem called The Brothers of Gavroche.