Rossi 1 Peter Rossi Dr.

Griffin Tech Prep 12 11 April 2014 Jean Valjean Learns Compassion by Receiving Kindness In the novel Les Miserabls, Jean Valjean learns compassion by receiving kindness. Main idea of each paragraph. Until now, Jean Valjean was a convict. He had been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. He spent a large amount of his life in the galleys, never once being treated like a normal human. When he was finally released, he traveled to a city where everyone treated him as if he were a piece of trash rolling down the street. When he finally came to a place that he was accepted, he could not believe that the master of this house he was in had called him by a name of a normal person. Monsieur to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea (Hugo 19). This small show of compassion was enough to spark a huge internal struggle within a convict and cause him to question his entire existence. In addition, "While he wept, the light grew brighter and brighter in his mind - an extraordinary light, at once transporting and terrible" (Hugo 38). When Jean Valjean accepted the compassion of the bishop, he left the despair of the galleys behind him and began to awaken a new life inside of him. He was inspired to be a better man although he had almost relapsed back into a convict many times.

Rossi 2 Transition..The main idea of this paragraph is What the bishop had desired to do with him, that he executed it. It was more than a transformation----it was a transfiguration (Hugo 72). This relates to the thesis because Jean Valjean applied that newfound joy he was given from the bishop and transformed it into a great new life of helping others and bringing prosperity to the town he moved to. Thesis. Summarize. Significance.

Rossi 3 Works Cited Hugo, Victor. Les Miserabls. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1961. Print