Les Misérables Volume 3, Chapter 8 Summary

Summary

The chapter sketches the two daughters of M. Gillenormand, born ten years apart and opposites in temperament and fate. The younger is ethereal, passionate about flowers, verses, and music, romantically married to an idealized figure and later dies; the elder remains unmarried and embodies extreme prudery and bigotry. Hugo emphasizes their differing fantasies: one dreams heroic and poetic dreams, the other dreams of social station, official rank, and bourgeois respectability.

The narrative then concentrates on the elder sister, known throughout simply as Mademoiselle Gillenormand. Hugo depicts her as an extreme prude, vainly defensive about modesty, zealous in religious observance, and allied to an equally foolish companion, Mademoiselle Vaubois. Age has accentuated her traits but also softened some sharp edges; she is shown as neither malicious nor truly harsh, more the image of a life that is over and never fully begun. The household arrangement is sketched: Mademoiselle Gillenormand keeps house for her father, M. Gillenormand, and there also lives a small boy—his grandson—who cowers in the old man's presence, addressed brusquely yet adored. The chapter ends noting that this child will reappear later.

Key events

1. Hugo contrasts the two Gillenormand daughters and their divergent youthful dreams.
2. The younger daughter marries her romantic ideal but dies; the elder remains unmarried.
3. Detailed portrait of Mademoiselle Gillenormand as a consummate prude and religious devotee.
4. Introduction of Mademoiselle Vaubois as the elder's simple-minded chapel companion.
5. Household scene: Mademoiselle Gillenormand keeps house for M. Gillenormand and a frightened little grandson is present.

Analysis

This chapter functions as character exposition and social satire: Hugo uses a close, ironical portrait to illuminate bourgeois values and the ways private fantasy shapes public comportment. By setting the two sisters in parallel—one angelic and idealistic, the other officiously prudish—Hugo demonstrates how complementary delusions structure family life and social identity. The elder sister, Mademoiselle Gillenormand, embodies rigid moralism and the performative aspects of religion; her obsessive modesty and accumulation of pins symbolize defensive postures that mask an inner void. The contrast between her inflated sense of virtue and the harmless stupidity of her friend Mademoiselle Vaubois sharpens the novel's critique of hollow respectability.

Narratively, the chapter shifts focus away from major protagonists to the domestic microcosm around M. Gillenormand, expanding the social world of the novel and prefiguring later developments by introducing the unnamed little grandson. The tone mixes affectionate mockery with sympathy, a typical Hugoan blend that invites readers to laugh at social foibles while recognizing the loneliness and finished lives behind them. The repeated emphasis on roles—spinster, old man, chapel friend, Lancer Théodule—underscores theme of performance versus inner life, and the household detail helps root the larger political and moral themes of the volume in quotidian family relations.

Important quotes

“She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand, the elder.”

NarratorAnnounces the central subject of the portrait and how she is known in the household and society.

“There was also in this house, between this elderly spinster and this old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the presence of M. Gillenormand.”

NarratorIntroduces the timid little grandson whose relationship with M. Gillenormand will be significant later.

Characters in Volume 3, Chapter 8

• M. Gillenormand
• Mademoiselle Gillenormand
• Mademoiselle Vaubois
• Théodule
• Bishop Myriel