How does jean valjean die in the book

Javert essentially believes that there are two types of people in the world bad people Criminals and good people. When he finally hunts down Valjean and discovers that he has become a good person, meaning everything he has ever known is wrong, He commits suicide.

FantineAbandoned by her lover, Fantine is forced to leave her child in the care of an innkeeper and his wife in order to raise enough money to keep them both alive.

Years later Fantine is fired from Valjean's factory because her child is discovered. Fantine is forced into prostitution and arrested by Javert. Valjean however feels sympathy and intervenes, nursing the woman until she eventually dies. On her death bed she makes him promise to raise her child Cosette.

The ThernadiersAn innkeeper and his wife, parents of Eponine. They take in Fantine's child, Cosette, using her for free labour and keeping the money Fantine sends for Cosette's care.

They eventually sell Cosette to Valjean. They eventually lose the bar and make a living thieving on Paris' streets. CosetteAfter Cosette is rescued from the Thernadiers, Valjean provides a comfortable yet secluded life in Paris. One day, she falls madly in love with Marius Pontmercy.

Marius PontmercyMarius is a student in Paris and key to the revolution that is brewing. He is a dashing young man and falls in love with Cosette on sight.

EnjolrasThe leader of the revelation, Enjolras is Marius' best friend. He is killed in the Revolution. EponineDaughter of the Thernadiers, Eponine falls madly in love with Marius however he only views her as a friend. She is the first to die on the barricade after following Marius there.

Jean-Baptiste Jean died in No, Jean did not die. Les Osland died in Les Howe died in Les Ford died in Les Eyre died in Log in. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. Study guides. Q: How does jean valjean die in Les Miserables? Write your answer Related questions. What year did Jean Valjean die?

Does the character marias die in Les Miserables? How does valjean die in les miserable? Did Enjolras die in Les Miserables? Does cosette die in les mis?

How does Enjolras from Les Miserables die? Why does everybody die at the end of the play Les Miserables? In Les Miserables why does Valjean let Javert go? When Marius returns to Cosette, she and Valjean have disappeared. Heartbroken, Marius decides to join his radical student friends, who have started a political uprising. Armed with two pistols, Marius heads for the barricades. The uprising seems doomed, but Marius and his fellow students nonetheless stand their ground and vow to fight for freedom and democracy.

The students discover Javert among their ranks, and, realizing that he is a spy, Enjolras ties him up. Marius quickly scribbles a reply and orders a boy, Gavroche, to deliver it to Cosette. Valjean manages to intercept the note and sets out to save the life of the man his daughter loves. Valjean arrives at the barricade and volunteers to execute Javert.

When alone with Javert, however, Valjean instead secretly lets him go free. As the army storms the barricade, Valjean grabs the wounded Marius and flees through the sewers. When Valjean emerges hours later, Javert immediately arrests him. Javert agrees. Javert feels tormented, torn between his duty to his profession and the debt he owes Valjean for saving his life. Ultimately, Javert lets Valjean go and throws himself into the river, where he drowns. Their wedding is a happy one, marred only when Valjean confesses his criminal past to Marius.

Alarmed by this revelation and unaware that it was Valjean who saved his life at the barricades, Marius tries to prevent Cosette from having contact with Valjean. Lonely and depressed, Valjean takes to his bed and awaits his death.

Ashamed that he mistrusted Valjean, Marius tells Cosette everything that has happened. One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker than he had ever been before. Given that Jean Valjean was exerting himself at the point at which he died, it seems reasonably likely that the primary symptom of death was heart failure.

Wikipedia lists this reason from the musical which the film is based on as:. That may be, but he was also pretty old for the time period, and serving 19 years of hard labor probably didn't help. At age 65 he is well past the average life expectancy of something living in France in the 19th century.

Admittedly, when you are constantly in war, the life expectancy is pretty low. French people didn't see a life expectancy above 60 until after World War 2. So it is probably a combination of old age, and having no more reason to live believing that he will never see Cosette again.

He simply lost the will to live. There is no medical reason given, and he was, as an able bodied male, a bit too young to die of old age complications. It's possible he did have an undiagnosed medical condition, but the story does not touch on that. The state of Medicine was far less advanced at the time. To explain the Average Life Expectancy at the time WAS lower, maybe 35 years or so, but this is deceptive at first glance.

A high infant mortality rate heavily skews this number. When babies out of die before age 5, the average plummets. Women had the same issue with childhood deaths AND dying in childbirth, but still outlive men by 5 years on average. Valjean, who in later life is a mayor, slightly well off, would be an old man in death. Only George Washington died a young 67, from blood loss, not old age complications. Having not been able to see Cosette anymore, he lost his will live, and that's very important.

Ask anyone in a medical field, and they will tell you, someone fighting to live has a notably higher chance of surviving than those that don't, like the placebo effect. Based on the play, I always assumed he had gotten sick pneumonia?

In the book, after he marries Cosette, Marius is a real jerk to him and forces him to only meet with Cosette in a basement where he catches a chill and dies from it. Either way, Marius is a jerk and responsible for the death of the coolest French guy ever. Well, in the book it said that he had a fever. That and he lived till eighty and the average life expectancy back them was like 65 or lower. So illness and old age? And heartbreak over not being able to see Cosette again I think.

For me, I always understood it as he had completed everything he needed to do in that life In peace, without fear nor worry.

Cosette has found a man who he knows will love and protect her, taking from him that responsibility, one that he volunteered for of course one that he changed his life for and that gave him purpose. The decision he sings about having to make is to either let him die or to save him, singing that the existence of this love of Cosette's is something he's always dreaded.

Being replaced? Losing Cosette? The loss of Cosette's youth? Considering the unwanted possibility that she will need him no more? That it is Cosette's time? The thought of ValJean eventually becoming a burden to Cosette, when she has to care for him as an elderly man? He is sick of running.