valiant & steadfast

i think that it is important to step back and think about context, both narrative and historical, when we talk about the cultural misogyny reflected in victor hugo's writing — "therein lies the whole woman’s future" and "a little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children" — we are talking about a society where the vast majority of women lack agency and security unless they are married, and the scene in question is cosette, a neglected little girl dressed in rags whose abusive foster siblings have everything they could want for and are taking it for granted — "they had thrown their doll on the ground" — making a toy out of a knife, and fantine, her mother, has just died after being separated from her daughter for more than half of a decade — fantine whose lover abandoned her and the child he had with her, and who never had the opportunity to gain economic and social legitimacy and respect (for herself and her daughter) through marriage because she was jilted by a man who had the privilege to abandon his mistress without any compassion as to what that would mean for her and her chances of survival both literally and socially. this opportunity for stability, which again was one of women's only opportunities for stability, was stolen from fantine, and that theft completely ruined her life despite her best efforts to make the most of the situation and provide for her daughter — her daughter who already has the cards stacked against her as an illegitimate child, and who without intervention in all likelihood is either going to die young of neglect and abuse or grow up without any pathway to safety and security — "the whole woman's future" — because of her station.

i am in fact generally opposed to "we can't apply modern judgments to historical persons" as a critical argument and i'm not going to shy from calling it misogynistic, but it is true that the majority of people in this society held that misogynistic viewpoint (among others) without questioning its underside — if a woman's worth to others and to herself lies (mostly or entirely) in her ability to be a legitimate wife and mother, what happens to the women who are denied the opportunity to become wives and mothers? when they are also denied the opportunity to receive an education or to exercise civil rights? the opportunity to behave autonomously and according to their own wishes and values?

Flight of the Noldor beloved chapter actually...