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Yip1982

Character study of Eponine

I know I haven't had the chance to read the complete Hugo book of Les Mis, but after listening to the musical it's interesting to discover the complexity of Eponine's character.
I know that her parents, the Thenardiers, have pampered and spoilt her during her early years (and we can see it when Mme Thenardier is pleased with her hat), but yet we can see something deeper in her character. Eponine knows that it is wrong to be scavenging with her parents, and sees ler love for Marius as her escape from the bedlum of her parents' nefarious activities and ways.
As such I'm sure that there's more to Eponine's character than meets the eye, and she needn't be portrayed as spoilt.
Fantine

d'oh!

I don't even know where to begin. Maybe Orestes Fasting has something written about the 'real' Eponine on her website.
Colle

Here is a link to some cliff notes, that I think gives a good summary of Eponine that is fair, bringing out her good and bad points. I recommend you read though these cliff notes, not just this page. I think the people who wrote these cliff notes have a pretty good feel for all the characters, not just Eponine.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Les-Miserables.id-61,pageNum-46.html
Aimee

Re: Character study of Eponine

Yip1982 wrote:
and she needn't be portrayed as spoilt.
I agree but does anyone ever play it as spoilt? How do you portray that? I think the people I have seen portray Eponine have never gone for spoilt. That is a by-product of and not the main thrust of her character.

I do think the whole love interest and 'poor me I'm so sad' thing is over done at times but that's more the central character IN THE SHOW.

The book is excellent, you should read it, you'll see a very different side to her.
dcrowley

I agree that you need to read the book... you really see a much darker character in the novel Eponine. She is never whiney or "woe is me" in the novel. It is obvious that she is a little too obsessed with Marius, but she never comes out and reveals her true feelings for him until her death scene. She is an incredibly strong character in the novel... She endures much more miserable circumstances. She talks to Marius about having to live under a bridge one winter; the only thing that kept her from drowning herself is the fact that the water looked so cold.

I know it is unpopular to like Eponine for some reason... like how it is unpopular to like Wicked or Spring awakening; but she really is an amazing character.
Elin

Eponine Is Not Kewl:

http://mhari.livejournal.com/14962.html

Enjoy! I know I do. Cool Mr. Green Applause
Quique

Yeah, she isn't "cool" as in "girl next door cool." I hate it when she's played that way. It's annoying.

But I think most people (myself included) say she's a great character, which is very different from thinking she's an innocent little bimbo who whines her way through the show.

I see musical Eponine as strong and tough. She has the brains to realize it just isn't going to work out with this guy and accepts reality like a real trooper. That's why I love her in the musical.
EponineBarker

Quote:
Yeah, she isn't "cool" as in "girl next door cool." I hate it when she's played that way. It's annoying.


Which is why it's nice (IMHO) to see Celia Keenan-Bolger's intrepretation of Eponine. She's brings out the "obsessive craziness" in Eponine. (At least that's what I heard, I haven't seen much of her. Except for a couple bootlegs.)
Set_Buildin_Dad

Difficult as it is to slog through the entire Hugo masterpiece I reccommend that you do in order to understand the entire Thenardier family. Epononine is a product of her environment. In the book you will find out just how far back her infatuation for Marius goes - he once rented a room from the Thenardiers. You will also understand her relationship to her siblings, Gavroche and another little brother that didn't make the stage play. Yes, Gavroche is her brother, even though that doesn't come out in the show either.

There are several passages in the original novel that tend to bog down, such as the description of the battle of Waterloo, where Thenardier first shows his true character, and the lengthy description of the Paris sewer system. Still it is worth reading the original. Don't read the abridged version as large portions of the plot and characters are omited.
Yip1982

[quote="Set_Buildin_Dad"]Difficult as it is to slog through the entire Hugo masterpiece I reccommend that you do in order to understand the entire Thenardier family. Epononine is a product of her environment. In the book you will find out just how far back her infatuation for Marius goes - he once rented a room from the Thenardiers. You will also understand her relationship to her siblings, Gavroche and another little brother that didn't make the stage play. Yes, Gavroche is her brother, even though that doesn't come out in the show either.

There are several passages in the original novel that tend to bog down, such as the description of the battle of Waterloo, where Thenardier first shows his true character, and the lengthy description of the Paris sewer system. Still it is worth reading the original. Don't read the abridged version as large portions of the plot and characters are omited.[/quote]


I'm glad you all unearthed more about Eponine, and revealed her as a more complex character than the musical could portray in such a short space of time. Now I wait to lay my hands on a copy of the novel in legible, large print (for my poor eyesight), or perhaps a simplified version.
Set_Buildin_Dad

Quote:
I'm glad you all unearthed more about Eponine, and revealed her as a more complex character than the musical could portray in such a short space of time. Now I wait to lay my hands on a copy of the novel in legible, large print (for my poor eyesight), or perhaps a simplified version.


Good luck. I'm sure it will be worth your while. A word of advice - my wife read the abridged version because she didn't want to tackle the full novel. We discussed it afterwards, and there was a tremendous amount missing. Complete characters and plot lines were left out. I hope you can find a version of the complete novel that is suitable to your eyesight. It is worth it.
Aimee

Yip1982 wrote:
Set_Buildin_Dad wrote:
Difficult as it is to slog through the entire Hugo masterpiece I reccommend that you do in order to understand the entire Thenardier family. Epononine is a product of her environment. In the book you will find out just how far back her infatuation for Marius goes - he once rented a room from the Thenardiers. You will also understand her relationship to her siblings, Gavroche and another little brother that didn't make the stage play. Yes, Gavroche is her brother, even though that doesn't come out in the show either.

There are several passages in the original novel that tend to bog down, such as the description of the battle of Waterloo, where Thenardier first shows his true character, and the lengthy description of the Paris sewer system. Still it is worth reading the original. Don't read the abridged version as large portions of the plot and characters are omited.



I'm glad you all unearthed more about Eponine, and revealed her as a more complex character than the musical could portray in such a short space of time. Now I wait to lay my hands on a copy of the novel in legible, large print (for my poor eyesight), or perhaps a simplified version.
Get and audio version and listen to it as you go out and about it the world. Smile
Mademoiselle Lanoire

The novel is public domain. Download or print off a copy online and you can make the text as large as you want. (An audiobook is also a good idea.)
LesMisForever

The audio version is abridged.

If you don't have the will to read the full version, although you should, then it is better to skip some parts of the full version rather than reading an abridged version.

P.S: Marius didn't rent a room from the Thenardier, but he lived in a room next to them.
Set_Buildin_Dad

Quote:
P.S: Marius didn't rent a room from the Thenardier, but he lived in a room next to them.


I think you're right. I was going by memory, and it's been 20 years since I read the book.
Orestes Fasting

I don't think an unabridged audiobook of the novel exists--at least, I haven't been able to find one. I've bought a couple, and the longest one I have is 10 CDs and still so severely abridged as to cut out most of Fantine's plotline. An unabridged version would be rather impractical, and besides, who wants to sit through two hours of narration about eccentric nuns?

I actually don't think the OP's description of Eponine was too far off the mark; the chief difference to bear in mind, though, between the book and the musical is that Boublil and Sch�nberg want the audience to identify with Eponine as a romantic heroine, while Hugo intended for the reader to regard her as the product of an adolescence spent in wretched poverty. While her love for Marius does drive almost all her actions in the book--and while it's arguable that her love redeemed her--those actions are not uniformly selfless and moral as they are in the musical. B&S, in making Eponine a romantic heroine, emphasized that she led Marius to Cosette, delivered his letters despite a certain amount of bitterness and jealousy, and saved them from the robbers at great risk to herself--but they glossed over the fact that she, out of jealousy, orchestrated the chain of events that would separate Marius from Cosette and lead him into almost certain death. (It is, however, interesting to note that in the musical, she just kind of randomly gets shot, instead of throwing herself in front of a musket to save Marius like she did in the book.) Eponine's morals were in fact quite twisted by her upbringing and her living conditions, which doesn't come through quite as well in the musical. I guess you could say she got "cleaned up," in order to earn the audience's sympathy instead of their pity.
Fantine

That's very nicely put. Well spoken, OF.
Quique

Beautifully put, Orestes. Yeah, she is probably one of the most heavily adapted characters. While B&S kept true to the spirit of the rest of the characters from the novel for the most part, Eponine is like night and day. As much as I love the musical Eponine, I must admit that it even annoys me sometimes to see just how hard they tried to make her gain the audience's sympathy in the musical, but at the same time, the musical was dark enough and adding that creepy side to her probably would've been overkill. It would've been interesting that's for sure, but 'darker' doesn't necessarily = better. Making her as close as possible to the novel probably wouldn't have worked either, considering there's enough misery to go around in the show already, hehe.
Orestes Fasting

Ah, but inserting an entire show-stopping solo dripping with angst isn't exactly lightening the mood either. Laughing I think Boublil and Sch�nberg were just a bit taken with the character of Eponine, interpreted her as being a tragic heroine of sorts, and let that show through in their work. The OFC shows the same tendency, even if "L'un vers l'autre" isn't quite as memorable as "On My Own."

They certainly wouldn't be the first to admire Eponine, even though she was a comparatively minor character in the book; the director of the 1958 film mentioned in an interview or article that he found her far more interesting than the sweet, passive Cosette. But they took the idea and ran with it, and in the process eliminated the moral ambiguity that's part of what makes her interesting.
dcrowley

I am disappointed every time I see one of those cutesy "Marius doesn't like me *bottom lip quivers*"" Eponines. Not only is it out of character to have Eponine grinning the whole way through "On My Own", it's just so one dimensional. Celia Keenan Bolger is the only actress I truly respect for obviously researching VH's work and making Eponine a bit uglier than she is usually portrayed
Eponine93

dcrowley wrote:
I am disappointed every time I see one of those cutesy "Marius doesn't like me *bottom lip quivers*"" Eponines. Not only is it out of character to have Eponine grinning the whole way through "On My Own", it's just so one dimensional. Celia Keenan Bolger is the only actress I truly respect for obviously researching VH's work and making Eponine a bit uglier than she is usually portrayed


Ugh. I saw bootleg videos of Celia in On My Own and a few other of the numbers on youtube, showed up at the theatre expecting to see a real, three-dementional Eponine and got Megan McGinnis, who was a cutesy Eponine if there ever was one. My mother and my sister (neither of whom have read the book) loved her but even though I hadn't read the book yet, I had a pretty good idea of Eponine's real characterizations. I couldn't stand McGinnis's performance, or the tons of fangirls who loved it, and I was barely moved at all when Eponine died. I hate cutesy Eponines because they put a really dark light on the whole triangle. In the book, by sending Marius to the barricades, she made Marius and Cosette's love for each other stronger. Cutesy Eponine in the musical makes Marius seem like the bad guy and taints their whole relationship. Worst of all, in the performance I saw, Adam Jacobs was treating cutesy!Eponine the same way he treated Celia's creepy!Eponine during ALFOH, so the whole character came off as insensitive.

I'm glad we don't have a thread about the characterization of Marius though because otherwise I would be bitching and moaning about how much I hate musical!Marius when compared to book!Marius. I love book!Marius, but I want to throw musical!Marius against the wall most of the time.
Quique

That's why I've always hated the cutesy ones - they are nowhere near what's in the novel. At least actresses such as Sutton Foster, Angela Pupello, Sarah Uriarte Berry, and Pili Artaza gave her more of an edge. I feel absolutely nothing for the character when played all grinny and whiney.
Gargamel

The solo itself doesn't bother me that much.
I also "accpet" that some characters have to change from the novel. Having a 3 hour show/movie implies some changes. And the Musical Eponie is not a "wrong" Eponine, it is just one part of Eponine, just like Marius and almost every character in the show.

What annoys me more is that Eponie in the show is a good looking girl, a sexy one.
In fact, if only they made her ugly and more annoying, it would make her closer to the Eponine book. Even more, if they made the audience hate her at first, picturing her as little selfish, her solo "On My Own" would be even stronger! The audience would suddenly see her as someone suffering, and not just someone annoying.
Some small changes to the show could turn her as a deeper character, as she is in the novel.
eponine5

Aw, there's no unabridged audio version? I would have liked to hear someone read aloud the long sentence in the Louis Philippe chapter...

As for Eponine, I think that although she is very different in the musical from the book, it may have been too difficult to explain some things such as her role in sending Marius to the barricades and attempting to split him and Cosette up. That could have ended up in putting too much focus on Eponine, and it would have slowed down the plot. People would still have been complaining about the treatment of her character. Also, in the book she redeemed herself when she saved Marius, while in the musical she didn't really need redeeming.
Fantine

True, true...
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