In the book Les Misérables, Victor Hugo interweaved a lot of coincidences into the story to craft his plot and display the amazing qualities of Jean Valjean. Most of the happenstances revolve around a rogue character by the name of Thénardier who somehow interacts and creates a twisted web of relationships with most of the other people.
Out of the millions of people who reside in Paris, Thénardier, a major scoundrel in Hugo's novel, always happens to encounter Jean Valjean or people related to him. When the story first starts out, despite all the other possibilities, Fantine entrusts her only child, Cosette, to the Thénardiers. Then Marius coincidentally moves right next to Thénardier, who previously saved Pontmercy, Marius's father. Thénardier also disguises himself as Jondrette, and Valjean unintentionally gives him money albeit the incredible amount of poor people needing financial aid. Then as Jean Valjean enters the house of Jondrette, Marius, who is helplessly in love with Cosette though they don't even know each other's names creating a complicated relationship between him, Cosette, Valjean, and the Thénardiers, is looking through the hole and sees Cosette, giving him a chance to get closer to her. And lastly, when Valjean is fleeing through the sewers with Marius, Thénardier randomly happens to be at the gate at the right time to unlock it and help Valjean escape.
I think the chances of several events that happened in this novel are too slim. Hugo put too many coincidences in this book for anyone to consider it realistic. I, however, like the fact that so many coincidences occur because it makes the story more interesting and exciting, and it definitely doesn't "cheapen- the novel for me. If Hugo had left out some of the events that happened, the novel would have lost its appeal and attraction in my opinion.
His most famous works include the novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the immensely popular Les Miserables, which of course served as inspiration for one of the twentieth century's most popular musicals Les Mis; however, it is his dramatic works, rather than his novels, that incited so much animosity, praise, and even riots. ...