This chapter was a tough read. Everything continues to get worse for Fantine. Winter means shorter days and due to some other factors, reduced wages as well. Fantine is in an impossible situation and the Thenardiers continue to put the screws to her. She sells her two front teeth to get medication that Cosette doesn’t actually need. It’s one thing after another, and in the midst of it Fantine gets increasingly bitter and angry with Monsieur Madeleine, not knowing that he is oblivious to her firing and situation.
She sells her hair, she sells two of her teeth, and when she is pushed even further with no clear way to pay for the things stacking up against her, she decides the only solution is to sell herself,a nd the chapter ends telling us of her turn to prostitution.
The thing that makes this decline even harder to read is that we know what Fantine doesn’t - none of her money is actually going to help Cosette, she is being treated terribly regardless, and all of the emergencies are manufactured to extract as much as possible from her. Yet again Hugo has proven to be particularly adept at showing the ways the system and those bent by the system can squeeze and pull and dehumanize their victims. Valjean, Javert, Fantine - we have seen them all broken to pieces and each one responds differently. One can only hope that Fantine finds relief of some kind.