Les Miserables Victor Hugo had a significant way of making every single character in this story unique. The rich, the poor, the lonely, the elderly, the beautiful, and the powerful, were all bound together by the main character, Jean Valjean. Try to remember when you were just an innocent child getting in trouble for something insignificant. Of course, every child would run away from his or her punishment. The main character in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables lived his whole life running away from his past. The characters all fit the title Les Miserables, meaning "the miserable ones." For example, It started out with a woman named Fan