By the time Cosette is approximately three, Fantine arrives at Montfermeil and meets the Thénardiers who are owners of an inn.

Jean Valjean's) factory in her hometown of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and has a public letter-writer compose her letters to the Thénardiers for her because she is illiterate.

Fantine begins to work at home, earning twelve sous a day while Cosette's lodging costs ten.

The Thénardiers send another letter saying they need forty francs to buy medicine for Cosette who has become "ill." Desperate for the money, Fantine has her two front teeth removed and sells them.

Meanwhile, Fantine's health and her own lodging debts worsen while the Thénardiers' letters continue to grow and their financial demands become more costly.

During a January evening, a dandy called Bamatabois heckles her and shoves snow down the back of her dress when she ignores him.

Shocked by these revelations, she suffers a severe fit of trembling, falls back on her bed and dies.

Fantine has been interpreted as a holy prostitute figure who becomes a quintessential mother by sacrificing her own body and dignity for the purpose of securing the life of her child.

She is an example of what has been called "the cliché of the saved and saintly prostitute that pervades nineteenth-century fiction",[3] which is also found in the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens.

Oscar Wilde presented her as a figure whose suffering makes her lovable, writing of the scene after she has her teeth removed, that "We run to kiss the bleeding mouth of Fantine".

[4] Kathryn M. Grossman says she moves into a form of "maternal sainthood" and that "When Madeleine (Valjean's pseudonym as mayor) affirms that she has remained virtuous and holy before God, Fantine can finally release her hatred and love others again.

[6] Mario Vargas Llosa takes a less positive view, arguing that Hugo in effect punishes Fantine for her sexual transgression by making her suffer so horribly.

"[7] Fantine's image as a saint-like symbol of female victimhood appears in the writings of the union leader Eugene V. Debs, founder of the Industrial Workers of the World.

In 1916 he wrote the essay Fantine in our Day, in which he compared the sufferings of Fantine to abandoned women of his own day: The very name of Fantine, the gay, guileless, trusting girl, the innocent, betrayed, self-immolating young mother, the despoiled, bedraggled, hunted and holy martyr to motherhood, to the infinite love of her child, touches to tears and haunts the memory like a melancholy dream....Fantine—child of poverty and starvation—the ruined girl, the abandoned mother, the hounded prostitute, remained to the very hour of her tragic death chaste as a virgin, spotless as a saint in the holy sanctuary of her own pure and undefiled soul.

Since the original publication of Les Misérables in 1862, the character of Fantine has been in a large number of adaptations in numerous types of media based on the novel, including books, films,[9] musicals, plays, and games.

Anne Hathaway won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Fantine in the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables.