Eponine in the musical is sad, but seems to be mostly getting along as best as she can under the circumstances. In the book, though, the Thenardiers are dirt poor after they lose the inn. She’s malnourished, dressed in rags that don’t have a hope of keeping her warm even in the snow, has a husky voice like “a bronchitic old man,” is missing teeth, and is down to skin and bones. “A blend of fifty and fifteen.” When she first visits Marius, she hasn’t eaten in three days.
Hugo compares her, and girls like her, to “flowers dropped in the street which lie fading in the mud until a cartwheel comes to crush them.”
On Tumblr (Re-Reading Les Mis)