“Les Misérables and the Literary World of Victor Hugo is a magnum opus with themes of love, justice, redemption, and revolution. It is a masterpiece of 19th-century French literature, and it is a reflection of Victor Hugo’s life and philosophy.
Victor Hugo: A life and literary journey
Victor Hugo was born in Vence on February 26, 1802. His father, a general in Napoleon’s army, moved the family to various cities in France, Italy, and Spain from an early age. Although he later followed his father’s wishes and attended university to study law, Victor pursued his literary dreams by writing poetry. One of his greatest influences was the French Romantic poet Chateaubriand. “Je veux être Chateaubriand,” he wrote in his diary at the age of 14.
Victor Hugo married his childhood friend Adèle Foucher in 1822 and published his first book of poetry, Odes, in the same year. He went on to publish a series of plays and poetry collections, becoming a literary figure before the age of 30 and a leading figure in French Romanticism. In 1831, he published the novel Notre-Dame de Paris, which cemented his reputation as a writer.
The single most influential event in Victor Hugo’s life was the accidental drowning of his favorite daughter, Léopoldine Hugo, along with her husband, Charles Vacquerie, in the Seine River in the fall of 1843. The trend of his work before and after this event changed: the afterlife and the soul became his primary concern. In 1845, two years after his daughter’s death, he began writing Les Misérables. He then entered politics, continued his creative work, and continued to publish articles criticizing the French government. As a result, he was exiled to Belgium and then to Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, where he and his family went into exile.
The exile turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Despite Louis Napoleon’s amnesty in 1859, he remained in exile and published several masterpieces of poetry and novels, including Les Contemplations (1856), La Légende des siècles (1859), and L’Homme qui rit (1869). “Les Misérables was published in 1862 while he was still in exile, 17 years after he first began writing it.
In 1870, after the fall of Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire due to the war with Prussia, Victor Hugo arrived in Paris by train on the night of September 5, 1870, to a great welcome. He is elected to the National Assembly, but quickly gives up his seat in dismay at the state of affairs.
Victor Hugo was elected to the Senate in 1876, but in 1878 he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that forced him to retire from politics. On February 26, 1881, Victor Hugo’s 80th birthday was declared a national holiday, and crowds came to his home to applaud him. Victor Hugo had already written his “last will and testament” in 1881, four years before his death.
God, soul, and responsibility. These three ideas are enough. At least, they have been enough for me. This is true religion. I have lived within it, and I shall die within it. Truth, light, justice, and conscience-these are God. I leave 40,000 francs to the poor. I hope it will be used to purchase materials for making coffins for the destitute. (…) My physical eyes will close, but the eyes of my soul will remain open forever.
On May 18, 1885, Victor Hugo was bedridden with pneumonia and died in Paris on the 22nd. That night, Paris was hit by a rainstorm with thunder and hail. On June 1, his funeral was held with state honors, and his remains were laid to rest in the Pantheon, followed by two million people.
Les Misérables: brief plot and short commentary
One of the most famous works written by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables tells the story of Jean Valjean and the people who influenced his life.
Jean Valjean is sent to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread for his hungry sister and her children. During his time in prison, he longs for freedom, but when he is finally released after 19 years, he is looked down upon because of the yellow pass that marks him as an ex-convict. As everyone is reluctant to accept him and looks down on him, he develops a deep hatred for society. However, through the grace of Monsieur Bienvenu, a man of deep love and virtue, Jean Valjean’s conscience is opened.
Afterward, Jean Valjean succeeds in hiding his past, keeping his conscience clear through countless trials and securing a brilliant future. However, his life becomes entangled with a dark past that he cannot erase, and he is at a crossroads where he must make a new decision and choose between lies and truth in the face of inescapable reality. By choosing true misery over the bright future and happiness of standing on a lie, he abandons his stable life and chooses a hopeless future of instability and loneliness. The story of a man’s holy choice to follow his conscience and the truth shows us the true place of happiness in life.
The realistic portrayal of the various characters and events is based on real people. Monsieur Bienvenu is a man named Monsieur Myriel, bishop of Digne since 1806. He was known for his virtuous character and compassionate behavior, and he helped criminals like Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean was also modeled after an ex-convict named Pierre Morin, who was caught and imprisoned for stealing bread from a bakery. However, while Jean Valjean spent 19 years in prison for his escape, Morin only served five years. The Baron Pontmercy is modeled after the author’s father, General Victor Hugo, while the young idealist Marius and his suitor Cosette are based on the author in his youth and Adèle Foucher, who would later become Victor Hugo’s wife.
“When Les Misérables was published, the novel caused an explosive reaction. Praised for its vivid and brilliant descriptions of the War of Waterloo, the French July Revolution, and Jean Valjean’s escape through the deep sewer tunnels of Paris, it was a favorite not only among French readers but also among soldiers fighting the Civil War in the United States, and was translated into 10 other languages.
“Les Misérables” means ‘the poor, pitiful people’ in French. However, Victor Hugo’s novel is not about “poor people” in the narrow sense of the word, but about people who are marginalized by society, the lower classes, and those who resist social systems that marginalize people.
Jean Valjean, who spends 19 years in prison for stealing a piece of bread for his starving nephews; Fantine, who dies selling his body for his young daughter; young Cosette, who is abused by her mean foster parents; and even the cold-hearted Inspector Javert and the swindler Thénardier are all miserable, but they never despair. They overcome their hardships with love and hope. Jean Valjean becomes a new man because of Monsieur Bienvenu’s forgiveness, and Cosette finds a new life because of Jean Valjean’s devoted love. Even the cold-blooded Inspector Javert is transformed by the power of Jean Valjean’s undying love. Meanwhile, Cosette’s lover Marius is sustained by his intense hope for a better society. It is also the romantic hope for a happy future for Cosette and Marius that sustains the aging Jean Valjean.
More than 160 years after its publication in 1862, the book is still being read consistently, and it is still hailed as an immortal masterpiece because it conveys the truth of life through a group of ordinary human beings who can be found in any time and place. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo tells the true lessons of life in an exciting way.
