Les Misérables is a work that explores human good and evil, redemption and sacrifice. This blog post will explore how the novel portrays human nature.
Les Misérables Summary
“Les Misérables is a masterpiece of Victor Hugo’s life, which he kept in mind for 35 years and completed over 16 years. This work is a historical novel in that it deals with the Paris Uprising of June 1832, and it is also a novel that tells the story of the life and love of a single individual named Jean Valjean, and it can also be described as a detective novel in which the criminal Jean Valjean and the Inspector Javert chase each other. Victor Hugo himself used the term “social epic,” so perhaps that is the most accurate definition.
Whatever the nature of the novel, Les Misérables is, along with Notre-Dame de Paris, the most widely read of Victor Hugo’s novels, and is his masterpiece that has taken hold of the public and remains popular to this day. As evidenced by the fact that it has been adapted countless times into various genres such as films, plays and musicals, the greatest strength of this work lies in its ability to portray the sublime emotions of human beings in a deep and rich way. Through the process of compassion, soul atonement, and self-sacrifice, the drama of a man’s eventual ascent to the light unfolds.
Les Misérables reflects a vast social image in which all kinds of deviations, indulgences, and conflicts between good and evil are satirically portrayed along with religious, philosophical, historical, social, and psychological considerations.
This novel depicts the process of a man’s transgression in a society based on historical reality, and the saintly transformation of this man into a saint through endless atonement and sacrifice along with his anguish.
In this novel, we can see the holy power of love that arises in the process of self-perfection of a human being, the nobility of self-sacrifice that arises from this love, and the infinite perseverance as intended by the author Victor Hugo. We can see the nobility and dignity of humanity in a person who was unable to clearly distinguish between good and evil, but who finally reaches the highest level of integrity through the awakening of the goodness inherent in his nature.
The protagonist of the novel, Jean Valjean, was probably an incarnation of Victor Hugo himself. Victor Hugo, like Jean Valjean, had many opportunities and temptations to live an honorable and comfortable life. However, he put his colleagues and society before his own safety, and he thought first of the hungry and naked human race. He showed endless concern for people who were ignored, even when he himself was in a difficult situation, and he devoted all his passion to correcting this contradiction and improving their status.
Les Misérables is a work of immense proportions, as is the long time it took to write it. Under the elaborate composition that covers the entire work, numerous characters appear around the protagonist Jean Valjean, and a great deal of space is devoted to the detailed description of historical events and the social conditions of the time in accordance with reality. Thus, long and somewhat tedious descriptions of topics that would have aroused the interest and curiosity of readers at the time, who were able to follow the exciting development of events, often become a factor that hinders the consistent immersion of today’s readers.
Les Misérables Book Review
The interior of a human being contains all the layers of the human condition, including good and evil, nobility and meanness, joy and sorrow, love and hate, courage and meanness, and so on. It is impossible to say whether these are inherent in human nature or whether the human world makes a person into an existence with so many different qualities.
What choice will a person make in a desperate and extreme situation at a critical moment? What should we do when a person makes a repeated mistake that cannot be called a mistake? What is the daily life of a narrow-minded person who wants to brand and condemn a person for a mistake he made in the past? Can we really change when we realize that we are such people?
This novel tells the story of the three-dimensional inner world of each person who is faced with choices every moment, and the inner world of the social class that each person creates. It touches the heart, gives comfort, makes you think, denounces injustice and makes you change. The world we live in is contained in the masterpiece Les Misérables, which has become a classic because it is excitingly contained in a highly structured and complete form. It contains both the lyric poem of the lives of individual people and the epic poem of the events they experience as a social group. It is through the story of life that we come to know and understand ourselves, humanity, and the world.
Victor Hugo said, “I wrote this novel to eliminate human misery, to banish poverty, and to educate the ignorant. This is probably why the novel contains, in addition to personal lyric poetry, an epic poem that reflects the French political situation, which yearned for freedom and equality at a high frequency. Considering that Victor Hugo was so interested in real politics that he served as a member of parliament, the development of the novel can be understood.
Victor Hugo’s desire for self-promotion, his desire for honor, his ability to proudly display his talent, his political transformation that made humanism the highest value, his forced and voluntary exile, his travels with women, and the death of his daughter at a young age all had an impact on Victor Hugo’s life and work. It is not known how. Regardless of the emotions that the work evokes, one can feel the contradictory aspects of a human being.
However, his words, “I believe in God and ask for prayers from my soul,” contain the sincerity of a human being that cannot be seen in his life. By recognizing his spirit of creation, which is sincere and persistent, and accepting the work itself, we will come to understand another aspect of humanity.
