LES MISERABLES BY VICTOR HUGO

Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables was all about a man named Jean Valjean who was imprisoned for
19 years for ‘stealing’ a loaf of bread. Valjean knocks on the door of M. Myriel, the kindly bishop of
Digne. Myriel treats Valjean with kindness, and Valjean repays the bishop by stealing his silverware.
When the police arrest Valjean, Myriel covers for him, claiming that the silverware was a gift. The
authorities release Valjean and Myriel makes him promise to become an honest man. He was eager
that’s why he change his identity under the assumed name of Madeleine, he invents an ingenious
manufacturing process that brings the town of Montreuil-sur-mer prosperity. He eventually becomes
the town's mayor, but has to contend with the police chief, who has discovered Madelein's criminal
past. In the end, he escapes from prison and buys Cosette from the Thénardiers, a family of scoundrels,
who abuse Cosette and are spoiling their own two daughters. Marius Pontmercy is a young man who
lives with his wealthy grandfather, M. Gillenormand. He has never met his father because of political
differences within the family. While in law school, Marius associates with a group of radical students,
the Friends of the ABC. Their paths cross when Valjean makes a charitable visit to Marius's poor
neighbors.Hugo asserts that love and compassion are the most important gifts that one person can
give to another, and that the most important goal in life should always be to display these qualities.
Thénardier's daughter Eponine, in love with Marius, helps Marius discover Cosette's whereabouts.
Marius is finally able to make contact with Cosette, and the two declare their love for each other.
Valjean, however, soon shatters their happiness. Worried that he will lose Cosette and unnerved by
political unrest in the city, he announces to Marius that he and Cosette are moving to England.
Heartbroken, Marius decides to join his radical student friends who have started a political uprising
Marius tries to prevent Cosette from having contact with Valjean. Lonely and depressed, Valjean takes
to his bed and awaits his death. Marius eventually finds out from Thénardier that Valjean saved
Marius’s life. Ashamed that he mistrusted Valjean, Marius tells Cosette everything that has happened.
Marius and Cosette rush to Valjean’s side just in time for a final reconciliation. Happy to be reunited
with his adopted daughter, Valjean dies in peace. Hugo's emphasis on love is epitomized by Valjean's
transformation from a hate-filled and hardened criminal into a well-respected philanthropist, because
it is only by learning to love others that Valjean can improve himself. While the efforts of Valjean on
behalf of others inevitably cause him problems, they also give him a sense of joy and fulfillment he has
never felt before. The love Valjean has for others, especially Cosette, is what keeps him going in
desperate times. Hugo also emphasizes the fact that it is not always a thankless task to value others,
while challenging, and he uses Valjean and Fauchelevent to illustrate that compassion begets
compassion, and love begets love and kindness. Valjean jumps to save Fauchelevent from a crowd of
onlookers; years later, by giving him shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent, Fauchelevent repays Valjean's
toughness. Love and compassion are almost contagious in Hugo's book, transmitted from one man to
another. Valjean, in turn, is able to convey this gratitude to Cosette after M. Myriel transforms Valjean
with acts of positivity and kindness, rescuing her from the corrupting inhumanity of the Thénardiers.
 Victor Hugo utilize various writing techniques on unveiling socio-political issues on his play,
Figures of speech like metaphors and the way the character express their feelings with the social
injustice in france, but the most notable writing technique that he used was symbolism, from the
movie we can clearly see how victor hugo used various things to portray the meaning that he wanted
to convey to his audience for example Myriel’s Silver Candlesticks in the play M. Myriel’s candlesticks
are the most prominent symbol of compassion in Les Misérables, and they shed a light that always
brings love and hope. Hugo uses the comparison between light and darkness at the beginning of the
novel to highlight the distinctions between Myriel, a honest and decent man, and Valjean, a grim,
brooding figure apparently incapable of love. Myriel is actually passing on this light as Myriel hands
Valjean his silver candlesticks when he tells Valjean that he must promise to become an honest man.
The candlesticks subsequently reappear regularly to remind Valjean of his role. The candlesticks shine
brightly over his face when Valjean dies, a symbolic affirmation that he has achieved his objective of
love and compassion. And another thing that Victor used as a symbolism is the Snakes, Insects, and
Birds Hugo uses animal imagery to illustrate the characteristics of good and evil of these characters
when describing the novel's main characters. Sometimes referred to as creatures of flight are the
orphaned figures of Cosette and Gavroche: Cosette as a lark and Gavroche as a fly. On the other hand,
the Thénardiers are characterized as snakes, and among them, Cosette's time is similar to living with
beetles. Although Cosette and Gavroche can rise above their wretched circumstances, these opposing
symbols show that the Thénardiers are rooted in their unethical pursuits. They are earthly animals,
meaning they are not as free as Cosette or Gavroche, who can fly wherever they please.

Yes, Victor Hugo used his platform to show the injustice between classes in Les Miserables as
classified to the context of the movie, Victor hugo emphasizes the Social Injustice in Nineteenth-
Century in France Hugo uses his novel to criticize France's unequal class-based structure of the
nineteenth century, explaining time and again that the structure of society turns good, innocent
individuals into beggars and criminals. Hugo focuses on three areas where reform is urgently needed:
education, criminal justice, and women's treatment. Through the character of Fantine, he conveys
much of his message, a symbol of the many decent but impoverished women pushed by a cruel society
to misery and death. Her name is indelibly tainted by the fact that she has an illegitimate child after
Fantine is abandoned by her aristocratic boyfriend, Tholomyès. Her attempts to conceal this truth are
destroyed by her lack of knowledge, exposing her secret to the entire city by the scribe to whom
Fantine dictates her letters. It is not until the factory fires Fantine for immorality that she returns to
prostitution, inevitably. Hugo shows the hypocrisy of a society in the story of Fantine that fails to
educate girls and ostracize women like Fantine while encouraging men's actions like Tholomyès.
Another case from the movie is when Hugo is giving law enforcement an even more crucial eye.
Valjean's character reveals how a simple bread thief is made into a career criminal by the French
criminal-justice system. The only influence on the prison camp of Valjean's nineteen years of
mistreatment is that he becomes deceptive and violent, a direct contradiction to the effect of the
goodness of Myriel, which almost overnight sets Valjean on the right road. Another contrast to
Valjean’s plight is the selective manner in which the Parisian police deal with the Patron-Minette crime
ring. Unlike Valjean, Patron-Minette and their associates are the real criminals who rob and murder on
a grand scale, but they receive only short sentences in prisons that are easy to escape. In the French
society of Les Misérables, therefore, justice is clumsy at best. It barely punishes the worst criminals but
tears apart the lives of people who commit petty crimes.

Socio Political issues gives a great impact to the authors, playwrights and writers all over the
world literally it affects the genres of various literary works but for a good reason, this kind of matter
gives them a standpoint to their own beliefs and perception on this kind of issues, in here they were
able to convey to their readers their perspective and ideologies about how our society’s system is so
cruel and manipulative, that’s why all socio-political dramas were never boring because it is based on
real life social events, mostly talks about modern history, international politics or political implications
of other social issues and events. However according to the articles that I have read there is no official
tag as a socio-political drama but this is one of the most interesting topics that an author could use to
his/her creations. In this kind of setup a lot of people are being enlightened and woke about the
current events on our society and it allows them to have their own perspective about the socio-
political issues that we’re dealing with.