Love is Everlasting... Wider Reading 15: Les Misérables

I dreamed a dream of blogs gone by, so went up to my castle on a cloud, sat at an empty chair at an empty table, looked down and saw red and black. So I decided to do a Les Misérables post. Victor Hugo began writing Les Misérables twenty years before its eventual publication in 1862, when he was still in exile. His goals in writing the novel were as lofty as the reputation it has subsequently acquired; it is primarily a great humanitarian work which encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice. It is also, however, a historical novel of great scope and analysis, and it provides a detailed vision of nineteenth-century French politics and society. In publishing it, Hugo hoped it would provide inspiration for a more democratic future, for France and for the world.

Les Misérables employs Hugo’s style of imaginative realism and is set in an artificially created human hell which emphasizes the major predicaments of the nineteenth century. Many of the major characters in the novel symbolize one of these predicaments. Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, and the voicelessness and injustice of the legal system of the time. His hunter, policeman Javert, is the overzealous authority who forget their real duties in the fever of the chase. Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and the predicament of those who are judged unfairly. Finally, Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness, but she also represents hope, the only real hope for life and love in the entire novel.

Hugo makes the contrast between good and evil transparently clear through visual imagery, referring to the men in terms of light and dark. The Bishop of Digne, M. Myriel, who trusts in and hopes for other people, operates in light, whereas the mistrustful Valjean operates under cover of darkness. The tension between light and dark reaches a peak when Valjean stops to look at Myriel before stealing his silver. As Valjean plans his theft, the clouds darken the sky; he then sees Myriel’s face in a beam of moonlight. Finally, we see Valjean standing in the shadows while he breaks into the cabinet of silver. In this description, Hugo uses pathetic fallacy. As Valjean contemplates stealing the silver, the sky is dark, as if it were frowning upon the crime he is about to commit. Once Valjean approaches Myriel, however, everything becomes light, as if Myriel were radiating purity and goodness. By using this technique of pathetic fallacy, Hugo is able to pass judgment on his characters and their actions without ever breaking the narrative voice.

Many types of love are explored within Les Misérables. It is implied that Valjean is in love with Fantine, risking his life to rescue and protect her and her daughter. Both of them have strong parental love for Cosette, who seems to elicit this emotion from many people who meet her. Later in the novel, a young revolutionary named Marius falls in love with her, and the two begin a secret relationship which must be hidden from Valjean. Marius in fact is so besotted with Cosette that he is blind to the feelings of Eponine, who has loved him for many years without his notice

Les Miserables - Quotations