Indeed Victor Hugo’s masterpiece ‘The Miserables’ tells a story of "a saint, a man, a woman, and a child,". The story covers a large portion of Revolutionary French history. The battle of Waterloo, the revolving door of governments, and the numerous street barricade rebellions of the city of Paris during the 1830s all serve as a background for the story. The French word "miserables" means both poor wretches and scoundrels or villains.
The novel offers a huge cast that includes both kinds of "miserables." LES MISERABLES is a powerful social document. The story is set between 1815 and 1832, the years of Hugo's youth. The story of how the convict Jean Valjean struggled to escape his past and reaffirm his humanity, in a world brutalized by poverty and ignorance, became the gospel of the poor and the oppressed. The novel is the parallel story of the recovery of Jean Valjean and France—and to a larger extent, the story of humanity's political and social progress.
Valjean represents the inherent good in every person, while Javert (the policeman) symbolizes the opposite, indeed two sides of the same coin. A single act of mercy shown by Bishop caused Valjean to drastically alter his ways. The depressing deaths of Fantine, Eponine, and the students are among the most emotional moments in the story, without which Valjean's noble death at the end of the story would not have its dramatic impact.
Hugo uses his novel to condemn the unfair class-based structure of nineteenth-century France. He shows time and again that the society turns good, innocent people into beggars and criminals. Hugo focuses on three areas that particularly need reform: education, criminal justice, and the treatment of women. He conveys much of his message through the character of Fantine. Fantine demonstrate the life of the single workingwoman. He shows how people take advantage of her and how she is thrown deeper and deeper into poverty and fear by her circumstances, as she was not educated. Even though she is able to secure a job as a factory worker and finds a home for her illegitimate daughter. The society forced her for prostitution in order to meet Thenardiers demand. This defines the treatment of women in 19th century. Hugo’s lead character, Van Valjean, reveals how the French criminal-justice system transforms a simple bread thief into a criminal.
Hugo used symbols to represent abstract ideas or concept. At the beginning of the novel, Hugo uses the contrast between light and darkness to highlight the differences between Bishop, an honourable citizen, and Valjean, a dark, a convict, incapable of love. When Bishop gives Valjean his silver candlesticks, Bishop is literally passing on this light as he tells Valjean he must promise to become an honest man. Later, the candlesticks reappear frequently to remind Valjean of his duty. Taken as a whole, Les Miserables or ‘the unfortunates’ demonstrates the best and worst of humanity. In addition to the general theme of redemption, the story is filled with various ups and downs of life, each of which offers a moral lesson to the readers.
Hugo made a name for himself as a novelist, a poet and a playwright; by the time he reached his thirties. Among his many works in French, Hugo is best know for his novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Miserable (1862), which were translated in many languages. He died in 1885, at the age of 83.
