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Les Miserables: an Analysis

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Les Misérables
By Victor Hugo

An Analysis by
Neyko Gelo L. Dela Cruz, 3-11

August 3, 2015 INTRODUCTION

Victor Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo, born on February 26, 1802, was a celebrated French author during the Romantic Movement and is best known for his poetry and his novels including The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. His father served as a high-ranked officer in Napoleon’s army.

Since it is against his mother’s wishes, Hugo married Adele, who was his childhood friend, only after his mother’s death in 1821. Hugo’s oldest daughter, Leopoldine, died of drowning when a boat overturned. He described his grief in his famous poem A Villequier. Thereafter, he continued writing poems about Leopoldine’s life and death, and it seemed like he never really moved on from the tragedy.

Along with writing poems about the death of his daughter, he also started writing Les Misérables in private. After 17 years, Les Misérables was finally published in 1862.

During his latest years, Hugo’s works focused on darker themes like God, Satan and death. Victor Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885 and received a hero’s funeral.

Les Misérables

Les Misérables is an epic novel, historical fiction authored by Victor Hugo and published in 1862.

The novel takes place in 1815 until 1832 during the June Rebellion in Paris. Les Misérables talks about the lives of different characters, and in particular, the ex-convict Jean Valjean and his path to redemption.

Victor Hugo described the novel as “…a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the

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