Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Les Miserables is the subject of this paper with an approach of New Historicism analysis. Les Miserables was a French historical novel written by Victor Hugo in the year 1862. A popular musical stage adaptation was produced in 1980. Also, it was one of the most popular musicals of all time and was based on a novel of the same name by French author Victor Hugo. According to Britannica (2020) “Les Misérables presents a vast panorama of Parisian society and its underworld, and it contains many famous episodes and passages, among them a chapter on the Battle of Waterloo and the description of Valjean’s rescue of Marius by means of a flight through the sewers of Paris.” In addition, the story tells the fictional story character named, Jean Valgean, a man who has unjustly been condemned to nearly two decades of prison for stealing a loaf of bread to save a starving child. Many people assumed that the story was set during the French Revolution since the story was took place in Paris that involved the misery of Parisian underclass and experienced a harsh climax during the battle, (Bradford,2019). This signifies that it is important to know about the French Revolution so that one can understand what is going through the minds of Marius, Enjolras, and the other characters during the Paris uprising of 1832. Les Miserables’ historical events mirrors injustices that usually happened within the world’s society. With this, the story is best suited for New Historicism approach because readers can be able to understand the text by connecting a work with the time period it was produced in or the author's time period. In fact, the work identifies and compares the cultural, historical, economic and political movements on that time. Historicists look at a work and see how similar its characters and events connect to that of the author's time period and how the novel has been influenced by the author's era and circumstances.
Les Miserables was set in the 18-19th century around the time of the French Revolution. With this, the novel was said to be a historical one. The author, Victor Hugo, lived through the periods of Napoleon’s reign as First Consul to the Third Republic. That is why in his work, he attempted to explain the wavering violet acts over the control between royalty and citizens during the French Revolution. In addition, Hugo depicted in the story about the industrial revolution, in which there was a major turning point in the 19th century where there were changes in agriculture, manufacturing and technology, (Pitt, 2011). Moreover, Les Mesirables has obviously presented the three problems of the age: the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night. Pitt (2011) added that, in terms of cultural aspect, they considered it respectful when they call one by Monsieur (for a man) or Madame/Mademoiselle (for a woman) especially for those who are not on a first-name basis. In contrast to today’s generation, those were considered respectful however, calling someone Monsieur or Madame is not a big deal today as it was back then. Furthermore, in terms of economic aspect, the economy of France weakened after the French Revolution and when Napoleon came to power, the burden of taxes increased. The lower classes and peasants received the brunt of these burdens that is why, Hugo illustrated the hardships on the lower working class in Les Misérables: poverty turned to thievery (Jean Valjean) and the happenings in prostitution or death (Fantine), (Moberg, 2015). Fantine who bared a child, was unable to find work because nobody wants their employees to be exposed to corruption and she had the trouble of paying the rent of her boarding house. Moberg (2015) added that, Hugo depicted the social injustice in the 19th century, wherein the working class was forced to endure injustices from the upper classes, despite the growing middle-class wealth and status. Hugo’s life happening that time was more on politics. He was involved in French politics and at one point, he had the opportunity to speak against social injustice when he was promoted to the peerage of King Louis-Philippe. Hugo’s work became more and more political after he engaged into politics. “The fight for freedom and justice in the novel come from Hugo’s republican background. Hugo was also exiled while writing this novel, so his political views on republicanism and free thought and the unjust social system only made him pour more of his political thoughts into his novel as they became stronger” (Pitt, 2011). Hugo’s goals in writing the novel were as lofty as the reputation it has subsequently acquired (Spark Notes. n.d.). Les Misérables is primarily a great humanitarian work that encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice thus, it provides a detailed vision of nineteenth-century French politics and society. “By coupling his story of redemption with a meticulous documentation of the injustices of France’s recent past, Hugo hoped Les Misérables would encourage a more progressive and democratic future. Driven by his commitment to reform and progress, Hugo wrote Les Misérables with nothing less than a literary and political revolution in mind” (SparkNotes, n.d.).
Les Misérables employs Hugo’s style of imaginative realism and was set in an artificially created human hell that emphasizes the three major crisis of the nineteenth century. In fact, each of the three major characters in the novel symbolizes one of the following difficulties: Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness. The novel became popular because Hugo successfully created characters that served as symbols of larger problems. It was indeed that Les Miserables mirror some of Hugo’s life experiences such as: he spent the majority of his life as an exile during the time period that immediately followed the reign of terror. In relation, Les Miserables pinpoints the problems in society and the rift between good and evil. Social injustices happened and may occurred anytime. Before Les Miserables novel come up to a coherent whole, author’s life experiences brought a great impact to considered the piece as “one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world.”
References:
Bradford. (2019). A historical background to Les Miserables. Retrieved from: https://www.liveabout.com/historical-background-to-les-miserables-2713326
Britannica. (2020). Les Miserables. Retrived from: https://www.britannica.com/art/historical-novel
Moberg. (2015). Les Misérables: A new historicist perspective. Retrieved from: https://prezi.com/vdtzvf97tjvp/les-miserables-a-new-historicist-perspective/
Pitt. (2011). Les Misérables: A new historicist perspective. Retrieved from: https://prezi.com/pfqlqp67lp_g/les-miserables-a-new-historicist-perspective/
SparkNotes. (n.d.). Les Miserables. Retrieved from: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lesmis/context/
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