The novel contains various subplots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who becomes a force for good in the world but cannot escape his criminal past. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. 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 book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details . Towards the end of the novel, Hugo explains the work's overarching structure: So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality so long as 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-are not solved so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Upton Sinclair described the novel as 'one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world', and remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables in the Preface: Įxamining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption. However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims, and The Dispossessed. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical. Les Misérables ( / l eɪ ˌ m ɪ z ə ˈ r ɑː b( əl), - b l ə/, French: ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.

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