Stereotypes In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables

Revived in modern society through the popularity of Les Misérables (the movie and musical), Victor Hugo is an author unafraid to address the ironies interwoven into the fabric of life in the 1800s. In his writings, Hugo alludes to the idea that life itself is a form of war as people battle individual enemies specific to their circumstances. Les Misérables and Quatre-Vingt-Treize are didactic in nature, ironically depicting the false stereotypes associated with social class and religion, while expanding on the absolute that every action has an equal consequence, and the thought that man cannot save his soul from destruction. Les Misérables opens in the year 1815 with the Bishop of Digne’s backstory of how he-- the son of a well-to-do judge--

Victor Hugo’s fondness for war and destruction is once again put on full display, as the story takes place on a war ship armed with dozens of cannons and loads of ammunition. As a loose canon wreaks havoc aboard the ship, the once contained and inanimate weapon is depicted as “the living chariot of the Apocalypse” (2). Just as the Apocalypse is foretold as the end of days, destined to strike humanity in punishment for its multitudes of sins, the escaped weaponry is also comparative to distributing payment for the sins of the oblivious gunnman; it is because of him that the whole crew is in danger. A machine built for death reduced an entire crew of sailors “accustomed to laugh in time of battle” to a trembling heap at the sight of their murdered kinsmen (2). In a twist of ironic fate, the cannon was punishing them with the very thing they were prepared to dole out to their enemies, death. Trying to right his wrongs, the perpetrator fought the canonic beast himself “in a Titanic scene”, playing what he saw as his rightful role in a deadly “contest between gun and gunner” (3). Hugo describes the scene with exceptional clarity, as all remaining men watched with trepidation as the “gigantic insect of metal, having or

In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean’s lengthy stay in prison disillusioned him to the idea of God, with his “realities [becoming] full of specters” (92). He cast away any notions of a higher power watching over him, damning his soul for eternity even as he was liberated from his shackles in Toulon. The Bishop’s subsequent introduction to Valjean’s newly freed life is the catalyst needed to spark a flame of passion for God in his soul; his presence in the convict’s life is also a much-needed warning that “liberation is not deliverance” (96). An anointed man of God fulfilled his purpose in Valjean, saving him “from the spirit of perdition,” and becoming for him a door to a new life as a son of God (104). Before he could explore this new avenue, though, Valjean had to learn a key lesson that would become one of many themes found in Les Misérables. In order to be truly free, Jean Valjean had to reconcile with the truth that only God alone could save him from his own mind, which was frequently tortured with “a frightening accumulation of laws, prejudices, men, and acts… whose weight appalled him”; only then could he leave the past behind (91). Likewise, in "A Fight With A Cannon", the gunner’s futile and courageous efforts to thwart the cannon’s blazing path of destruction yielded no progress until an older man on board the ship who