Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

 

It is a French historical movie written by Victor Hugo in 1862. The author (1802-1885) is, still today, one of the most famous writers of the 19th century. He wrote not less than 80 books, including 20 published posthumously, good tens of poems, and was also a drawer.

 

 

Summary:

 

The main character is Jean Valjean, a famer how spent years in prison for being a theif of a piece of bread. Once he managed to escape, he promised to himself to make good around him, and he became, few years later, a respected city gentleman.

He met Fantine, a prostitute who caught the disease, and promised her, before she died, to protect her daughter that she left in a host family, the Thénardier. He decided to bring her daughter, Cosette, with him and raised her as his child.

When Cosette turned seventeen, she felt in love with Marcus, a young teenager who was revolted, he was with the people in the street, to ask for their rights.

 

This is a story about how a people can overcome their social classes, the social damnation, how revolution can create convictions and about justice and mercy.

The movie has been adapted on screen 7 times between 1934 and 2012, including one musical movie.

 

Critique:

 

In the nineteenth century society, France appears to have been strictly divided between the "haves" and the "have-nots", with the ruling bourgeois class happy to make as much profit as they could from the relatively poorly paid, but hard working, factory workers who saw healthy profits go into the pockets of the middle-class owners while the common people struggled to get by on the pittance they were paid.

 

The sense of injustice shown in this book had come to a head in the late eighteenth century and resulted in the French Revolution.