The purpose of this research is to examine Les MisTrables from the standpoint of the generation of meaning as a document of social theory and criticism growing out of Victor Hugo's personal biography and literary, political, and cultural associations. The plan of the research will be to refer to Les MisTrables's status as an exercise in social critique and then to discuss reasons for which Hugo chose to develop an ethos of critique in the text, as well as means by which the author employs features of his contemporary environment and experience to arrive at a narrative line that he intended to have a practical effect on social and political attitudes and behavior.
The novel Les MisTrables is so famous throughout the world and so much a part of modern popular culture that the idea of explaining what it means as a text of social protest does not seem to add very much to what is known about it. As Winegarten comments in that regard, "After Voltaire, Hugo readily assumed the mantle of the fighter against injustice. There was scarcely a cause he did not take up, especially anything to do with capital punishment" (1998, p. 20). Hugo's participation as a politician in the regime of Louis-Philippe put him in direct contact with public policy decisions and political behavior that were bound to have an impact extending beyond the chamber of deputies and the government, and the whole matter of his politics was further complicated when Louis-Napoleon exploited the aftermath of the revolution of 1848 and brought France its so-called Second Empire. Disaffected and possibly in some political peril, Hugo exiled himself to Guernsey, one of the islands between the coasts of France and England.
It was toward the end of Hugo's 20-year exile that Les MisTrables was published in Belgium and made its way into France. It was the novel that Hugo produced in his literary maturity, 30 years after producing Notre-Dame de Paris. The earlier novel got its powe...