Les Misérables Themes

Wait, did you think that a book called Les Misérables was going to be all sunshine and rainbows? (Of course you didn't; you're Shmoopers.) The stinkin' book has "suffering" in its very name, so no...

Is Hugo a socialist? (Would it matter if he were?) You can debate all day about that—although not with us, please—but the hard truth is that you can't have greed on one side of society without...

Ah, family. They love you, they encourage you, they … throw you out on the street if they can't feed you. Wait, what? In Les Misérables, family feeling is a luxury for the rich—and then, only...

Les Misérables spends a lot of time moaning over the poorest and most downtrodden members of French society, but don't let the sentimentalism fool you. Hugo's hiding a sharp tongue beneath all th...

You're only young once—but in the world of Les Misérables, even that might be too long. Childhood in nineteenth century France is not some draw-out idyll of eating popsicles, drawing hearts in y...

Appearances matter—especially in the nineteenth-century, when most people really did believe you could judge a book by its cover. Hugo tries to get us to be less prejudiced about judging people b...

Fact: the world is full of suffering. Also fact: sometimes the people who suffer are harmless, like Fantine, or innocent, like Cosette. Now, you could certainly take this undeniable fact and run wi...

Mawwiage is what bwings us together … unless it's driving us apart. In the first half of the book, marriage is just one more stick of suffering to add to the pile. The absence of marriage causes...