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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
“Nobody loves the light like the blind man.”
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This chapter includes two major discussions. The first part defines the position of the analysis of Hugo’s ideology transformation in Les Miserables
among the previous studies. The second part discusses psychoanalytic – Marxism
as the literary theory to read Les Miserables in o rder to analyze Hugo’s ideology
transformation.
A. Hugo’s ideology transformation within the previous studies
Les Miserables has been analyzed in various disciplines besides literary studies, such as in the field of social and cultural studies. It shows the complexity
of Les Miserables as a literary work which depicts the whole life of a society. The previous studies also include the comparative studies between Les Miserables and
its surrogation like the comparison between the novel and the movie adaptation in 1995 and musical movie in 2005. The previous studies create a specific room
where the analysis of Hugo’s ideology transformation can be conducted.
1. Psychoanalytic studies on Les Miserables
There are several works where Les Miserables is analyzed with psychoanalysis to study Hugo’s psychotic condition and his religious depiction.
Ariane Smart analyzes that Les Miserables shows Hugo’s psychological condition.
Smart writes an analysis about the setting of place, Paris, which is depicted in Les
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables, 157
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Miserables
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. Based on Smart’s analysis, Les Miserables vividly shows the ideal expectation of social condition in France with Paris as a capital of materiality.
Smart analyzes how Hugo describes Paris as a representation of his claustrophobia. Paris is a symbol of mysterious and dangerous place which Hugo describes as a
gigantic spider web that trapped individual power and social oppression
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. Smart argues that the symbolic language that Hugo uses to describe Paris such as the
gigantic spider web and mysterious dark place shows Hugo’s fear of small and
dark place
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. Though Paris is a small and dark place, it represents eminence, money, and
politic supremacy as the main issue of the story with the setting of Paris in 1800s
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. Paris is similar to a gigantic spider web which attracts individual and social power
and economic activities. Ariane Smart focuses on Fantine and Tholomyes relationship which represents inter-class social relation. Tholomyes, a student who
has romantic relationship with Fantine, takes Fantine to Paris where they spend their bohemian life style for a moment
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. Paris is a place with large social gaps and where people from different social class meet. Smart emphasizes that Fantine and
Tholomyes relation actually symbolizes the relation between upper class and lower class
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. These two social classes live in the same place with different condition. The upper class live in such situation where education, power, and wealth are easy
to access. In contrast, the lower class is too ignorant, for they are uneducated and
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Ariane Smart, “The Darkness and the Claustrophobia of the City: Victor Hugo and the Myth of Paris” Vol.8, 2000, 315
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A. Smart, 317
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A. Smart, 318
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A. Smart, 321
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables, 129.
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A. Smart, 315
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perceive that education, power, and wealth are part of the upper class life. Hugo describes Fantine’s life to show this condition with vivid description:
She sold all her possessions, which produced two hundred francs, but only eighty remained after her debts were paid. And on a fine spring morning
she left Paris, a girl of twenty-two with her baby on her back.
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Hugo emphasizes that Fantine thinks that having a relationship with Tholomyes was a way to make her life better
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. She respects and trusts Tholomyes by letting him sleep with her. Ironically, Tholomyes has a different view regarding his
relationship to Fantine. It is a carefree relationship, so he leaves Fantine in desperation to be become a prominent provincial attorney in the future. Hugo even
associates the relationship between Tholomyes and Fantine is like Homer’s Polyphemus or Shakespeare’s Caliban instead of romantic relationship
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. According to Smart, the tragic inter class relation in Paris shows that Hugo
portrays Paris as dark small space where people from different social classes live together, and they have little knowledge on the social structure in Paris. Both
Fantine and Tholomyes realize social class and inter-class relation, but they do not notice the gap between them. Smart argues that the condition of Paris shows
Hugo’s point of view that a small and dark place is a scary place. Hugo’s poetic language in Les Miserables
creates a research area to analyze Hugo’s psychotic condition
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. She claims that the way Hugo describes the condition in Paris reflects his
claustrophobia, his fear of being in a small dark room. In Hugo’s description, Paris
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V. Hugo, Les Miserables, 147
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V. Hugo, Les Miserables, 147
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V. Hugo, Les Miserables, 144
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A.Smart, 316
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represents a small deadly prison where all the economics, politics, and people are trapped in an uncanny atmosphere
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. It is not only the description, Mme Magloire, a minor character who lives with the bishop, also shows that Hugo suffers from
claustrophobia. Mme Magloire never feels comfortable to live in such place which is dark and full of criminals who might steal the silvers from their unlocked house
the church
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. In her writing, Ariane Smart argues that the revolution moment reflects the
repression of anger and desire coming up into the surface. It emphasizes Freudian psychoanalytic theory which suggests that any psychological conflict does not
vanish, but it is repressed to the unconscious notion. The repressed emotion would appear to the surface, or the conscious level through a completely different
action
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. Besides reflecting the author’s psychotic condition, Les Miserables
explicates Hu go’s religious side. Janis Barnett in his thesis “Transformational
Grace In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables’”, writes about Hugo’s religious belief:
[...]I argue that Hugo intends his readers to recognize, [...], that human transformation is a spiritual undertaking which is often initiated, and
always assisted, by God, [...] that they connect the transformational grace made evident in the narrative to the “real reality” [...] to understand that
what matters most in life is relationship and union with God.
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Bar net’s analysis that emphasizes Hugo’s religious sides confirms Hugo’s
idea of ideology and society which is written in the “Parenthesis”. Hugo himself
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A. Smart, 315
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables, 35 -37
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Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, introduction: Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis, Literary Theory, an Anthology 2
nd
edition New York: Blackwell, 2004 390
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Janis Lynn Barnett. Transformational Grace in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Diss. California
State University 2012 4
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states that God is the center of life and to Whom people should keep their faith
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. According to Barnet Hugo puts himself as the central of the novel. He emphasizes
himself as the creator who builds the story to teach the readers about life and God.
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Another writer, Vargas Llosa, in his book entitled The Temptation of the Impossible, argues that Hugo intended to lead the readers to see the novel as a real
reality where Hugo is the main character
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. Vargas Llosa argues that Les Miserables is a literary work which gives us a complex detail of social life where
we can see the complex connection between fiction or literary text and real life or society
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. How Hugo engages historical reference and builds the plot and the characters of the novel show his awareness of false consciousness in the society.
Vargas Llosa states that Les Miserables is the real reality in fiction. In other words, he agrees that Hugo uses Les Miserables as a projection of reality where he creates
his own reality in fiction, the readers are able to observe the social condition. Similar to Barnett who points out that Hugo, the narrator of Les Miserables,
is the main character of the novel, Vargas Llosa states that Victor Hugo is the main character of the novel. Though Barnet and Vargas Llosa have similar idea about
Hugo as the center character of the novel, Vargas Llosa emphasizes that it is the way Hugo uses Les Miserables as a medium instead of teaching people about God.
Vargas Llosa writes, “How can we describe this narrator? His most salient features
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V.Hugo, Parenthesis, 1212.
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J.Barnett, 14
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M.Vargas Llosa, The Temptation of the Impossible, 12
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M.Vargas Llosa, The Temptation of the Impossible, 10
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are omniscience, omnipotence, exuberance, visibility, and egomania.”
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The readers would always find the presence of Hugo in Les Miserables when he
narrates the story. Hugo in fact does not only narrate the story, but also connects one event or
character to another and directly teach the readers about morality. In some parts, Hugo even confirms and corrects the situation of the characters as if he were
another character who always silently watches other characters. In the “Parenthesis” and the “Argot”, Hugo himself explains that it is himself that he is
the narrator of Les Miserables who is also the main character of the story
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. In “Argot” he even explains that he writes Les Miserables with particular language
which is called the argot language, take for example when he replaces “les misere” with “les miserables” that refers to poverty and miserable condition
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. For Hugo put himself as the main character in Les Miserables, it would be
easier to justify that Hugo “uses” Les Miserables as a medium to echo his ideological intention. As a liberal monarchist who becomes a republican with
radical and social-minded leanings
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, Hugo has strong intention to reconstruct the society. He explains in “Parenthesis” that he wants to change the social condition
from the monastery into republic
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. Although Smart, Bannet, and Vargas Llosa point out different focuses, they agree that Les Miserables
reflects Hugo’s situation and belief. They all have a similar idea that Les Miserables
shows Hugo’s awareness of social condition and Hugo’s strong idea to reconstruct the society.
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M.Vargas Llosa, The Temptation of the Impossible, 12
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables,1002
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables,1215
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M.Vargas Llosa, The Temptation of the Impossible, 12 -13
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V. Hugo, Les Miserables, 1207
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Barnett and Vargas Llosa even emphasize that Les Miserables is a medium for Hugo to speak by placing himself as the center of the story. Hugo is the narrator of
Les Miserables and a salient character with power to direct the society in Les Miserables. In other words, they notice that Hugo tries to emphasize his idea to
change the social condition. The way Hugo writes Les Miserables and his point of view about
revolution, society, and literature are analyzed as a blend of literature and philosophy. A.M Blackmore in the Essential of Victor Hugo explains that Hugo
writes his novels, including Les Miserables, to show particular intention
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. Although Hugo has written essays to explain his idea, especially “The History of
Crime” in which he clearly states his idea about crime action, his novels, such as Les Miserables that is written before and during the exile, projects clearer idea of
Hugo’s life philosophy of social structure that builds every individual identity.
All these studies emphasize that Hugo uses Les Miserables to emphasize his intention to reconstruct the society. The central point of changing process in
society is the character Jean Veljean. Jean Veljean is a symbol of the social change that represents Hugo’s idea of the progress in the society should be
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. In the same time, Jean Veljean’s transformational life also reflects Hugo’s ideology
transformation. Supported by the previous studies that analyzes the complexity of the social depiction in Les Miserables
, an analysis of Hugo’s ideology transformation would be the research to continue the previous studies.
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A.M. Blackmore, The Essential Victor Hugo New York: Oxford University Press, 200453
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V.Hugo, Les Miserables, 987
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The changes in the society are reflected through the plot of the story. Hugo creates an extricate plot in Les Miserables to show social process and describe the
changes of people way of life as the result of their belief and ideology. This connect
ion leaves us a gap to analyze Hugo’s ideology transformation and a social construction depicted in Les Miserables.
2. Les Miserables and the reality
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