Inspirational celebrity stories: Hugo and Les Miserables
Victor hugo (1802- 1885) is the leader of the French bourgeois romantic literature movement. A large number of his literary and artistic works profoundly reflect the political and social life of France in the19th century. His novel Les Miserables was published in 1862, with five books and1250,000 words. This novel profoundly exposes the darkness and unfairness of capitalist society with great artistic strength and broad life pictures, and has become a brilliant masterpiece in the history of French literature.
Victor. Hugo lived with his mother for a long time as a teenager and was deeply influenced by his mother. His mother is a royalist who firmly supports the emperor and opposes Napoleon. She allowed her children to develop their personalities, encouraged them to read freely, and allowed her son to drop out of school and devote himself to the literary career he loved. Hugo's literary talent developed very early, which can be said to be due to his mother. His early conservative views are also directly related to his mother's influence.
Hugo showed his literary talent when he was a teenager. At the age of fifteen, he won the essay prize of the French Academy, and at the age of eighteen, he won the Toulouse Academy? Master of Arts Competition? Honorary title. Chateaubriand called him? A prodigy? . In the early days of Hugo's creation, he wrote a lot of hymns, satires, papers and comments, supported the royal family, praised royalism and Catholicism, and despised Napoleon, showing an obvious conservative tendency. But his mind soon changed. The increasingly reactionary policy pursued by Charles X after he took office is far from the ideal goal pursued by Hugo. European people's discontent, turmoil and the rising people's liberation movement all impacted young Hugo, prompting him to re-recognize and evaluate Napoleon and Bourbon dynasty and devote himself to the torrent of struggle for social progress. Hugo's struggle began with opposing decadent classicism in literature and promoting the rebirth of literature and art, and at this time Hugo's creation entered The Romantic Period. From then on, the period from 65438 to 1840 was the richest period of Hugo's creation. He exposed social injustice in various forms of works, accused feudal autocracy, showed the achievements of romantic literature, and gradually moved from expressing personal feelings to combining with real struggle, full of strong anti-feudal and anti-church spirit and fierce accusations against the old system and rulers.
The decade after 1840 is the low tide of Hugo's creation. On the one hand, Hugo sympathized with the people's sufferings, on the other hand, he had illusions about the July dynasty. His political views always waver between constitutional monarchy and harmony. 1848 February Revolution shocked Europe, which made Hugo gradually change his mind and firmly stand on the position of * * *. 185165438+On February 2nd, louis bonaparte staged a coup. Hugo opposed his dictatorship and took part in the * * * and inner-party uprisings. After the failed uprising, Hugo was wanted and exiled. Since then, he has been in exile abroad for 19 years. During his exile, Hugo did not stop fighting with Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte. There has also been a new upsurge in literary creation. Many of his famous works were produced in this period. This novel is Hugo's outstanding achievement in exile. Les Miserables, written in this period, is one of Hugo's three masterpieces.
The outstanding features of Hugo's novel art are strong romanticism, bizarre, tense and dramatic plot arrangement and unusual characters, which show the writer's peculiar imagination and unrestrained feelings. The principle of contrast is an artistic means used in Hugo's novels, which has a strong artistic effect in both overall description and characterization. In terms of language style, it is famous for its gorgeous rhetoric, vivid image, high enthusiasm and passion.
Humanism is the guiding ideology of Hugo's literary creation. He sincerely sympathized with the poor and praised their valuable character. He attacked the evils of feudal rule and exposed the ruthlessness and hypocrisy of capitalist society. But he often tries to eliminate social evils through the influence of morality, and he is weak in the face of social struggle. As for how to solve social contradictions, he can only put forward utopian reformism.
Les Miserables is Hugo's masterpiece and occupies an important position in the history of French literature. In five volumes, the novel puts forward three problems that need to be solved urgently in contemporary times. Poverty makes men poor, hunger makes women degenerate, and darkness makes children weak? . Based on the unfortunate experiences of the fugitive Jean Valjean, the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosette, the novel shows a touching picture of the tragic world. This is the world of the unfortunate living at the bottom of society. They suffered there, struggled in hunger and cold, lived in humiliation and died in persecution.
Les Miserables truly shows the miserable life fate of the lower classes. Jean Valjean, the kind and simple hero, was born in a poor family. Because of unemployment, he stole a piece of bread from the bakery to support his nephews, and was imprisoned for 19 years. After he became a convict, this crime will always be attached to him and will never be released, and he will wander in the pursuit of the police all his life. He even tried to hide in the kennel and was kicked out. He lamented that the world is uneven: I am worse than a dog! ? Jean Valjean changed his name to Madeleine. By chance, he became a factory owner in another city through technical transformation. Because of his charity, he was elected mayor by the citizens. However, Javert, a police officer who always doubted his life, followed him like a shadow, waiting for an opportunity to hunt him down. Through Jean Valjean's experience, Hugo angrily criticized how the laws enacted by the ruling class protected the private property of property owners and cruelly oppressed workers.
The images of Fantine and Cosette's mother and daughter in the novel are quite touching. Fantine, innocent and pure, was a female worker in Jean Valjean's factory. She was cheated, raped, pregnant and abandoned. Society is so indifferent to her that she is deprived of the right to work. She is heavily in debt. In order to support her daughter, she was forced to sell her beautiful long hair and a pair of white front teeth and finally became a prostitute. Cosette, her illegitimate daughter, was tortured since childhood, and her childhood was accompanied by abuse, humiliation and heavy labor. Cosette has taken on heavy housework since she was eight years old and suffered inhuman abuse from the hotel owner. She is the image of a poor child abandoned by society. Fantine, who was seriously ill, watched Jean Valjean help their mother and daughter reunite, only to see Jean Valjean forcibly arrested by the police and died in panic. Fantine's short life was tortured, which reflected the tragic fate of working women.
Hugo truly described this shocking picture, which prominently reflected the tragic fate and situation of the poor. Full of indignation, he complained and protested to the capitalist society that caused all this, especially ruthlessly tearing up capitalist laws? Fair and honest? The mask exposes its tyrannical, absurd and hypocritical nature. Police Javert is the embodiment of cold and cruel law. He chased the life of Jean Valjean like a ghost, destroyed the lives of Jean Valjean and Cosette, and brought them disaster. He finally had a nervous breakdown and threw himself into the river, showing the smallness and weakness of the law.
The first two films of Les Miserables vividly depict Jean Valjean, Fantine and Cosette. Although the plot structure of the whole novel is huge, the central issue still highlights the tragic fate of the poor. As Hugo said in the preface of the novel:? As long as the three problems of this century-poverty makes men poor, hunger makes women degenerate, and darkness makes children weak-are not solved, and as long as there is ignorance and suffering in this world, a work of the same nature as this book will not be useless. ?
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