June Rebellion: Inspiration for Hugo's Les MisérablesVictor Hugo, a well-known author of the 19th century, was inspired by the events of 1832 to write one of his best-known works, Les Misérables. However, it is a common misconception that Les Misérables takes place during the first French Revolution of 1789.
Valjean's character is loosely based on the life of the ex-convict Eugène François Vidocq. Vidocq became the head of an undercover police unit and later founded France's first private detective agency. He was also a businessman and was widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy.
The historic events are real (like Waterloo, the revolution,…) The characters, however probably not real. There may be some real people that inspired Hugo to come up with a character in his novel. But in order to express his view, most novelists adapt the characters, idealize them, or evilize them.
While some the events in Les Miserables actually happened, the characters in the novel are fictional. The final conflict at the barricades in Les Miserables is based on the Paris Uprising of 1832, a short-lived rebellion that ended after only two days.
The films and musicals often play up the revolution portion of Les Misérables, so it's only natural that people associate it with one of France's most widely known historical events. However, Les Misérables is actually set 43 years after the French Revolution took place, during an uprising known as the June Rebellion.
5 things I learned about the history behind Les Miserables
What war is being fought in Les Misérables?
What are they fighting for in Les Miserables? The strict answer is that the fighting is part of the June Rebellion of 1832 in support of a return to a republic and the end of the monarchy of Louis Philippe.
The main theme of Les Miserables is social injustice. Many of the characters in the novel are victims of injustice who are unable to seek recompense through traditional channels. Jean Valjean, as a former convict, is scorned because of his mistakes.
Moral values in the novel “Les Miserables” are love and sincerity, forgiveness, Sacrifice, Justice/Injustice. Fantine earned less and less money from her sewing, and the Thenardiers demanded more and more money to look after Cosette.
Valjean's character is loosely based on the life of Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a successful businessman widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy. Vidocq helped Hugo with his research for Claude Gueux and Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man).
Updated September 30, 2021. Les Misérables has several shades of meaning in French. Translators say that Victor Hugo's novel, published in 1862, could just as well be titled The Miserable Ones, The Outcasts, The Wretched Poor, The Victims or The Dispossessed.
Major conflict Valjean struggles to transform himself from a thief into an honest man; over the years he struggles to stay a step ahead of the zealous police officer Javert and tries to raise his adopted daughter, Cosette.
Emma Oliveros The most miserable or tragic character in Les Miserables for me is Eponine. As soon as I read about her, my heart really felt sad about her. Like she was an innocent, poor one. I honestly forgot she was once evil to Cosette.
The themes of Les Misérables are concerned with social issues in 19th-century urban France. Victor Hugo uses Les Misérables to deliver critiques of wealth distribution, the justice system, industrialism, and republicanism.
While the show could be viewed as simply depressing — it is called “the miserables,” after all — viewers would be remiss in reducing it to just another sad story. Les Misérables is a story full of hope and the promise of a better tomorrow.
Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.
Essentially, yes. Victor Hugo was present for the June Rebellion of 1832, and had written about the events in France that led up to it. The students who planned and executed the uprising were very much real, however Les Amis is a fictionalization of these students.
Poor old Jean Valjean, of course, loved Cosette only as a father; but, as we noted earlier, into this fatherly love his lonely single status in life had introduced every other kind of love; he loved Cosette as his daughter, and he loved her as his mother, and he loved her as his sister; and, as he had never had either ...
Answer and Explanation: In les Miserables, Jean Valjean is about forty-six years old when the novel begins. Valjean was born in 1769, and he was sentenced to nineteen years in prison for stealing bread in 1795 at the age of twenty-six. At the end of the novel, when he dies, he is sixty-four years old.
Answer and Explanation: Fantine represents the downtrodden of France. Her story shows how through no fault of her own, she experiences a series of misfortunes that eventually kill her.
In Les Misérables, Hugo asserts that love and compassion are the most important gifts one person can give another and that always displaying these qualities should be the most important goal in life.
Once Valjean is alone, he reveals the intense moral dilemma in which he is placed by this information. He is faced with the stark choice of revealing himself as the real Valjean, or letting Champmathieu be prosecuted under his name with the likelihood of terrible punishment for him as a result.
The climax of Les Misérables is Jean Valjean's rescue of Marius from the barricade. Marius has been shot and is in desperate need of medical care. Valjean drags him, unconscious, through the Paris sewers, where he briefly encounters M. Thenardier.
Les Misérables ends with Jean Valjean's reconciliation with Cosette and her new husband Marius and Valjean's subsequent death. He manages to tell Cosette about his past as a convict, and receives her forgiveness. He also tells her the story of her mother, Fantine, and of how he adopted her from the Thénardiers.
Set in early 19th-century France, Les Misérables is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption, released in 1815 after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child.
