Les Miserables -Victor Hugo

Book Report- Les Miserables
Author: Victor Hugo

To what extent do you believe love and compassion influences your life and personality? Many people if not everyone knows what love is and almost every day new movies or TV shows, novels, etc give people an idea about love. Compassion is not something we see daily therefore people might not really know what it is. Compassion is a feeling ofdeep sympathy and sorrow for another who has been less fortunate. It is amazing how love and compassion can make people do incredible things. Perhaps the most common example of love and compassion we see in our lives is from our family. In a family you learn what love really is and they provide us with examples of compassion. The truth is that love and compassion do alter our personality in ways wecan not even imagine and this is presented in the novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo presents us with a series of characters and actions that shows us how love and compassion may lead to a change within oneself.
Victor Hugo presents us with many characters that demonstrate how love and compassion makes you change. Hugo introduces us to Jean Valjean, he is an ex convict who iscompletely changed by love and compassion. The first act of compassion in the novel is seen when Myreal accepts Valjean being an ex convict into his house and helping him to become a better person. Even though he performs this incredible act of compassion and generosity Valjean being an ungrateful ex convict steals from him and is almost taken away to jail. Hugo continues to illustrate the importanceof love and compassion as Myreal forgive Valjean again and even protects him from going back to jail and continue to live his miserable life. Instead he forces him to change and become a better man. This first example of compassion gives us insight of how important compassion is for the author Victor Hugo. Throughout the novel we are able to feel this tone of love and compassion introduced by theauthor. This tells the reader how important a simple act of compassion may be for a person’s life and how it may turn him into a better man.
The importance that the novel gives to the themes of love and compassion is very important to the reader since it teaches us valuable lessons for life. Victor Hugo shows us how love and compassion may lead to change a man’s life to turn him into a betterhuman being. Hugo portrays this through the character of Jean Valjean. Being an ex convict many would believe it would be impossible for him to change and Hugo gives the reader that idea when he steals from the man who is trying to help him. But after being forgiven later on in the novel we may see how Valjean’s personality has unbelievably changed. Jean Valjean becomes an adoptive father; town’smajor, helping people who are struggling in life just as he was. By this Hugo gives a sense of irony in the novel but at the same time shows the importance of having love and compassion in one’s life. Valjean changed from an ex convict to a man who risks his own life for the benefit of others that are less fortunate.
As Valjean continues to change his life for the better, Victor Hugo introducesus to another character, Javert, who is a strict police officer obsessed with capturing Valjean. Javert is a man who devotes his life to his work and carries it out with a huge passion that makes him a distinctive officer. However, Hugo again shows the readers how compassion leads to change within a humans life and/or personality. Javert, near the end of the novel he is presented with theopportunity to capture Valjean but instead he becomes the one captured and nearly executed by the same Valjean. Jean Valjean being the new changed man he has become, he forgives his life and lets him go. Javert takes advantage of this opportunity and nearly arrests Valjean even though he had forgiven his life. Surprisingly, Javert puts aside his obsession and his devotion to his work and lets Valjean...