The main characters are outcast Hugos. "Les Misérables", a literary analysis of the novel by Victor Hugo. The novel "Les Miserables". Historical meaning

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INTRODUCTION

“As long as, by virtue of the laws of society and its customs, a curse will weigh on a person, which, in the era of the heyday of civilization, creates hell for him on earth and aggravates his fate, which depends on God, with the pernicious efforts of people; until the three main problems of our age are solved: the oppression of the male belonging to the proletariat class, the fall of the woman due to hunger, the withering of the child due to the darkness of ignorance; as long as there is stagnation in some sections of society; in other words, and taking it more broadly - until need and ignorance cease to reign on earth - books like this one will, perhaps, be of no use. In my opinion, these words reflected the whole essence of the work.

In V. Hugo's novel Les Misérables, I was most struck by the actions of the heroes, about which the author tells us, they are so pure, so holy that sometimes it seems that such selflessness does not exist on Earth, and the more we are imbued with warmth to the hero. In my opinion, the title of the novel "Les Misérables" describes its content so accurately, in a word, that it is difficult to imagine any other title. And indeed, each of the heroes is rejected by society or by himself, each even the most pathetic and worthless person at first glance, is fraught with his own tragedy. What is also striking is the unimaginable connection between events, characters, time and space in the novel. At the beginning, it seems to the reader that the events are not connected in any way, but when he begins to understand that two small, completely different stories merge into one big, amazing story, you involuntarily note the skill of the author.

It seems that fate itself, with its invisible hand, whips the protagonists of the novel with a whip, as if they are doomed to misfortune. And only willpower and incredible efforts of the soul allow them not to break, not to fall into the mud, even at such moments when everything that exists rebelled against them. Of course, the most terrible trials fall on the lot of the protagonist, and the higher above all worldly existence his actions seem. But at the same time, the author surprisingly accurately describes all the variety of feelings that torment the hero, we experience all this with him and understand that this is still the most ordinary person, whose fate such difficult trials fall on.

Some accidents that appear out of nowhere attract the attention of readers, sometimes they save the lives of heroes and help overcome the most difficult trials, and sometimes they leave a black mark for the rest of the hero's life. He pushes and separates the heroes under the most extraordinary circumstances, makes them silent when their happiness depends on one word, and speaks when logic requires silence; he attributes his thoughts to them, forces them to express themselves in their own language, and it is in their mouths and their actions that he puts the main moral ideas of the novel.

The moral concept of the novel "Les Misérables" corresponds to V. Hugo's idea of human life as a continuous change of light and darkness. The task of the moral lesson of the novel "Les Misérables" is more important for the writer than realistic analysis, because Hugo himself says at the end of the book that it has a much more important goal than displaying real life. Understanding the world as a constant movement from evil to good, Hugo seeks to demonstrate this movement, emphasizing (often even contrary to the logic of real events) the obligatory victory of the good and spiritual over the forces of evil. Hugo saw his task in reviving the moral ideals lost by society.

In ugliness itself Hugo sees a grain of beauty, in a cruel heart a slumbering humanity, in an imperfect social order the outlines of harmony, and even in the sewage of the Parisian cesspool he sees juicy grasses, fat herds, a healthy, joyful life into which they will be transformed after passing through through the creative cycle of nature. There is no such gloomy life phenomenon that would seem hopeless to Hugo. So, he is not afraid of "social impurities" - morally crippled people of the social bottom: these are the offspring of "darkness". “What does it take to make these werewolves disappear? Light. Streams of light. No bat can endure the rays of dawn. Fill the public dungeon with light." The world of "Les Misérables" will be warmed by this biased look of the author, this belief in the final victory of good

In my opinion, Victor Hugo in his novel Les Misérables tried to show us all the cruelty that we ourselves, without noticing it, bring into this world in relation to other people. And how just one act, one word can change someone's life.

Gallery of Heroes

The basis of the work is an unforgettable gallery of heroes. From Hugo's point of view, there are two justices: one, which is determined by legal laws, and the other - the highest justice, the highest humanity, based on the principles of Christian mercy. The bearer of the first in the novel is the police inspector Javert, the bearer of the second is Bishop Miriel.

Monsignor Bienvenue

Monsignor Bienvenue is a bishop who has not always been one. Monsignor Bienvenue - the inhabitants of the diocese began to call this name of the bishop, for his kindness. If you asked what a bishop should be, I would answer exactly the same as the Bishop of Digne. This man, unlike the bishops of other dioceses, was distinguished by all the qualities that a priest should be distinguished by. the bishop was and remained in everything righteous, sincere, just, reasonable, humble and worthy; he did good and was benevolent, which is another form of the same good. He was a shepherd, a sage and a man. He did everything in his power to improve the lives of people in his diocese, and even some other dioceses. His rather large salary, almost completely went to the poor. He left almost nothing for himself, even the house that was transferred by the state to his possession, he gave to the hospital. Having occupied the small house itself, in which, in addition to him, his sister Batistina and the maid Magloire also lived. Both women were as disinterested as the priest himself and never argued with his decisions. This image does not at all represent the type of a real minister of the church. On the contrary, Miriel is rather opposed to real clergy as an ideal example, as a person of a pure, truly holy soul. It is in the image of Bishop Miriel, who played decisive role in the transformation of the mind of Jean Valjean, Hugo embodied his moral ideals: kindness, disinterestedness, broad condescension to human weaknesses and vices.

At the beginning of the novel, the “heavenly bright” image is personified by Bishop Miriel, in which Hugo embodied his romantic dreams that through mercy, misguided humanity can be led to goodness and truth. Hugo confronts his bishop with former member The Convention, which, having survived Thermidor, Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons, lives out its life in seclusion somewhere near the episcopal parish. At the same time, it is clearly revealed that the ideal of the writer splits between these so opposite personalities, for the Christian righteous and the atheist, according to Hugo, are not angipodes at all, but strive in different ways towards the same goal - the transformation of man and society. It is curious that the moral duel between the bishop and the member of the Convention ends with the victory of the latter: such is the final result of their only meeting, when, having come to the old atheist in order to condemn him, the bishop, after listening to him, kneels down and asks for his blessing.

The image of the bishop is filled with great meaning for Hugo, this is the apostle of his "modern gospel", his moral ideal, the bearer of wisdom and truth, alien to the entire official way of life. The bishop's creed is universal humanity. He equally pities a stunted plant, an ugly insect and a person rejected by society: “My brothers, have pity! The criminal is not the one who sins, but the one who creates darkness” - these are the thoughts of the bishop.

Selflessness and kindness - these are the qualities that seemed to fill the whole being of the bishop.

He rode around his diocese on a donkey (so as not to spend money on a carriage assigned to him) and supported people with prayers and conversations:

“During his detours, he was condescending, meek and not so much

taught people how much he talked with them. He did not go far for arguments and examples. For the inhabitants of one locality, he cited another, neighboring, as a model. In districts where there was no sympathy for the poor, he said:

Look at the people of Briançon. They allowed the poor, widows and orphans to mow the meadows three days earlier than the rest. They rebuild their houses for nothing when the old ones fall into disrepair. And God bless this area. For a whole century there was not a single murder.

In villages where people were greedy for profit and sought to quickly remove their crops from the field, he said:

Look at the people of Embrun. If the father of the family, whose sons are in the army and whose daughters serve in the city, falls ill during the harvest and cannot work, then the priest mentions him in a sermon, and on Sunday after mass all the villagers - men, women, children - go to this poor fellow's field, harvest his crops, and carry the straw and grain into his barn.

To families in which there were strife over money or inheritance, he said:

Look at the highlanders of Devolney, that wilderness where never

fifty years you will not hear the nightingale. So, when the head of the family dies there, the sons go to work and leave all the property to the sisters so that they can find husbands for themselves. So, with his characteristic kindness, he supported people with advice. “He behaved equally with common people and with the nobility. He did not condemn anyone without delving into the circumstances of the case. Everywhere, wherever he appeared, there was a holiday. He seemed to bring

bring light and warmth. Children and old people went out on the threshold towards the bishop, as if towards the sun. He blessed and was blessed. Anyone who needed anything was pointed to his house.

Fabulous motifs are woven into the history of Bishop Miriel: he is the soul of his parish, the common people called him Bienvenu (Desired); there are no locks on the doors of his house, the rich and the poor knock on them day and night to leave or accept alms. People's love serves as his guard, the robbers give him jewelry. He distributes his salary to the poor, arranges a hospital in the episcopal palace, walks, wears a shabby cassock, eats bread and milk, cultivates his own garden. The meeting of the bishop with Jean Valjean and the whole history of the revival human feelings in a driven and bestial convict - this is the last "miracle" performed by His Grace Bienvenue,

From time to time he stopped, talked to the boys and girls, and smiled at the mothers. As long as he had money, he visited the poor; when the money dried up, he visited the rich. His house became a kind of bank, the rich brought money for the poor, and the poor came for them. The bishop took nothing for himself and lived extremely modestly. There was not a single door in the house that would be locked with a key. A passer-by could open the door at any hour - all he had to do was push it. The only expensive items in the bishop's house were a silver set of tableware and two candlesticks.

Such was the bishop. And in the novel "Les Miserables", only such a person as Monsignor Bienvenue was able to completely turn the life and ideas of the convict Jean Valjean. It was the bishop who lit up his life, which seemed like an impenetrable haze, with a bright light and set him on the path of truth.

Here's how it was: Jean Valjean, who served a nineteen-year term in hard labor, for having stolen a piece of bread to feed his family, was released, of course, hard labor changed him. He came to Dinh. He was very hungry and very tired. But not a single tavern, not a single house allowed him to spend the night, even for a lot of money. And when he completely despaired, he was sheltered and fed by the bishop. He was smitten. But some strange force prompted him, leaving the bishop, to steal the silverware.

In the morning, to the indignation of Magloire, the priest replied: “I was wrong to use, and for so long, this silver. It belonged to the poor. And who is this person? Certainly a poor man."

The gendarmes caught Jean Valjean, brought him to the priest's house and, amazingly, the bishop told them that he had given all the silver to him. When the gendarmes left Jean Valjean, the bishop gave him two more candlesticks and said: “Do not forget, never forget that you promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.

Jean Valjean, who did not remember him promising anything, was seized with confusion. The Bishop uttered these words, somehow especially emphasizing them. And solemnly continued:

Jean Valjean, my brother! You no longer belong to evil, you belong to good. I buy your soul from you. I take it away from black thoughts and the spirit of darkness and give it to God.

It was an act that turned the whole mind of Jean Valjean, he had never seen such holy kindness. He saw only cruelty. Now everything that happened shocked him again and again. Such was Monsignor Bienvenue's contribution to the rebirth of the soul of Jean Valjean.

Leaving Digne, Jean Valjean robbed a little Savoyard (we will not go into details), but after that something unusual began to happen in his soul.

“His legs suddenly gave way, as if some invisible force suddenly crushed him with the whole weight of his bad conscience; in complete exhaustion, he sank down on a large stone and, clutching his hair with his hands, hiding his face in his knees, exclaimed:

I'm a scoundrel!

His heart gave out and he wept. He cried for the first time

twelve years. He was vaguely aware that the favor of the priest was the strongest offensive, the most formidable onslaught, which he had ever been subjected to; that if he resists this mercy, then his soul will harden forever, and if he yields, then he will have to give up the hatred that for so many years filled his soul with the actions of other people and which gave him a sense of satisfaction; that this time it was necessary either to win or remain defeated, and that now a struggle ensued, a titanic and decisive struggle between his malice

and the kindness of that person.

His conscience contemplated alternately two people who stood before her - the bishop and Jean Valjean. All the power of the first was needed to lead the second out of the delusion. The bishop kept growing in his eyes, brighter and brighter, while Jean Valjean became smaller and smaller, more and more inconspicuous. Suddenly he disappeared. Only the bishop remained. He filled the soul of the outcast with a wonderful radiance.

One thing was certain, one thing he did not doubt: he became another

man, everything in him has changed, and it was no longer in his power to destroy

the words of the bishop that resounded in him and touched his heart.

The irreconcilable contrast between evil and good, darkness and light, which manifested itself in the characters of Hugo's characters in the first period of his work, is now complemented by a new motive: the recognition of the possibility of transforming evil into good.

Jean Valjean

Heroes of Hugo are always people of significant destiny. Such is, first of all, the fate of the protagonist of Les Misérables, the convict hardened by life, Jean Valjean, who, before our eyes, becomes an excellent, highly moral person thanks to good deed Bishop Miriel, who treated him not as a criminal, but as a destitute creature in need of moral support.

From the very moment that miraculous transformation took place in the soul of Jean Valjean, he became a completely different person. He became a follower of the Bishop, and perhaps in his further actions he surpassed him in some way. He begins a righteous life for the benefit of society. He helps the poor, he is kindness itself. He tries to help everyone who needs help. He is content with this life. But fate prepares for his soul a large number of cruel trials. He learns about the misfortunes of the poor girl Fantine. And he is trying with all his might to help her, imbued with her fate to the depths of her soul. But circumstances prevent him from completing his mission - to bring Fantine's daughter to her. It seems to me that if he could. And Javert would not interfere with him. Fantine would still be alive. She so wanted to see her baby.

But the following circumstances prevented him: a decisive turning point in the soul of a hero who has been leading a respectable and virtuous life for many years under the name of M. Madeleine and suddenly finds out that some unfortunate man has been mistaken for the fugitive convict Jean Valjean and must appear before the court. Genuine Jean Valjean can remain silent and calmly continue his virtuous life, enjoying the respect and appreciation of others, but then an innocent person will be condemned instead of him to life hard labor. What should a disciple of Bishop Miriel do? Jean Valjean does not so much reason as he experiences painful “convulsions of conscience”, “a storm, a whirlwind is raging in him”, he “questions himself”, he listens to voices emanating “from the darkest recesses of his soul”, he “plunged into this night, like in the abyss."

He has to choose between two poles: "stay in heaven and turn into the devil there" or "return to hell" and "become an angel there."

There was a real hurricane in his soul: “True, it should be noted that nothing similar to what happened now has ever happened to him. Never before have two thoughts that ruled the life of the unfortunate man whose sufferings we are talking about, entered into such a cruel struggle between themselves. “All this was so painful and so unusual that in the depths of his soul there suddenly arose one of those indescribable sensations that a person is given to experience no more than two or three times in his life, something like convulsions of conscience, disturbing everything that is unclear in the heart, some mixture of irony, joy, despair - something that, perhaps, could be called an explosion

inner laughter. “He also saw in front of him, as if alive and taking on a tangible form, two thoughts that until now constituted the double rule of his life: to hide his name, to sanctify his soul. For the first time they appeared before him individually, and he discovered the difference between them. He realized that one of them was unconditionally good, while the other could become evil; that one signifies self-denial and the other self-love; that one says: neighbor, and the other says: I; that the source of one is light and the other is darkness.

They wrestled among themselves, and he watched them wrestle. He continued to think, and they all grew before his mind's eye; they acquired gigantic dimensions, and it seemed to him that in the depths of his consciousness, in that infinity that we have just spoken about, among glimpses interspersed with darkness, a certain deity is fighting with a certain giant. - "What is this! he exclaimed. "I've only taken myself into account so far!" I only thought about what I should do. Be silent or report on yourself. Shelter yourself or save your soul? To turn into a contemptible, but universally respected official, or into a disgraced, but respectable convict? All this applies to me, only to me, to me alone!

But, Lord God, it's all selfishness! Not quite the usual form of selfishness, but still selfishness! What if I think a little about others? After all, the highest holiness consists in caring for your neighbor. Let's see, let's go deeper. If you exclude me, delete me, forget about me - then what will come of all this? Suppose I denounce myself. I am arrested, Chanmatier is released, I am again sent to hard labor, all this is good, and then? What's going on here? Yes here! Here is a whole region, a city, factories, industry, workers, men, women, children, all this poor people! I created all this, it was I who gave them all the means of subsistence. If I leave, everything will freeze. And this woman who has suffered so much, who stands so high in spite of her fall, and whose misfortune I unwittingly caused! And this child, for whom I thought to go, whom I promised to return to my mother!

This section called “Soul Storm” made the biggest impression on me! I suffered with Jean Valjean, and yet I wanted him to do exactly what he did.

He goes to court to acquit the ill-fated Chammatier and voluntarily puts himself in the hands of the law. And even when this gigantic internal struggle ended in a moral victory for good, that is, when the hero Hugo proved to the judges and the public present that he, and not Chammatier, was the convict Jean Valjean, and it was he, and not Chammatier, who should return to hard labor, the artist still once resorts to the reception of romantic contrast; he makes his hero smile: "... that was a smile of triumph, that was also a smile of despair." What he did was the highest act of mercy, leaving everything he had for the freedom of a man unknown to him.

Fantine dies without seeing her daughter. And on the shoulders - the convict Jean Valjean falls the duty to take care of Cosette. And he, a convict again, does everything for this. With conceivable and unthinkable efforts, he fulfills his promise. He escapes from prison. Takes the girl. It is no coincidence that the author points out that feature in the character of his hero that he “always had ... two bags: one of them contained the thoughts of a saint, the other - the dangerous talents of a convict. He used one or the other, depending on the circumstances. He does everything in his power for Cosette. He loved her so much that he could not imagine his life without her. His entire existence was in her alone as she grew. And, it would seem, fate rewarded him for all the misfortunes. But new, even more difficult trials stand in his way. Cosette grows up and falls in love with Marius.

What is a pleasant pattern for a young girl, for Jean Valjean is the understanding that he will have to part with his “daughter”, give it to the unknown Marius. These thoughts seemed selfish to me. But for a man for whom for so many years this girl was a ray of light in his gloomy life, they were more than serious. Not to see what he lives. Say goodbye to the meaning of your existence.

But even here he showed himself selflessly. Putting the happiness of Cosette and Marius in place of his own. The happiness of Marius, the man who robbed Jean Valjean of Cosette, the man whom he seemed to hate.

At that moment, when Gavroche brought Marius's letter from the barricade, and it got to Jean Valjean, it seemed to me that he would burn it, tear it up and Cosette would never hear of Marius again. So probably it would have been, but that sincerity and kindness did not recede here either. Once at the barricade, Jean Valjean does not take part in the battle. He is still out of politics, and he is the spiritual son of a bishop, whom it is impossible to imagine shooting. But Valjean saves Marius, showing himself to be a true hero. The point, of course, is not to make Cosette happy at any cost, to ensure a happy ending to the novel. Hugo has in mind the interests of mankind rather than his charming heroine. Jap Valjean, overcoming unthinkable obstacles, carries the future in his hands - whether he understands it or not. Marius is the fighter of the barricade of 1832, the best of what arose as a result of French historical experience. By saving him, Valjean discovers this future, keeps the baton of generations. The feeling of a relay race, a change of generations is intensified by the fact that after his feat, Jean Valjean leaves, dies.

Jean Valjean is the embodiment of Hugo's moral ideal in behavior on the barricades: he does not take part in the battle and, without firing a single bullet at the enemies of the republic, saves the spy Javert sentenced to death. And it is precisely this treacherous act in relation to the revolution that Hugo interprets as the highest feat from the point of view of “absolute morality”: having repaid good for evil, Jean Valjean violated all life ideas familiar to Javert, knocked the ground out from under his feet and led him to surrender - - to suicide. In the person of Javert, the false law of serving the state - Evil - recognized the moral triumph of humanity and forgiveness - Good. The whole story of Jean Valjean, which is at the center of the novel Les Misérables, is built on dramatic clashes and sharp turns in the fate of the hero: Jean Valjean, who breaks the glass of a bakery to take bread for his sister's hungry children, and is sentenced to hard labor for this; Jean Valjean, returning from hard labor and driven from everywhere, even from the dog's kennel; Jean Valjean in the bishop's house, from whom he tried to steal silver knives and forks and received them as a gift along with silver candlesticks; Jean Valjean, who has become an influential mayor of the city, and the dying Fantine, who begs to save her child; Jean Valjean in a collision with the "watchful eye" of justice - Javert; Jean Valjean in the "case" of Chanmatier, which returns him to the position of a persecuted convict; the feat of Jean Valjean, rescuing a sailor from a warship; "Orion", and his escape from hard labor in order to fulfill the promise made to Fantine; Jean Valjean with little Cosette in her arms, pursued by Javert and his police thugs through the dark streets and nooks and crannies of Paris, and an unexpected rescue in a convent on Picpus Street; then, a few years later, Jean Valjean in the thieves' den of Thenardier, alone against nine scoundrels, bound by them and yet able to free himself by cutting the ropes with the help of an old convict's coin; finally, Jean Valjean at the barricade, where he does not kill anyone, but saves two people from death: Marius and his pursuer Javert, etc.

One cannot forget Jean Valjean, who stepped with his foot, shod in a shoe lined with iron, on a coin of a small Savoyard, and then wept in despair on a roadside stone; and the terrible night of the “storm under the skull”, during which Jean Valjean turned as gray as a harrier, the night before the trial of Chammatier, mistakenly arrested instead of him; and Cosette's wedding night, when Valjean decides to reveal his true identity to Marius; and the lonely dying old man abandoned by his beloved daughter.

In the last period of his life, Jean Valjean dooms himself to loneliness, yielding to his beloved Cosette to Marius and voluntarily withdrawing from her life so as not to interfere with her happiness, although this self-elimination kills him. “Everything that is courageous, virtuous, heroic, holy in the world is all in him!” Marius exclaims with delight, as soon as the moral feat of Jean Valjean was revealed to him.

This chapter was the most difficult for me, because Jean Valjean, the one who did so much for the people around him, remains completely alone in his old age and his suffering leads the reader to despair. It seems that a happy ending is impossible. And although the end of the novel is still bright, sadness remains in the soul, which makes you think.

No matter how hard the life of Jean Valjean, it is deeply meaningful, because he lives not for himself, but for other people. Selfishness is completely alien to him, he knows neither greed nor ambition. Iron will, fortitude, steel muscles, he uses to help the weak and unjustly offended. One way or another, he helps all the heroes of Les Misérables: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, Enjolras.

The voice of moral duty to people in Valjean's soul is so powerful that, obeying it, he is ready to sacrifice his personal well-being: he saves an old man crushed by a cart, although he knows that this will arouse Javert's suspicions; puts himself in the hands of justice in order to save a crazy tramp from eternal hard labor; condemns himself to a lonely old age, arranging the happiness of Cosette. He cannot be happy if this happiness rests on the unhappiness of another. All this is not easy for him, not without painful hesitation and internal struggle. However, moral torments, spiritual struggles are the destiny of spiritually full-fledged people. For some Thenardier, there are no moral problems. But the injustice of society falls on these full-fledged people.

Fantine is a girl from a small town who has come to Paris. Her story is not new. She is very young, innocent, naive and beautiful. She and her three friends are having fun walking and trying to make the most of their time. There were four of them, with them were four cavaliers. And how often such stories end: young people leave them forever, with the intention of creating a career, a family, etc. Fantine is left alone with her unborn baby. Life in Paris is expensive. She has to return to her native Montfermel. She does not dare to come to the city without a husband with a child and leaves Cosette for temporary maintenance with an innkeeper she met on the way, who has two daughters. Oh, if not for this terrible accident, her fate would not have seemed so unfortunate. Everything would be different. Now her whole life is turning into hell. The innkeeper Thenardier demands exorbitant money for the maintenance of the child. He goes to all sorts of tricks and tricks. A poor girl who adores her baby gives everything she has and gradually sinks into debt and poverty. She sells everything she can sell, even teeth and hair. But it's not enough for him. So gradually it goes down to the lowest limit.

I believe that in the novel each outcast is unhappy in his own way, but still Fantine gets the most bitter fate and the most unhappy end of her life.

Initially, Fantine finds a good job at the factory of Mr. Madeleine (Jean Valjean), but the gossips working with her find out about her secret and seek her dismissal, and they cover this act with the honest name of Mr. Madeleine. Fantine blames Madeleine for all her troubles. And when he saves her from being arrested by Javert. She does not understand how the person who deprived her of her job because of a trifle now stands up for her. Mr. Madeleine is imbued with a poor girl and her unfortunate fate. He takes care of Fantine herself, as she is very ill and promises to bring Cosette to her, but Javert and the incident with Chanmatier prevent him from completing his good deed.

More than anything, Fantine dreamed of seeing her baby, her Cosette. She lived with one thought that she would see her. But Javert, having arrested Jean Valjean and preventing him from bringing her the baby, kills all hope in Fantine. She dies from an illness and from the words of Javert: “You ask me to give you three days. He himself planned to run away, but he says that he wants to go after the child of this girl! Ha ha ha! Great! That's great!

And this one is right there! Will you shut up, you bastard! What a worthless country, where convicts are appointed mayors, and public girls are looked after like countesses! Oh no! Now all this will change. It is high time!" She dies without even seeing her child, her daughter. What she dreamed about for so long never came true.

This is a very tragic moment. Mother and child. What could be more holy? And what is so cruelly trampled upon here by the law in the person of Javert. Javert

For Javert, the main thing is to “represent power” and “serve power”: “Behind him, around him ... stood power, common sense, judgment, conscience according to the measure of the law, social punishment - all the stars of his sky. He defended order, he extracted thunder and lightning from the law ... in the formidable shadow of the work he was doing, the flaming sword of social justice vaguely stood out. psychological method Hugo is reduced in Javert's description to an exaggeration of two simple feelings, brought almost to the grotesque: "This man consisted of two feelings - respect for authority and hatred for rebellion." Javert, as befits a detective according to literary tradition, is endowed with an extraordinary memory, a special police instinct, strong, courageous and dexterous; that he sets up ambushes, unexpectedly rises in the path of criminals and recognizes them under make-up and masks, etc.

The author deliberately leads the faithful guardian of "legality" Javert, who is not accustomed to reasoning, to the thought that is terrible for him that the convict Jean Valjean "turned out to be stronger than all public order." He even has to admit the "moral nobility of the outcast", which was "unbearable" for him.

So Javert loses ground under his feet. In him, as once in Jean Valjean, a decisive moral upheaval takes place. For up to now his ideal had been to be impeccable in his service to the law. However, goodness, according to Hugo, is above the law established by the society of owners. Therefore, it pushes Javert to a terrible discovery for him that “not everything is said in the code of laws”, that “ social order not perfect”, that “the law can be deceived”, “the tribunal can err”, etc. Everything that this person believed in has happened.” This inner catastrophe is the retreat of the forces of evil before good.

There are changes in his soul that he cannot bear. In fact, the same thing happens to him as to Jean Valjean on the night before the trial of Chanmatier, but, unlike Jean Valjean, Javert cannot stand the thoughts that have flown over him and the awareness of the collapse of his entire inner world. With slow steps, Javert left the street of the Armed Man. For the first time in his life, he walked with his head down, and also for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his back. He saw before him two paths, equally straight, but there were two of them; this terrified him, for all his life he followed only one straight line. And, what is especially painful, both ways were opposite. Each of these straight lines excluded the other. Which of the two is correct? His position was inexpressibly difficult.

What to do? It was bad to betray Jean Valjean; leaving Jean Valjean free was also a crime. In the first case, the representative of power fell below the last convict; in the second, the convict towered over the law and trampled it underfoot. In both cases, he, Javert, was dishonored. Whatever he decides, the outcome is the same - the end. In the fate of a person there are steep steeps, from where there is no escape, from where all life seems to be a deep abyss. Javert stood on the edge of such a cliff. He was especially oppressed by the need to think. The fierce struggle of conflicting feelings forced him to this. Thinking was unusual for him and extraordinarily painful.

What seemed interesting to me was the letter that Javert left at the station, imbued with his remarks, caught by him throughout his service and converging in ideology with the one he always rejected, with Jean Valjean. It means that throughout his life he noticed the injustice of the law, but did not dare to admit it.

It might seem that the antagonists in Les Misérables are Jean Valjean and Javert. In fact, the poles of the composition built by the novelist are Bishop Miriel and the tavern keeper Thenardier. Here everything is opposite, everything is irreconcilable. Javert committed suicide, it is impossible to imagine the suicide of a tavern keeper: he has nothing resembling a conscience.

Thenardier

The innkeeper Tepardieu is the hero of the new, bourgeois epoch. His only motive is self-interest. In terms of his moral qualities, he occupies the lowest position in the novel, the one that the king himself occupies to know in Hugo's works about the past. Thenardier is the real villain, the real criminal. He is full of greed, cunning, malice. He is petty in everything. Nothing is sacred to him.

From his very chronological appearance in the novel, he appears to us as a miserable thief in comparison with the greatness and courage of the soldiers of the French army. When he mocked Fantine, demanding money. Not providing Cosette with anything. He applied all his tricks to all the people he met, only for the sake of profit. Money is the reason for his existence. End justifies the means. It's about him. Killing a person is not terrible for him, as long as it brings money. For their sake, he was ready to go to the lowest deed. But the most interesting thing in his image and actions is that the most vile deeds contribute to light and good: when Jean Valjean, with the half-dead Marius on his shoulders, lost all hope, it was Thenardier who came to his “help”, in order to give someone to the policeman. If not for the selfishness of Thenardier, which led him to the house of Marius. Marius would never have known of all the moral exploits of Jean Valjean. And this unfortunate man would have died alone. Hugo even brightens this image with kindness. (One was born with horns, but another will be born with feathers. And as you were born, so you will die, you see, you need such a sky, looking at us with joy and longing)

Cosette is Fantine's daughter. Left with the innkeeper Thenardier and his wife, she endures the worst that can happen to a child of her age. She does not remember her mother and does not know motherly love. About Us early years does all the dirty work in the house. Cosette is terribly fed, scarcely clothed, and treated in the most appalling manner. She has no entertainment and all that a child should have. Nobody here loves her. And all this changes her.

Her meeting with Jean Valjean radically changes her life from the very moment he took the heavy bucket from her hands. The chic doll, presented by him to the girl, gives birth to new sensations absolutely unknown to her. “No words could convey her desperate, frightened and at the same time admiring look. Cosette stared at the marvelous doll in awe. Tears were still running down her face, but in her eyes, as if in the sky at sunrise, beams of joy shone. It was strange to look at them at the moment when Cosette's rags touched the ribbons and the lush pink muslin of the doll and mixed with them.

Jean Valjean takes her away from Thenardier, and her life is illuminated. The wretched room seems like a palace to her. Jean Valjean makes her life happy. He gives her childhood, education and most importantly his love! He dedicates his life to her. He refuses nothing to Cosette.

Cosette, despite the absolute nondescriptness in childhood, grows into a pretty girl. The time comes and Cosette falls in love. The author so colorfully described the whole gamut of feelings that captured the girl at once. She doesn't even know what it's called. She is still a child at heart. And the brighter these experiences. Her love is mutual. And only the father at first stands as if between them, and this obstacle only inflames the feelings of lovers.

I must say Cosette was a very meek girl and did not dare to show all her experiences. She was obedient and took the words of her father as the law. All this burden of suffering she carried within herself. Words cannot describe the happiness that she experiences when meeting with Marius. Especially after a long separation.

Jean Valjean accomplishes a moral feat here as well. For her sake, he saves Marius from the barricade. He does everything for their wedding. Yielding to his beloved Cosette Marius and voluntarily withdrawing from her life, so as not to interfere with her happiness. Cosette really becomes happy. At the wedding: “So it’s true? I bear your name. I am Mrs. You.

The young beings beamed with joy. For them, a unique

an irrevocable moment: they reached the summit, where their blossoming youth found the fullness of happiness. As it is said in the verses of Jean Prouvaire, both together were not even forty years old. It was the purest union: these two children resembled two lilies. They did not see, but contemplated each other. Marius presented himself to Cosette in a halo, Cosette appeared to Marius on a pedestal.

Although she misses her father a lot after the wedding. The end of her story is really happy. As if God rewards her for those sufferings experienced in childhood.

In my opinion, interesting for the present is an excerpt from the description of the road of the wedding procession of Cosette and Marius.

“There were carriages, covered wagons, one-wheelers, cabriolets, all of them followed one after another in strict order, as if rolling on rails. The policemen directed on both sides of the boulevard two endless parallel strings moving towards each other, and made sure that nothing disturbed this double flow, this double flow of carriages, one up, the other down - one to the Highway d'Antin, the other to Sainte - From time to time, somewhere in the procession of carriages, a jam would occur, and then one or another of the parallel chains would stop until the knot was untangled;

string. Then traffic was restored. Now it's called "traffic jams", they were already then, and so interestingly described by the author.

Gavroche is the son of Thenardier. Completely unloved by his parents, he goes to live on the streets. And lives by her rules. He is nothing like his father or mother. He has a completely different character. He is very kind and always happy to help. It seems that he never loses heart. He just glows, despite his unenviable position. In fact, although he always seems to be cheerful, I think there is a deep sadness in his soul. He only hides behind optimism and funny songs that he composes. His life is not at all conducive to such a mood.

He is constantly hungry, poorly dressed, lives in an elephant statue with rats. Anyone would despair. But it is not he who spins as he can and achieves some success.

On the barricade is Gavroche, devoid of any schematism, a surprisingly lively and attractive image, testifying to the organic democracy of Victor Hugo. Not ideas and moral imperatives educate Gavroche, he is educated by the Parisian street, for which the barricade was not an accidental and unnecessary decoration, but a natural expression of the love of freedom of the French people.

At the barricade, Gavroche is a full participant. He fights not with the authorities, but with all the cruelty of this world. His heroism, although it seems like a game to him, is actually drenched in desperation. He sings when hundreds of guns are pointed in his direction. He sings even when he dies.

“Gavroche looked around and saw that the guards of the suburbs were firing.

Then he stood up to his full height and, akimbo, with his hair flying in the wind, looking point-blank at the national guards who were shooting at him, sang:

All inhabitants of Nanterre

Freaks through the fault of Voltaire.

All the old-timers of Palesso

Fools through the fault of Rousseau.

Then he picked up the basket, put the scattered cartridges in it, without losing a single one, and, moving towards the bullets, went to empty the next cartridge bag. A fourth bullet flew past. Gavroche sang:

My career failed

And this is the fault of Voltaire

The wheel of fate is broken

And Rousseau is to blame for this.

The fifth bullet only managed to inspire him to the third verse:

I do not take an example with a hypocrite,

And this is the fault of Voltaire.

And poverty by me, as in serso,

Playing through the fault of Rousseau

This went on for quite some time.

It was a terrible and touching sight. Gavroche, under fire, seemed to tease the enemies. He seemed to be having fun. Sparrow bullied the hunters. He responded to each volley with a new verse. They aimed at him continuously and each time they gave a miss. Taking him at gunpoint, the soldiers and national guardsmen laughed. But one bullet, more accurate or more treacherous than the others, finally overtook this will-o'-the-wisp. Everyone saw how Gavroche suddenly staggered and fell to the ground. Everyone at the barricade cried out with one voice; but in

this pygmy hid Antaeus; to touch the pavement for a gamen means the same as for a giant to touch the ground; no sooner had Gavroche fallen than he got up again. He sat on the ground, a trickle of blood running down his face; stretching both hands up, he turned in the direction from which the shot came, and sang:

I am a small bird

And this is the fault of Voltaire.

But they can lasso me

Blame it on...

He didn't finish the songs. A second bullet from the same shooter cut her off forever. This time he fell face down on the pavement and did not move again. A little boy with a great soul has died."

Marius is a young man brought up by his grandfather - a bourgeois. Marius' ideas change completely after Mabeuf's story. Having discovered his father for himself, he opens “everything as if he held the key” to the meaning and content of French history, “he saw behind the Revolution the great image of the people, and behind the Empire - the great image of France.” It is undergoing a revolution. Marius accepts his father's republican views and becomes more and more distant from his grandfather, and eventually leaves home. He lives through all the "surprises" of poverty. He joins a circle of revolutionaries, but still their judgments differ from his own. And he becomes uninterested.

All his strongest experiences are connected with love for Cosette. He spends almost a year alone with them, not even knowing if he will see her again.

In my opinion, he loved her even more than she loved him, and if his feelings were not mutual, it would be a tragedy for him.

At the moment when Jean Valjean intends to take Cosette to England. Marius seems to be losing his mind. He can't imagine a day without her. He asks his grandfather for permission to marry Cosette and, having received a refusal, without realizing anything, goes to the barricade to his friends, goes hoping to die.

At the barricade, Marius proves himself to be a hero! In the first minute he saves Gavroche and one of his friends. He fearlessly exposes himself to bullets, hoping to die under the guise of revolutionary ideals, they certainly excite him. But what pushes him more to these actions is the refusal of his grandfather and the understanding that he will soon lose Cosette. “The voice in the twilight that called Marius to the barricade of the Rue Chanvrerie seemed to him the voice of fate. He wanted to die, and the opportunity presented itself to him, he knocked on the gates of the tomb, and a hand in the darkness held out to him the key to them. The ominous exit that opens in the darkness of despair is always full of temptation. Marius parted the bars of the lattice, which let him through so many times, went out of the garden and said to himself. "Let's go to!".

Distraught with grief, unable to make any firm decision,

unable to agree with anything that fate would offer him after two months of intoxication with youth and love, overcome by the darkest thoughts that despair could inspire, he wanted one thing - to end his life as soon as possible.

The idea of the revolutionaries in the novel was as follows: “In the future, no one will kill, the earth will shine, the human race will love. Citizens! He will come, this day when everything will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life, he will come! And so, in order for him to come, we will die.” Not the nineteenth, but the twentieth century will be happy for people. Oh, I'm sure if these people knew what this twentieth century would be like with its world wars, they would not die for it!

Saved by Jean Valjean and not remembering this, Marius continues to live only in thoughts of Cosette, never ceasing to rejoice at the fact that he sees her again.

However, he always remembers two debts that he must pay. He is looking for the two people of Thenardier, who saved his father and the one who brought him from the barricade.

At the same time, he shows, in my opinion, exorbitant cruelty by forbidding Jean Valjean to see Cosette when he finds out that Jean Valjean is a convict. However, he is a very reasonable person in his actions. He thought it would be better that way. He shows no love or respect for either his father or Jean Valjean until life proves to him with all kinds of evidence that these people are worthy of his love. But when he realizes this, he repents greatly, but too late.

In the end, Marius still remains happy. He has the most important Cosette. He fully pays off Thenardier and manages to apologize to Jean Valjean. Although his conscience is most likely still tormenting, reminding him of how cruelly he treated the old man.

Old Gillenormand and Monsieur Pontmercy.

These are two people who are completely opposite in their views and beliefs. Aristocrat and Republican. Father-in-law and son-in-law. I will not go into their differences, I will only say that they had in common. They equally adored their son and grandson - Marius. None of them could live without him. And yet both of them, to a greater or lesser extent, had to experience the coldness and absence of Marius.

The story of Monsieur Pontmercy is very clearly told by Mabeuf. Here it is: “In this very place for ten years I observed one noble, but unfortunate father, who, being deprived of another opportunity and another way to see his child for family reasons, regularly came here once every two or three months. He came when, as he knew, his son was brought to mass. The child had no idea that his father was here. Perhaps he, silly, did not know that he had a father. And the father hid behind a column so that they would not see him. He looked at his child and wept. He adored the little one, poor thing! It was clear to me. This place became as it were sacred to me, and it became a habit for me to sit here during Mass. I prefer my pew to the pews of the clergy, and I could rightfully occupy them as a church warden. I even knew a little of this unfortunate man. He had a father-in-law, a rich aunt -

in a word, some relatives who threatened to deprive the child of their inheritance if the father saw him. He sacrificed himself so that his son would later become rich and happy. He was separated from him due to political opinions. Of course, I respect political convictions, but there are people who do not know the limits of anything. Lord have mercy! After all, one cannot consider a man a monster just because he fought at Waterloo! For this, the child is not separated from the father. Under Bonaparte, he rose to the rank of colonel. And now it looks like he's already dead. He lived in Vernon - I have a priest brother there - his name was either Pomari ... or Montpercy ... he had, as I see now, a huge scar from a saber blow.

So Monsieur Pontmercy, like Fantine, dies an absolutely unhappy man who, before his death, did not even embrace his son, whom he loved so much.

Old Gillenormand, in his turn, experienced all the bitterness of loneliness when Marius hated him, not forgiving his father, and left his house.

“It must be said that Marius did not know what kind of heart his grandfather had. He imagined

that Gillenormand never loved him, and that this rough, brusque, mocking old man, who was always scolding, shouting, raging, and brandishing his cane, had at best the not deep, but the exacting affection of comedic gerontes. Marius was wrong. There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not idolize his grandson. And, as we have already said, in the depths of his soul Gillenormand adored Marius. He adored, of course, in his own way, accompanying adoration with cuffs and slaps; but when the boy left his house, he felt a dark emptiness in his heart.”

The main thing about the work

One of the main themes is the fate of people who were rejected by society against their will. The volume of the work is considerable, depending on the publisher, the number of volumes can be two or three. The book is distinguished by contrasts between philosophical reflections, lyrical digressions, dramatic plot and historical facts.

Victor Hugo draws a parallel between two completely different images - a convict and a righteous man. The purpose of the author is not to show readers the differences between them, but to highlight in this way a single human essence.

The main characters of the novel "Les Miserables"

The protagonist is Jean Valjean, a former convict who ended up behind bars for stealing bread for his hungry nephews. From the first pages, the author raises the question of the fault of the state in Valjean's misconduct. Hugo believes that a person shows his essence only in difficult life situations.

Another main character is the orphan Cosette, who was the victim of inappropriate and inhuman treatment by her adoptive parents.

The main character Fantine is suspected of prostitution. Because of bad rumors, the girl was expelled from her place of work, society began to despise her and her little daughter. The opinions of the people changed Fantine forever. Now she has no other choice but to go outside.

Issues

In his work, Victor Hugo reveals an interesting idea: a society that despises a person for his past only dooms him to even greater torment compared to those that he managed to overcome.

Main issue.

* this work is not scientific work, is not a final qualifying work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information, intended for use as a source of material for self-study educational work.

Introduction 3

Part 1. The role of Bishop Miriel in the transmission of the moral ideals of the novel Les Misérables 8

Part 2. Moral ideas of V. Hugo, expressed through the image of Jean Valjean 11

Part 3. "Moral" by Javert - the antagonist of Jean Valjean 17

Conclusion 21

References 26

Introduction

The moral concept of the novel "Les Misérables" corresponds to V. Hugo's idea of human life as a continuous change of light and darkness. The task of the moral lesson of the novel "Les Misérables" is more important for the writer than realistic analysis, because Hugo himself says at the end of the book that it has a much more important goal than depicting real life. Understanding the world as a constant movement from evil to good, Hugo seeks to demonstrate this movement, emphasizing (often even contrary to the logic of real events) the obligatory victory of the good and spiritual over the forces of evil. “The book that lies before the eyes of the reader is from beginning to end, in general and in particular ... - the path from evil to good, from wrong to fair, from lies to truth, from night to day ... Starting point; - matter, the final point - the soul. At the beginning, a monster, at the end, an angel" 1 .

Hugo saw his task in reviving the moral ideals lost by society. This makes Hugo's novel not so much accusatory as preaching - missionary, thanks to which Les Misérables in the West is often called the "modern gospel", as Hugo himself described it.

The humanistic pathos of Hugo's novel, shortly after its release and overcoming censorship prohibitions, immediately attracted the sympathy of the largest Russian writers. He was highly appreciated by Herzen, Nekrasov, Shchedrin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. With all the difference in ideological positions and creative methods, they managed to find sides close to them in Les Misérables. Leo Tolstoy, for example, felt historical and human truth behind the romantic effects and rhetoric of Les Misérables, found social denunciation and moral preaching, love for ordinary people, and therefore put Hugo's work above all modern French novel. In the preface to Maupassant's writings, he wrote: "Life" is an excellent novel, not only Maupassant's incomparably best novel, but almost the best French novel after Hugo's Les Misérables.

Every reader senses from the very first pages that Les Misérables is more than just another version of a familiar theme, that the content of the book is not limited to plot, and that there is something more in it that lifts it high above the fascinating, but, in fact, rather flat according to the novels-feuilletons. Indeed, Hugo only started from the literary tradition - he set himself a task of a completely different scale; specific questions of the life of society, living images of people, an exciting plot - only "one side of the work; behind all this is a grandiose panorama of the era, and behind it there is a question about the fate of the people, humanity, moral and philosophical problems, general questions of being.

The world seemed to Victor Hugo the scene of a fierce struggle between two eternal principles - good and evil, light and darkness, flesh and spirit. He sees this struggle everywhere: in nature, in society and in man himself. Its outcome is predetermined by the good will of providence, to which everything in the universe is subject, from the circulation of the stars to the smallest movement of the human soul: evil is doomed, good will triumph. Morally, the world is split, but at the same time it is one, because the innermost essence of being is progress. The life of mankind, like the life of the universe, is an irresistible upward movement, from evil to good, from darkness to light, from an ugly past to a beautiful future. On the eve of the release of Les Misérables, in one of his political speeches in 1860, Hugo said: “Progress is nothing but the expression of the law of gravity. Who could have stopped him? O despots, I challenge you, stop the falling stone, stop the flood, stop the avalanche, stop Italy, stop the year 1789, stop the world that God is striving towards the light.

The ideal of beauty, goodness and justice coincides, goodness is the goal of progress, the guiding star of humanity: “Today the ideal is a luminous point barely visible in height”; but “among all the monstrous blocks of darkness that menacingly crowded around him, he is no more dangerous than a star in the mouth of clouds” 5 .

In ugliness itself Hugo sees a grain of beauty, in a cruel heart - a dormant humanity, in an imperfect social order - the outlines of harmony, and even in the sewage of the Parisian sewer he sees juicy grasses, fat herds, a healthy, joyful life into which they will be transformed after passing through a creative cycle of nature. There is no such gloomy life phenomenon that would seem hopeless to Hugo. So, he is not afraid of “social impurities” - morally crippled people of the social bottom: these are the offspring of “gloom”. “What does it take to make these werewolves disappear? Light. Streams of light. No bat can endure the rays of dawn. Fill the public dungeon with light” 6 .

The world of "Les Misérables" is warmed by this biased look of the author, this belief in the final victory of good; Hugo's ideas live not only in the people he depicts, but also in living and dead nature, which he paints with the same love, using the same images, seeing in it the same moral struggle. The streets of old Paris, its slums, its barricades come to life under Hugo's pen. Long descriptions, “digressions”, which occupy almost half of the entire text of Les Misérables, are therefore not something alien to the plot, but merge with it into one consonance, forming a panorama of life full of movement, diversity and drama.

As known 7, in "Les Misérables" real facts constitute the undisputed basis of the work. Monsignor Miolis, bred under the name of Miriel, really existed, and what is said about him in the novel was in reality. The poverty of this holy prelate, his asceticism, his mercy, the naive grandeur of his speeches aroused the admiration of all the inhabitants of Dinh. A certain canon Angelin, who served as Miolis's secretary, told the story of Pierre Morin, a convict who had served his term, who was not allowed into any of the hotels because he showed a "wolf passport"; this man came to the bishop and was welcomed into his house with open arms, as was Jean Valjean. But Pierre Morin did not steal the silver candelabra, as Jean Valjean did; the bishop sent him to his brother, General Miolis, and he was so pleased with the former convict that he made him his messenger. Real life gives us shaky and vague images, the artist distributes light and shadows at his own discretion.

Further, the novelist took advantage of the experience of his personal life. In "Les Misérables" appear the Abbé Rohan, the publisher Rayol, Mother Sage, the garden of the convent of the feuilletines, the young Victor Hugo - under the name of Marius, and General Hugo - under the name of Pontmercy. Marius took walks with Cosette, as did Victor and Adele. Marius sulked at Cosette for three days because the wind in the Luxembourg Gardens lifted her sacred dress to her knees.

The characters of Hugo's heroes are outlined in general outlines and given once and for all (the transformation of Valjean into Madeleine or little Cosette into "Mademoiselle Fauchelevent" cannot be considered "development" - this is simply the replacement of one image by another). As if not trusting the reader's ability to understand the action himself, Hugo comments on the actions in detail actors; he almost never analyzes the mental state of the hero, as a realist writer would do, he simply illustrates this state with a stream of metaphors, sometimes deployed for a whole chapter (for example, the chapter “The Storm under the Skull”, which depicts the mental anguish of Jean Valjean, who learned that instead of he was arrested by another person); the author intervenes in the action, turns it contrary to logic, constructs artificial situations (what an ambush scene in Gorbeau's shack is worth!). He pushes and separates the heroes under the most extraordinary circumstances, makes them silent when their happiness depends on one word, and speaks when logic requires silence; he attributes his thoughts to them, forces them to express themselves in their own language, and it is in their mouths and their actions that he puts the main moral ideas of the novel.

Part 1. The role of Bishop Miriel in the transmission of the moral ideals of the novel "Les Misérables"

In Les Misérables, Hugo chose to be a teacher and preacher of a good example. That is why the novel opens with the book "The Righteous One", in the center of which is the romantic image of the Christian righteous man - Bishop Miriel. This image does not at all represent the type of a real minister of the church. On the contrary, Miriel is rather opposed to real clergy as an ideal example, as a person of a pure, truly holy soul.

It was in the image of Bishop Miriel, who played a decisive role in the transformation of the consciousness of Jean Valjean, that Hugo embodied his moral ideals: kindness, disinterestedness, wide indulgence towards human weaknesses and vices.

At the beginning of the novel “Paradisely Bright” 8, the image is personified by Bishop Miriel, in which Hugo embodied his romantic dreams that through mercy one can lead erring humanity to goodness and truth. Hugo confronts his bishop with a former member of the Convention, who, having survived Thermidor, Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons, is living his life in seclusion somewhere near the episcopal parish. At the same time, it is clearly revealed that the ideal of the writer splits between these so opposite personalities, for the Christian righteous and the atheist, according to Hugo, are not angipodes at all, but strive in different ways towards the same goal - the transformation of man and society. It is curious that the moral duel between the bishop and the member of the Convention ends with the victory of the latter: such is the final result of their only meeting, when, having come to the old atheist in order to condemn him, the bishop, after listening to him, kneels down and asks for his blessing.

The image of the bishop is filled with great meaning for Hugo, this is the apostle of his "modern gospel", his moral ideal, the bearer of wisdom and truth, alien to the entire official way of life. The bishop's creed is a comprehensive humanity. He equally pities a stunted plant, an ugly insect and a person rejected by society: “My brothers, have pity! The criminal is not the one who sins, but the one who creates darkness” - these are the thoughts of the bishop 9 .

It is noteworthy that Jean Valjean, morally resurrected by the kindness of the bishop, does not at all return to the bosom of society, but again collides with him. But the blind exasperation of the convict turns under the influence of His Grace Bienvenue into a conscious rejection of reality as it is and a desire to improve life. Valjean, a manufacturer and philanthropist, continues the work begun by the bishop in his parish.

Hugo chose a priest as the mouthpiece of his ideas. In Les Misérables, not only the chapters on the bishop are devoted to questions of religion, but also two special sections: “In Parentheses” and “The Petit Picpus”, in which Hugo very clearly outlines the boundaries of his anti-clericalism, which never turns into anti-religion. In matters of religion, he always stood on positions of vague humanity - he is for "Religion" against "religions". Hugo follows the principles of J.-J. Rousseau: the deity for him is that highest moral principle, that Good, to which the “human soul” naturally aspires.

As applied to Bishop Miriel in particular, it is useless to raise the question of typical character. This image was frankly built contrary to life observations, as a kind of desired ideal. According to the author himself, "Bishop Miriel is a purely fictitious character, and Catholic newspapers had reason to find him implausible" 10 . It is stylized in the spirit of ancient church legends about the meek saints of the times of early Christianity, about the righteous who work miracles with the power of their spiritual purity. “In order to find anything similar to this figure,” Hugo wrote in one of his sketches for Les Misérables, “one must delve into the almost fabulous times for us of bishops with a wooden staff” 11 .

Fabulous motifs are woven into the history of Bishop Miriel: he is the soul of his parish, the common people called him Bienvenu (Desired); there are no locks on the doors of his house, the rich and the poor knock on them day and night to leave or accept alms. People's love serves as his guard, the robbers give him jewelry. He distributes his salary to the poor, arranges a hospital in the episcopal palace, walks, wears a shabby cassock, eats bread and milk, cultivates his own garden. The meeting of the bishop with Jean Valjean and the whole story of the awakening of human feelings in a driven and bestial convict - this is the last "miracle" performed by His Grace Bienvenue - is sustained in the tones of poetic allegory.

Part 2. Moral ideas of V. Hugo, expressed through the image of Jean Valjean

Heroes of Hugo are always people of significant destiny. Such is, first of all, the fate of the protagonist of Les Misérables, the hardened convict Jean Valjean, who before our eyes becomes an excellent, highly moral person thanks to the good deed of Bishop Miriel, who treated him not as a criminal, but as a destitute creature in need of moral support.

After the death of Bishop Miriel, Jean Valjean continues his principles of mercy and non-resistance to evil in the novel. Having inherited the moral ideas of the bishop, Valjean makes them the basis of his whole life. Even once on the barricade, Jean Valjean does not participate in fighting, but only tries to protect the combatants; having received an order to shoot his eternal pursuer Javert, who entered the barricade as a spy, he lets him go free, continuing to believe that only kindness and mercy can influence a person, even such a zealous servant of an unrighteous social order as Javert.

Jean Valjean, returning from hard labor, first appears in the town where the bishop lives. Here the emotional romantic manner of Hugo is striking, saturating the portrait with spectacular hyperbolic images: Jean Valjean's eyes sparkle from under his eyebrows, “like a flame from under a pile of deadwood”; "there was something ominous about this suddenly appearing figure."

Instead of a single external portrait, Hugo finds surprisingly vivid images to convey the state of mind of Jean Valjean, his moral suffering. At hard labor, he was driven to complete despair: “If a grain of millet that fell under a millstone could think, he probably would have had the same thoughts as Jean Valjean.” During nineteen years of hard labor, he stubbornly repeats senseless attempts to escape: "he ran away swiftly, like a wolf running away, who suddenly noticed that his cage was open." Having met with a human attitude from the side of the bishop, he "completely ceased to understand what was happening to him", he was "stunned and, as it were, blinded", "like an owl that suddenly saw the sunrise." One cannot forget Jean Valjean, who stepped with his foot, shod in a shoe lined with iron, on a coin of a small Savoyard, and then wept in despair on a roadside stone; and the terrible night of the “storm under the skull”, during which Jean Valjean turned gray as a harrier, the night before the trial of Chammatier, mistakenly arrested instead of him; and Cosette's wedding night, when Valjean decides to reveal his true identity to Marius; and the lonely dying old man abandoned by his beloved daughter.

In the character of Jean Valjean, a purely romantic transformation of the human soul takes place after a grandiose cleansing storm caused by the generous attitude of the bishop towards him. The irreconcilable contrast between evil and good, darkness and light, which manifested itself in the characters of Hugo's characters in the first period of his work, is now complemented by a new motive: the recognition of the possibility of transforming evil into good. The features of the psychologism of the novel "Les Misérables" consist mainly in the romantically exaggerated image of a cleansing storm that shakes all the foundations and all the usual worldview of a person. Bitter by the injustice he had always experienced among men, accustomed to hatred, Jean Valjean "was vaguely aware that the mercy of the priest was, the strongest offensive, the most formidable attack that he had ever been subjected to ... that now a gigantic and decisive struggle ensued between his wickedness and that man's kindness" 12 . This fierce internal struggle is even more accentuated by means of an expressive and, as it were, animated romantic landscape (“an icy wind”, which informs everything around “some kind of sinister life”; trees shaking their branches, as if “threatening someone”, “whom they are persecuting”, etc.). This struggle is a struggle of sharp romantic contrasts, for it is about the transformation of a “monster” into an “angel”, about the pain that “excessively bright light” causes to the eyes of a person who “came out of darkness”.

As a result of this shock, Jean Valjean becomes a completely different person. “Something more than a transformation took place, a transformation took place,” the author says.

In the third chapter of the seventh book, which is called "The Storm in the Soul", the writer draws the second decisive turning point in the soul of his hero, who has been leading a respectable and virtuous life for many years under the name of M. Madeleine and suddenly finds out that some the unfortunate man is mistaken for the fugitive convict Jean Valjean and must stand trial. Genuine Jean Valjean can remain silent and calmly continue his virtuous life, enjoying the respect and appreciation of others, but then an innocent person will be condemned instead of him to life hard labor. What should a disciple of Bishop Miriel do?

Here, the romantic understanding of the inner world of a person is especially clearly revealed, as a mysterious, majestic, sometimes boundless "chaos of passions." “We have already once looked into the recesses of this conscience; the time has come to look at it again. Let's get down to this not without excitement and not without trepidation, - says the writer. -.. There is a spectacle more majestic than the sea - this is the sky; there is a spectacle more majestic than the sky - this is the depth of the human soul" 13. In this depth, with his characteristic tendency towards romantic hyperbole, Hugo distinguishes between “fights of giants”, like in Homer, and “a host of ghosts”, like in Milton, and “phantasmagoric circles”, like in Dante. “How dark is the infinity that every man carries within himself!” he exclaims.

It is characteristic that the romantic Hugo, in love with movement, dynamics, battle, prefers to consider spiritual life not in its peaceful and everyday course, but in a state of stormy confusion. His Jean Valjean does not so much reason as he experiences painful “convulsions of conscience”, “a storm, a whirlwind is raging in him”, he “questions himself”, he listens to voices emanating “from the darkest recesses of his soul”, he “plunged into this night like in the abyss." This silent inner battle always corresponds to the gloomy, terrible tones of the romantic landscape (“the gloomy silhouettes of trees and hills ... added something dull and ominous to the chaos that reigned in his soul ... The plain was shrouded in darkness. Everything around was frozen with fear. Everything trembles before this mighty breath of the night. And again, at the heart of this spiritual storm lies the struggle between light and darkness, for it seems to Jean Valjean that in the depths of his consciousness “some deity” is fighting with a “giant”. He has to choose between two poles: "stay in heaven and turn into the devil there" or "return to hell" and "become an angel there."

Of course, he chooses the latter. He goes to court to acquit the ill-fated Chammatier and voluntarily puts himself in the hands of the law. And even when this gigantic internal struggle ended in a moral victory for good, that is, when the hero Hugo proved to the judges and the public present that he, and not Chammatier, was the convict Jean Valjean, and it was he, and not Chammatier, who should return to hard labor, the artist still once resorts to the reception of romantic contrast; he makes his hero smile: "... that was a smile of triumph, that was also a smile of despair."

Thus Hugo sings of the heroism of moral greatness. This is the main credo of his novel.

The voice of moral duty to people in Valjean's soul is so powerful that, obeying it, he is ready to sacrifice his personal well-being: he saves an old man crushed by a cart, although he knows that this will arouse Javert's suspicions; puts himself in the hands of justice in order to save a crazy tramp from eternal hard labor; condemns himself to a lonely old age, arranging the happiness of Cosette. He cannot be happy if this happiness rests on the unhappiness of another. All this is not easy for him, not without painful hesitation and internal struggle. However, moral torments, mental struggles are the destiny of spiritually full-fledged people. For some Thenardier, there are no moral problems. But the injustice of society falls on these full-fledged people.

The finale of the novel is the apotheosis of the bishop: his shadow hovers over Jean Valjean, who dies with the words: "There is nothing in the world but the happiness of loving."

Part 3. "Moral" by Javert - the antagonist of Jean Valjean

The antagonist of Jean Valjean, the police inspector Javert, was created by the method of contrast already in relation to everything that is good and truly human, which Bishop Miriel taught the former convict. Javert represents the very inhuman "justice" that Hugo hates and exposes in his novel. For Javert, the main thing is to “represent power” and “serve power”: “Behind him, around him ... stood power, common sense, a court decision, conscience according to the measure of the law, public punishment - all the stars of his sky. He defended order, he extracted thunder and lightning from the law... in the formidable shadow of the work he was doing, the flaming sword of social justice loomed indistinctly” 14 .

Hugo's psychological method is reduced in Javert's portrayal to an exaggeration of two simple feelings, brought almost to the grotesque: "This man consisted of two feelings - respect for authority and hatred for rebellion." His appearance is given by injecting ominous details, which the artist, as if drawing his romantic villain on paper, deliberately makes appear “out of darkness”: “You did not see his forehead, ... eyes, ... chin, ... hands, . .. sticks... But then the need came, and out of all this darkness, as if from an ambush, a narrow and angular forehead, an ominous look, a menacing chin, huge hands and a heavy club suddenly protruded» 15 . Javert's gaze, which "chilled and drilled like a drill," was also terrible.

The artist even calls Javert's joy “satanic”. When Javert learns that M. Madeleine is the former convict Jean Valjean, which he vaguely guessed from the very beginning, his face becomes like "the triumphant face of Satan, who has regained his sinner."

It is not for nothing that Hugo paints Javert with such enlarged and impressive strokes. The drama of the collision of opposing forces depends on this enlargement. Significant and large-scale forces of good (Bishop Miriel, Jean Valjean transformed by him, heroically self-sacrificing mother Fantine) are opposed by an equally large-scale and significant enemy, personifying for Hugo the unrighteous state law (as opposed to the righteous law of the human heart).

Despite the fact that Javert, as befits a detective according to literary tradition, is endowed with an extraordinary memory, a special police instinct, strong, courageous and dexterous; that he arranges ambushes, unexpectedly grows up in the way of criminals and recognizes them under make-up and masks, etc. - despite all this, Javert almost completely lives in the "upper", generalized plan of the novel. He is subject to the abstract symbolism of duty, he, in fact, has no individuality. This abstraction is inevitable, since the very idea of the image of the ideal bearer of the unjust law was paradoxical and had no basis in life. With Javert, literature was enriched with a new original type-symbol, but not with a new human character.

The whole story of Jean Valjean, which is at the center of the novel Les Misérables, is built on dramatic clashes and sharp turns in the fate of the hero: Jean Valjean, who breaks the glass of a bakery to take bread for his sister's hungry children, and is sentenced to hard labor for this; Jean Valjean, returning from hard labor and driven from everywhere, even from the dog's kennel; Jean Valjean in the bishop's house, from whom he tried to steal silver knives and forks and received them as a gift along with silver candlesticks; Jean Valjean, who has become an influential mayor of the city, and the dying Fantine, who begs to save her child; Jean Valjean in a collision with the "watchful eye" of justice - Javert; Jean Valjean in the "case" of Chanmatier, which returns him to the position of a persecuted convict; the feat of Jean Valjean, rescuing a sailor from a warship; "Orion", and his escape from hard labor in order to fulfill the promise made to Fantine; Jean Valjean with little Cosette in her arms, pursued by Javert and his police thugs through the dark streets and nooks and crannies of Paris, and an unexpected rescue in a convent on Picpus Street; then, a few years later, Jean Valjean in the thieves' den of Thenardier, alone against nine scoundrels, bound by them and yet able to free himself by cutting the ropes with the help of an old convict's coin; finally, Jean Valjean at the barricade, where he does not kill anyone, but saves two people from death: Marius and his pursuer Javert, etc.

Many of these dramatic cataclysms in the fate of Jean Valjean form a kind of "detective" part of Les Misérables. It is no coincidence that the author points out that feature in the character of his hero that he “always had ... two bags: one of them contained the thoughts of a saint, the other - the dangerous talents of a convict. He used one or the other, depending on the circumstances. When a writer reveals the "thoughts of a saint" - his narrative acquires a moral and instructive character; when the “talents of a convict” come to the fore, “Les Misérables” becomes a fascinating adventure novel in which episodes of spiritual searches, persecution and hellish machinations alternate with scenes of heroic deeds and miraculous rescues.

The rapid and spasmodic development of a romantic character, with its sharp turns and the ability to suddenly transform under the influence of goodness, is characteristic not only of Jean Valjean, but even of the antipode - Javert. The kindness shown towards him by Valjean, who released him into the wild instead of shooting him at the barricade, where he was present as a spy for the government, for the first time in his life, brought "an imprint of spiritual anxiety" into Javert's straightforward mind. This kind of chain reaction (Bishop Miriel - Jean Valjean - Javert) is extremely important for the concept of the novel. The author deliberately leads the faithful guardian of "legality" Javert, who is not accustomed to reasoning, to the thought that is terrible for him that the convict Jean Valjean "turned out to be stronger than all public order." He even has to admit the "moral nobility of the outcast", which was "unbearable" for him.

So Javert loses ground under his feet. In him, as once in Jean Valjean, a decisive moral upheaval takes place. For up to now his ideal had been to be impeccable in his service to the law. However, goodness, according to Hugo, is above the law established by the society of owners. Therefore, it pushes Javert to a terrible discovery for him that “not everything is said in the code of laws”, that “the social system is not perfect”, that “the law can be deceived”, “the tribunal can make mistakes”, etc. Everything that this person believed it happened." This internal catastrophe - the retreat of the forces of evil before good, which Jean Valjean carries in himself, leads Javert to suicide.

Conclusion

The plot of "Les Misérables" is built mainly on the chain of events and circumstances "unusual" and completely exceptional. The “fascination” of this plot can, on a purely formal basis, be reduced to the fascination of an adventure novel: this includes all the vicissitudes of the fate of a convict who becomes rich, then again finds himself among the “outcasts”, then regains wealth, the struggle of Jean Valjean with the police bloodhound Javert, who pursues him throughout his life, that is, throughout the entire novel. The actions, experiences, passions of the characters are somewhat exaggerated: such are the boundless kindness of Bishop Miriel, and the endless readiness of Jean Valjean for self-sacrifice, when the exaggeration already borders on the fantastic (scene in the cemetery), and his forgiveness. However, Hugo, in contrast to the authors of novels of the feuilleton genre, in addition to a fundamentally different approach to the topic than theirs, in addition to descriptions of a broad social and philosophical nature, moreover, organically included in the general fabric of the novel, in addition to the wide social background against which the events that make up the plot unfold , - it is essential that the life and passions of the heroes, for all their improbability, turn out to be ultimately artistically justified and truthful. Correlated with its socio-historical background, the history of the struggle between Jean Valjean and Javert takes on the character of a socio-symbolic, moral choice. The righteousness of good is embodied in the holiness of Jean Valjean, in the malice of Javert - all the absolute cruelty of evil. Both Jean Valjean and Javert are unusual characters, but history and politics are always present in the novel, which do not allow the reader to perceive the conflict between the characters as abstract, metaphysical. The image of Jean Valjean, with all his spiritual movements, with all his actions, is deeply poetic, dedicated to high ideals. That is why the reader accepts the entire exclusivity of this image as the greatest truth.

In the novel, exceptional human natures appear before us, some are higher than human beings in their mercy or love, others are lower in their cruelty and baseness. But in art, freaks live long lives if they are beautiful freaks. Hugo had a penchant for the exceptional, the theatrical, the gigantic. This would not be enough to create a masterpiece. However, his exaggerations are justified, since the characters are endowed with noble and genuine feelings. Hugo genuinely admired Miriel, he genuinely loved Jean Valjean. He was horrified, but quite sincerely respected Javert. The sincerity of the author, the scale of the images - an excellent combination for romantic art. There was enough vital truth in Les Misérables to give the novel the necessary credibility.

Love for one's neighbor and self-denial are combined in the hero Hugo with thoughts about a moral ideal. When Valjean saves Javert, behind this act Hugo puts the possibility of correcting the inveterate villain by influencing his consciousness with the idea of "absolute good" - in other words, he preaches here the Christian idea of non-resistance to evil, retribution of good for evil. Hugo creates a convincing image of a policeman with all his disgusting habits, endows him with the truthful features of a careerist, draws a cruel man who does not think about whether he is acting rightly or unfairly. Javert acts mechanically, the idea of goodness is alien to him, he will always embody only service to the legal system of the state, he is one of those people about whom one can say: “the grave will correct the humpbacked one,” and yet in Hugo he is instantly reborn under the influence of Jean’s good deed Valjean, just as the latter was suddenly reborn under the influence of the virtuous Miriel. This could happen only because the behavior and fate of Javert for Hugo are determined not by his social function, but by the power of some abstract “evil” that originally owns his spiritual world.

In an effort to prove at all costs that conscience and justice should triumph in human society, the writer, following a pre-planned scheme, places Valjean on the barricades. In the plot, the appearance of Valjean on the barricade turns out to be necessary in order to show the hero's path from absolute vice to absolute virtue. The behavior of Jean Valjean on the barricade is least of all the behavior of a revolutionary. But Hugo wanted to show that Valjean, fighting against Javert and Thenardier, could follow two "paths of holiness": the path of Miriel, adhering to the idea of forgiveness, and the path of Enjolras, who fought with revolutionary methods against his enemies. By releasing Javert to freedom, paying him good for evil, Valjean at the end of his trials becomes not Enjolras, but Miriel. But this act is not at all a matter of Valjean's "personal conscience", it also acquires an absolute moral value, since it is thanks to him that Javert is both morally and physically destroyed.

If only these sides prevailed in the image of Jean Valjean, then such a hero would leave the reader completely indifferent. But in the image of Valjean, the far-fetched moral scheme constantly struggles with the truth of life, and often the truth of life takes over. The nobility, honesty, generosity of Valjean are perceived as his natural, organically inherent qualities, for Jean Valjean, with all his individual exclusivity, is conceived and described as collective image in which the best moral qualities are embodied.

Much in the construction of the plot, in the depiction of the characters, makes Les Misérables related to the feuilleton novel - with the Parisian Secrets by E. Xu, with the Count of Monte Cristo by A. Dumas. But the resemblance is completely superficial. Hugo not only subordinated all the elements of the adventure plot to a lofty and, in essence, realistically meaningful moral problem, which in itself does not allow Les Misérables to be put on a par with The Count of Monte Cristo, leaves other feuilleton novels behind.

Hugo's aesthetics has its own moral laws. It is important for him to approve certain ideas and moral values that people should follow. The category of due and ideal is an extremely important moment of romantic aesthetics, which V. Hugo follows. At the same time, for all its idealistic essence, this aesthetic also has a real background. The Russian censor Skuratov was not far from the truth when, justifying the prohibition of the publication of the novel Les Miserables in Russia, he wrote the following report to his superiors in 1866: “As in all socialist writings, this book is undoubtedly dominated by an immoral tendency to commit all violations and crimes against the social order established by law, not from the corrupted and corrupted will of the criminal, but from the bad structure of society and the inhuman cruelty of strong and powerful persons ... "17

An example of their romantic heroes devoted to a high moral duty, the author teaches, prompts, and requires people to follow high moral principles, without which real life is unthinkable. The heroes of Hugo excite readers, make them experience, think, resent or dream with them; behind today's - bad and imperfect - the writer sees distant bright horizons. This is the main pathos of this novel.

Here is how A. N. Tolstoy wrote about the beneficial moral impact of Hugo's novels in the article "The Great Romantic", written on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Hugo's death:

“With a wave of the brush ... he painted portraits of giants. He filled my boyish heart with an ardent and hazy humanism. From every belfry the face of Quasimodo looked at me, every vagabond beggar presented himself as Jean Valjean.

Justice, Mercy, Kindness, Love suddenly became real images from textbook concepts... To a boyish heart they seemed to be living titans, and the heart learned to cry, be indignant and rejoice to the extent of great feelings.

Hugo told me... about the life of mankind, he tried to outline it historically, philosophically, scientifically. The mighty continents of his novels, where fantasy made you turn the pages furiously, were washed by the fertile streams of lyrics. His humanistic romanticism won bloodless victories over miserable reality... He sounded the alarm bell; “Wake up, man is in poverty, the people are crushed by injustice”... It was good and grandiose to wake up humanity” 18 .

List of used literature

Brahman S. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. M, 1968

Volison I. Ya. Victor Hugo - childhood singer. Kharkov, 1970

Hugo W. complete collection works, M, 1951

Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999

Evnina E. M. Victor Hugo, M.: Nauka, 1976

Meshkova I. V. The work of Victor Hugo. Saratov, 1971

Morua A. Olympia, or the life of Victor Hugo. M, 1998

Muravieva N. Hugo M, 1961

Safronova N. N. Victor Hugo. M, 1989

Tolstoy L. N. Complete works, vol. 30, M, 1982

Treskunov M. Victor Hugo. Essay on creativity. M, 1969

1 Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p.83

2 Tolstoy L. N. Complete works, vol. 30, M, 1982, p. 7.

3 Brahman S. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. M, 1968, p. 29

4 Hugo V. Complete Works, vol. 9, 1951, p. 63

5 Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p. 201

6 Brahman S. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. M, 1968, p. 38

7 Morois A. Olympia, or the life of Victor Hugo. M, 1998, p. 511

8 Evnina E. M. Victor Hugo, M.: Nauka, 1976, p. 139

9 Brahman S. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. M, 1968, p. 61

10 Hugo V. Complete Works, vol. 11, 1951, p. 252

11 Hugo V. Complete Works, vol. 8, 1951, p. 102

12 Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p. 135

13Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p. 257

14 Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p. 336

15 Hugo V. Novels. M, 1999, p. 203

16 Morua A. Olympia, or the life of Victor Hugo. M, 1998, p. 516.

17 "French Writers in the Assessments of Tsarist Censorship" - "Literary Heritage", vol. 33-34. M., 1939, p. 790.

18 Tolstoy A. N. Collected works in 10 volumes. T. 10. M., 1961, p. 281-283

Romantic and Realistic Tendencies in Hugo's Les Misérables

The concept of the novel "Les Misérables" corresponds to the idea of V. Hugo

about human life as a continuous change of light and darkness. The task of the novel "Les Misérables" is teaching, and for the writer they are more important than realistic

analysis, because Hugo himself says at the end of the book that she has much more

important purpose than displaying real life. Understanding the world as permanent

movement from evil to good, Hugo strives to demonstrate this movement,

Emphasizing (often even contrary to the logic of real events) the obligatory victory of the good and spiritual principles over the forces of evil. Hugo saw his task in reviving the moral ideals lost by society. This makes Hugo's novel not so much accusatory as preaching - missionary. Les Misérables is not just another version of a familiar theme, and the content of the book is not limited to the plot and that there is something more in it that lifts it high above the fascinating, but, in essence, rather flat-minded feuilleton novels. Indeed, Hugo only started from the literary tradition - he set himself a task of a completely different scale; specific questions of the life of society, living images of people, an exciting plot - only "one side of the work; behind all this is a grandiose panorama of the era, and behind it there is a question about the fate of the people, humanity, moral and philosophical problems, general questions of being. The world seemed to Victor Hugo the arena of a fierce struggle two eternal principles - good and evil, light and darkness, flesh and spirit. He sees this struggle everywhere: in nature, in society and in man himself. Its outcome is predetermined by the good will of providence, to which everything in the universe is subject, from the cycle of luminaries to the smallest movements of the human soul: evil is doomed, good will triumph. Morally, the world is split, but at the same time it is one, for the innermost essence of being is in progress. The life of mankind, like the life of the universe, is an irresistible upward movement, from evil to good , from darkness to light, from an ugly past to a beautiful future.The world of Les Misérables is warmed by this biased look of the author, this faith the eternal victory of good; Hugo's ideas live not only in the people he depicts, but also in living and dead nature, which he paints with the same love, using the same images, seeing in it the same moral struggle. The streets of old Paris, its slums, its barricades come to life under Hugo's pen. Long descriptions, “digressions”, which occupy almost half of the entire text of Les Misérables, are therefore not something alien to the plot, but merge with it into one consonance, forming a panorama of life full of movement, diversity and drama. As is known in Les Misérables, real facts form the indisputable basis of the work. Monsignor Miolis, bred under the name of Miriel, really existed, and what is said about him in the novel was in reality. Hugo also took advantage of the experience of his personal life. In "Les Misérables" appear the Abbé Rohan, the publisher Rayol, Mother Sage, the garden of the convent of the feuilletines, the young Victor Hugo - under the name of Marius, and General Hugo - under the name of Pontmercy. Hugo comments in detail on the actions of the characters; he almost never analyzes the state of mind of the hero, as a realist writer would do, he simply illustrates this state with a stream of metaphors, sometimes deployed for a whole chapter, the author intervenes in the action, turns it contrary to logic, constructs artificial positions. He pushes and separates the heroes under the most extraordinary circumstances, makes them silent when their happiness depends on one word, and speaks when logic requires silence; he attributes his thoughts to them, forces them to express themselves in their own language, and it is in their mouths and their actions that he puts the main moral ideas of the novel. The plot of "Les Misérables" is built mainly on the chain of events and circumstances "unusual" and completely exceptional. The “fascination” of this plot can, on a purely formal basis, be reduced to the fascination of an adventure novel. In addition to descriptions of a broad social and philosophical character, moreover, organically included in the general fabric of the novel, in addition to the broad social background against which the events that make up the plot unfold, it is essential that the lives of the characters, for all their improbability, turn out to be ultimately artistically justified and truthful. In the novel, exceptional human natures appear before us, some are higher than human beings in their mercy or love, others are lower in their cruelty and baseness. But in art, freaks live long lives if they are beautiful freaks. Hugo had a penchant for the exceptional, the theatrical, the gigantic. This would not be enough to create a masterpiece. However, his exaggerations are justified, since the characters are endowed with noble and genuine feelings. Love for one's neighbor and self-denial are combined in the hero Hugo with thoughts about a moral ideal.

Les Misérables. (Content). In 1815, Charles-Francois Miriel, nicknamed Bienvenue for his good deeds, was the bishop of the city of Digne. This unusual person in his youth he had many love affairs and led a secular life - but the Revolution turned everything around. Mr. Miriel left for Italy, from where he returned as a priest. At the whim of Napoleon, the old parish priest occupies the bishop's throne. He begins his pastoral activity by giving up the beautiful building of the episcopal palace to the local hospital, and he himself moves to a cramped little house. He distributes his considerable salary entirely to the poor. Both the rich and the poor knock at the bishop's door: some come for alms, others bring it. This holy man enjoys universal respect - he is granted to heal and forgive.

In the first days of October 1815, a dusty traveler enters Digne - a stocky, dense man in the prime of life. His beggarly clothes and sullen weather-beaten face make a repulsive impression. First of all, he goes to the city hall, and then tries to get somewhere for the night. But he is driven from everywhere, although he is ready to pay with a full-fledged coin. This man's name is Jean Valjean. He spent nineteen years in hard labor because he once stole a loaf of bread for the seven hungry children of his widowed sister. Embittered, he turned into a wild hunted beast - with his "yellow" passport, there is no place for him in this world. Finally, a woman, taking pity on him, advises him to go to the bishop. After listening to the gloomy confession of a convict, Monseigneur Bienvenue orders to feed him in the guest room. In the middle of the night, Jean Valjean wakes up: he is haunted by six silver cutlery - the only wealth of the bishop, kept in the master bedroom. Valjean tiptoes over to the bishop's bed, breaks open the silver locker and wants to smash the good shepherd's head with a massive candlestick, but some incomprehensible force holds him back. And he flees through the window.

In the morning, the gendarmes bring the fugitive to the bishop - this suspicious person was detained with clearly stolen silver. Monseigneur can send Valjean to hard labor for life. Instead, Mr. Miriel brings out two silver candlesticks, which yesterday's guest allegedly forgot. The last parting word of the bishop is to use the gift to become an honest person. The shocked convict hurriedly leaves the city. In his hardened soul, a complex painful work is going on. At sunset, he automatically takes away a coin of forty sous from a boy he meets. Only when the baby runs away with a bitter cry does Valjean realize the meaning of his act: he sinks heavily to the ground and cries bitterly - for the first time in nineteen years.

In 1818, the town of Montreil flourished, and it owes this to one person: three years ago, an unknown person settled here, who managed to improve the traditional local craft - the manufacture of artificial jet. Uncle Madeleine not only became rich himself, but also helped many others to make a fortune. Until recently, unemployment was rampant in the city - now everyone has forgotten about the need. Uncle Madeleine was unusually modest - neither the deputy chair nor the Order of the Legion of Honor attracted him at all. But in 1820 he had to become mayor: a simple old woman shamed him, saying that it was a shame to back down if there was an opportunity to do a good deed. And Uncle Madeleine turned into Mister Madeleine. Everyone was in awe of him, and only the police agent Javert looked at him with extreme suspicion. In the soul of this man there was only room for two feelings, taken to extremes - respect for authority and hatred for rebellion. A judge in his eyes could never make a mistake, and a criminal could never correct himself. He himself was blameless to the point of disgust. Surveillance was the meaning of his life.

One day, Javert repentantly informs the mayor that he must go to the neighboring city of Arras - the former convict Jean Valjean, who robbed the boy immediately after his release, will be tried there. Javert had previously thought that Jean Valjean was hiding under the guise of Monsieur Madeleine - but that was a mistake. After releasing Javert, the mayor falls into deep thought, and then leaves the city. At the trial in Arras, the defendant stubbornly refuses to recognize himself as Jean Valjean and claims that his name is Uncle Chanmatier and there is no fault for him. The judge is preparing to pronounce a guilty verdict, but then he gets up Unknown person and announces that he is Jean Valjean, and the defendant must be released. Word quickly spreads that the venerable mayor, Monsieur Madeleine, has turned out to be an escaped convict. Javert triumphs - he deftly arranged the snares for the criminal.

The jury decided to exile Valjean to the galleys in Toulon for life. Once on the Orion ship, he saves the life of a sailor who has fallen off the yard, and then throws himself into the sea from a dizzying height. The Toulon newspapers report that the convict Jean Valjean has drowned. However, after some time, he is announced in the town of Montfermeil. A vow brings him here. During his time as mayor, he was excessively strict with a woman who gave birth to an illegitimate child, and repented, remembering the merciful Bishop Miriel. Before her death, Fantine asks him to take care of her girl Cosette, whom she had to give to the innkeepers Thenardier. The Thénardiers embodied cunning and malice, combined in marriage. Each of them tortured the girl in his own way: she was beaten and forced to work half to death - and the wife was to blame for this; in winter she went barefoot and in rags - the reason for this was her husband. Taking Cosette, Jean Valjean settles on the most remote outskirts of Paris. He taught the little girl to read and write and did not stop her from playing as much as she could - she became the meaning of the life of a former convict who kept the money earned in the production of jet. But Inspector Javert haunts him here too. He arranges a night raid: Jean Valjean is saved by a miracle, imperceptibly jumping over a blank wall into the garden - it turned out to be a convent. Cosette is taken to a monastery boarding school, and her adoptive father becomes a gardener's assistant.

The respectable bourgeois Mr. Gillenormand lives with his grandson, who bears a different surname - the boy's name is Marius Pontmercy. Marius's mother died, and he never saw his father: Mr. Gillenormand called his son-in-law "the Loire robber", since the imperial troops were taken to the Loire to disband. Georges Pontmercy reached the rank of colonel and became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He almost died at the Battle of Waterloo - he was carried out from the battlefield by a marauder who was picking out the pockets of the wounded and killed. Marius learns all this from the dying message of his father, who turns for him into a titanic figure. The former royalist becomes an ardent admirer of the emperor and begins to almost hate his grandfather. Marius leaves home with a scandal - he has to live in extreme poverty, almost in poverty, but he feels free and independent. During daily walks in the Luxembourg Gardens, the young man notices a handsome old man, who is always accompanied by a girl of about fifteen. Marius passionately falls in love with a stranger, but natural shyness prevents him from getting to know her. The old man, noticing Marius's close attention to his companion, moves out of the apartment and ceases to appear in the garden. unfortunate young man it seems that he has lost his beloved forever. But one day he hears a familiar voice behind the wall - where the large family of Jondrets lives. Looking through the gap, he sees an old man from the Luxembourg Gardens - he promises to bring money in the evening. Obviously, Jondrette has the ability to blackmail him: an interested Marius overhears how the villain conspires with members of the Cock Hour gang - they want to set up a trap for the old man to take everything from him. Marius notifies the police. Inspector Javert thanks him for his help and hands him pistols just in case. Before the eyes of the young man, a terrible scene is played out - the innkeeper Thenardier, who took refuge under the name of Jondrette, tracked down Jean Valjean. Marius is ready to intervene, but then the policemen, led by Javert, burst into the room. While the inspector deals with the bandits, Jean Valjean jumps out the window - only then Javert realizes that he has missed a much larger game.

In 1832, Paris was in turmoil. Friends of Marius rave about revolutionary ideas, but the young man is occupied with something else - he continues to stubbornly search for the girl from the Luxembourg Gardens. Finally, happiness smiled at him. With the help of one of Thenardier's daughters, the young man finds Cosette and confesses his love for her. It turned out that Cosette had also been in love with Marius for a long time. Jean Valjean suspects nothing. Most of all, the former convict is concerned that Thenardier is clearly watching their quarter. Coming June 4th. An uprising breaks out in the city - barricades are being built everywhere. Marius cannot leave his comrades. Alarmed, Cosette wants to send him a message, and Jean Valjean finally opens his eyes: his baby has grown up and found love. Despair and jealousy strangle the old convict, and he goes to the barricade, which is defended by young republicans and Marius. Javert in disguise falls into their hands - the detective is seized, and Jean Valjean again meets his sworn enemy. He has every opportunity to deal with the man who caused him so much harm, but the noble convict prefers to release the policeman. Meanwhile, government troops are advancing: the defenders of the barricade are dying one after another - among them is the glorious little boy Gavroche, a true Parisian tomboy. Marius's collarbone was shattered by a rifle shot - he finds himself in the complete power of Jean Valjean.

The old convict carries Marius from the battlefield on his shoulders. Punishers are prowling everywhere, and Valjean descends underground - into terrible sewers. After much ordeal, he gets to the surface only to find himself face to face with Javert. The detective allows Valjean to take Marius to his grandfather and stop by to say goodbye to Cosette - this is not at all like the ruthless Javert. Great was Valjean's astonishment when he realized that the policeman had let him go. Meanwhile, for Javert himself, the most tragic moment in his life comes: for the first time he broke the law and set the criminal free! Unable to resolve the contradiction between duty and compassion, Javert freezes on the bridge - and then there is a dull splash.

Marius has been between life and death for a long time. In the end, youth wins. The young man finally meets Cosette and their love blossoms. They receive the blessing of Jean Valjean and M. Gillenormand, who, in joy, completely forgave his grandson. On February 16, 1833, the wedding took place. Valjean confesses to Marius that he is an escaped convict. Young Pontmercy is horrified. Nothing should overshadow Cosette's happiness, so the criminal should gradually disappear from her life - after all, he is just a foster father. At first, Cosette is somewhat surprised, and then gets used to the increasingly infrequent visits of her former patron. Soon the old man stopped coming at all, and the girl forgot about him. And Jean Valjean began to wither and fade away: the porter invited a doctor to him, but he only shrugged his hands - this man, apparently, had lost his most precious creature, and no medicine would help here. Marius, on the other hand, believes that the convict deserves such an attitude - undoubtedly, it was he who robbed Mr. Madeleine and killed the defenseless Javert, who saved him from the bandits. And then the greedy Thenardier reveals all the secrets: Jean Valjean is neither a thief nor a murderer. Moreover: it was he who carried Marius from the barricade. The young man generously pays the vile innkeeper - and not only for the truth about Valjean. Once upon a time, a scoundrel did a good deed, rummaging through the pockets of the wounded and killed - the name of the man he saved was Georges Pontmercy. Marius and Cosette go to Jean Valjean to beg for forgiveness. The old convict dies happy - his beloved children took his last breath. A young couple commissions a touching epitaph for the sufferer's grave.

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