Women in "Les Miserables"

Paper Summary:

This paper describes how Victor Hugo, in his novel "Les Miserables", depicts women as flat, simple characters, especially compared to their male counterparts (with the exception of Eponine.) It shows how various women throughout the book are used as examples to show their limited personalities or simplicity, with Eponine at the end to demonstrate how she is different.

From the Paper:

"Rich, developed, and well-rounded characters are hard to find in Les Miserables. In fact, nearly all of the people in the story represent single and straightforward qualities, traits or ideas: Jean Valjean's decency, Javert's dedication (and obsession) to law and order, the string of men in the ABC woven from "joy" or "sarcasm" or "philosophy", the bandits in the Patron-Minette, etcetera. Hugo's technique with cookie-cutter individuals is to smear them across a "massive canvas," creating books that Henry James rightfully named "loose, baggy monsters." The point is that in sprawling out his ideas in such huge pieces, Hugo flattens men and smothers women, causing them to lose the slice of life that makes fiction real. He does more justice to the men than the women, however. Marius' and Valjean's crises of conscience at least show some hint of reality; his women are simple, follow male lead, and never climb out of their "intellectual ruts". The only person who strays from one line of thinking is Eponine, and that's what makes her the deepest and most interesting of the otherwise bland 19th century French women."

More papers on Women in "Les Miserables":

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• Analytical Essay # 54625 : "Social Justice in "Les Miserables"

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