"The Mysteries of Paris"

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews Sue's work, which focuses heavily on the plight of the poor and the kinds of trials and tribulations that they were forced to undergo as a result of their socioeconomic status in 19th century Paris. It discusses how, in constructing his material, Sue is primarily concerned with expressing a political and social truth.

From the Paper:

"Certainly, one of the most important elements of the way that we as readers must even interact with the novels of Eugene Sue (and his Mysteries of Paris as it will be considered in the specific analysis to follow) is his indebtedness to the tradition of romanticism, which, at the time that he composed Mysteries of Paris, as well as when he engaged in the composition of many of his other works, was the dominant and most profoundly revolutionary intellectual and aesthetic trend sweeping through Europe at the time. Indeed, we can see the degree of influence and sway that Romanticism had over Sue in the very melodramatic and emotional content of his novels, whose characters tend to swing between enormous highs and lows as regards the way that they interact with fate and fortune. Indeed, this Romantic bias is not simply a stylistic issue that effects certainly elements of the plot and the embellishments of the prose; rather, Eugene Sue's Romantic bias had a profound effect on the very choice of subject matter that he chose to engage in the formulation of his novels as well as the light and manner in which those subjects were thereafter portrayed."

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