book review

Brief analysis about the art style of LES MISERABLE  LES MISERABLE , Written by Victor Hugo, is one of the most shining pieces in the world’s literature. It has significant value in the social constructing that time and in the literary art. This essay is focusing on the next part: It’s art style.  Through it is art style that we issue, taking a glance at its social background and Hugo’s belief is surely necessary. The story is happening in the first half of the 19th century, when France is in a hard condition: wars exhausted the country and the revolution failed. Feudality returned and then gives heavier pressure on the people. Law is cruel. Dignitaries go unreasonable. People suffer. They suffer from crime, from law’s pressure and from poverty. And in Hugo’s opinion, it is poverty that most directly corrupts the mass at the bottom of the society. It can make women become bitches and men become criminals. Aiming at dispelling the poverty, he took words as weapons to criticize the social construction, to make the sound of people become louder. Now we will look through its art style from 3 parts: the figures, typical skills and the love’s descriptions . 1.Figures: Differing from many other novels, whose typical figures’ characters are often bounded on a single square, the major figures in LES MISERABLE often have multi-dimension characters. Their characters are twisting. The figures’ mind is conflicting. They go saintly from evil, go harmony from mad, or go corrupted from pure, go conflicting in mind and puzzling in pain from iron belief. By those wonderful changes, the power of human’s kindness or society’s darkness is fully shown. Just take Jean Valjean as an example. After 19 years’ suffer from the Toulon prison, his heart is filled with the evil of hatred. When he was cold and hungry and tired, bishop Myriel saved him and well treated him. But he was still hating. He stole Myriel’s silver items, then was caught by the police. However, when Jean Valjean are expecting punishment ,Myriel said to the police that, the silver items is from his giving, and Jean, his friend , forgot to take two silver candlesticks. This made Jean’s heart conflict. After conflicting and self-judging for a long time, Jean is determined to be a good man. He buried his history, hid his identity, then living a life of helping people and escaping from catching. Beside Jean, Javert is another kind of example. He was born in the prison, and before the very moment he suicides, he holds an iron and steel belief: the law is always perfect, and the aristocracies are always right. He’s strict, faithful and hard-working. He is feudality’s dog. After caught by the rebelling people, and meeting Jean Valjean who he spent years to catch, he expects only death. However ,out of his imagine, Jean let him go, and even tell him his address to let him catch. This strikes Javert. He lost himself, and finally chose to suicide. There are still many other changes, such as the change in Fantin by pressure and poverty, change in Cosette while maturing and so on. Those changes ,not only make the figures more tridimensional, more real, but also show the gigantic and striking power of kindness or evil. 2.Typical skill :A very general and typical skill in this novel is “surprise in realizing”, which always makes the readers tap the desk and yell: that’s him! That’s it! For example ,Hugo tells a lot about the Mayor Madeleine, a stranger, as if he is a totally new figure. In the meantime, small clues are giving gradually ,making readers feel familiar,and then guess: he is Jean Valjean. Finally ,bingo. Another example. When Marius’ neighbor, a poor family which has two daughters and a street boy who is almost abandoned by itself, is accepting the help from a rich and old man, most readers may won’t guess that the family is just the Thenardiers. But as the old rich man left, the reaction of the family ,will soon remind the readers: That’s them. At this time,there is nothing but to say: ” Jesus! Christ! Yeah! They have two daughters, one son who is not be taken care of, and their debt could just make them poor! How nature! How logical! I should know that earlier!” This kind of arrangement takes place in the novel for times, which make this skill become a distinctive feature of the book. 3.Love’s descriptions: There are many emotional descriptions in the novel, which shows the great power of human’s original emotion: love .There are all kinds of love ,mother’s love to his daughter, daughter’s love to her father; the most original and pure ,the very first feeling of love between boys and girls; the knowledgeable youth’s love to their motherland and people……the novel pay a lot of words to describe those loves .When Fantin are in illusion about Cosette, when the youth sing songs to the people, the reader can feel the emotion of the figures, and get moved. This not only make the story attractive,but also make it valuable and powerful.And that’s the art.