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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper discusses the idea of justice as portrayed by Victor Hugo in "Les Miserables." Bibliography lists 1 source.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVHugoLM.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
film, television and a hugely successful stage production. This paper considers the question "Why did Hugo believe that the criminal justice system in France was unjust, particularly to those without
social or political power?" Discussion If Victor Hugo found the criminal system unjust, it was because he saw examples of it all around him, and he based his novel on
those injustices. For instance, when we first meet the protagonist, Jean Valjean, we learn that he is illiterate but a hard worker, who is the sole support of his widowed
sister and her seven children (Hugo). The winter is hard and he is a tree-pruner; he has no work and is reduced to stealing a loaf of bread to feed
the family (Hugo). Unfortunately he is caught and sentenced: Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty. The terms of the Code were explicit. There occur formidable hours in our civilization; there
are moments when the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute is that in which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment of a sentient being! Jean
Valjean was condemned to five years in the galleys (Hugo). Lets consider the sentence here. The man stole a loaf of bread, something worth very little. He did it
because he had to feed starving children; despite this, he was given a five-year sentence. Two things immediately spring to mind: first, the sentence is far out of proportion to
the magnitude of the crime; second, how will the family survive with him in jail for five years? The answer to the second is, they probably will not, and no
one in the criminal justice system appears to care about this. We can clearly see what Hugo thinks of this in his characterization of the sentence as a "shipwreck"-its
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