Similarites Between "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame" and "Les Miserables"

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Victor Hugo uses themes that reoccur in both The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. He clearly states the plights of the century and the great eternal questions that humans have the desire to know but do not have the courage to ask. In Hugo’s novels, modern readers will be enthralled with the larger than life characters and their incessant battle with evil. The two novels have more similarities than differences. They include paradox and irony, a romantic tone, obsession and betrayal as themes, and last they both involve a great deal of imagery and emphasis on characterization and setting.

Underneath the daring love that is unfolding between Quasimodo and Esmeralda, the historical tragedies of 1492 are being unwound. Hugo is illuminating the political struggles of the nineteenth century. The novel is spiritual, not only in its setting but also in the characters. Upon developing the characters, Hugo uses paradox to induce their unfortunate flaws. For example, Quasimodo. He represents the grotesque and the beautiful. He is shunned from society and must find comfort not from the insignificant material world but from deep within himself. Claude Frolllo displays evil propensities regardless of the fact that he is a priest and is supposed to be devout to God. The priest has lost his sacred faith in the pathway towards the evil that Hugo expected of humanity. Esmeralda is the beautiful and magical that good and evil are drawn to. She is pure innocence, and searches for a sort of “spiritual love” in the wrong places. Each and every one of the characters show us just how far we will go to “win”, also displaying the similarities the beautiful and ugly hold.

In Les Miserables, Hugo writes of the three problems of the age, the dil...

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...renaissance architecture was viewed as grotesque and vulgar were now revered for their preservation.

Hugo uses the time period as an image in both novels. “The French revolution was turmoil in political, economic, and social traditions. It was the age that observed the first conversions from the industrial revolution. The French revolution brought on the core of romanticism, which is a key point in both novels.

Today, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a standard classic that has been adapted for cinema and television. The character of Quasimodo has become a classic horror figure, although the real horror figure is Frollo.

Les Miserables, today is looked upon as one of the greatest poems ever accomplished. The characters all are given a spot in the “hall of fame” of great literary works. Les Miserables has been modified for cinema, television, and musical stage.

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