Throughout the entirety of Les Misérables Victor Hugo tells us about the

political unrest in France, as well as the roles of women and children. These things

were addressed thoroughly throughout all of the story, by both the struggle of the

people in the barricades, as well as both Eponine and Gavroche shattering the ideas

of their jobs being to learn and take care of kids.

In the case of addressing the political unrest and uncertainty of France look

no further than the republicans of the barricades. Their fruitless blunder was all in

the name of political freedom, they wanted to be a republic, not a monarchy where

the people had no say, so when their voice, General Lemarque, dies they need to

fight to get a new voice of the people, and why not have it be the actual people.

The idea of a republic was not at all new to France, and was seen to work well in

other countries, so they wanted to get everyone’s voices heard.

As for the roles of women and children, look no further than Eponine and

Gavroche, one is a woman outside of her boxed in gender role and the other a

young boy looking to fight rather than learn. With Eponine not focusing upon

learning to raise a child and dressing in boys clothing, and actually fighting at the

barricades, she goes outside of her gender role. For Gavroche he is supposed to be

learining to continue France down a good path and have a good life, and it is clear
that his family has money as he is part of the club at the ABC café, which was said

by Hugo to be extremely expensive and fairly exclusive to the richer of Paris. This

is very outside of what would have been expected from Gavroche at his age and

would be seen as down-right improper.

Throughout all of Les Misérables Victor Hugo attempts to break the

boundaries and make us see the viewpoints of every single character that we need

to, this allows us to see their aspirations and wants. These doors into their souls

allow us to see the issues that Hugo was trying to make us see from the time

period, and these are not any more clear than when he writes about the political

disruption and the roles of women and children being challenged.