Capitalizing on

Listen to the following song and try to explain afterwards the message
behind.
Tell what you already know about “Les Miserables”
Tell what you want to know about “Les Miserables”
 AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND: VICTOR HUGO

Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May

1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist
of the Romantic movement. During a literary
career that spanned more than sixty years, he
wrote abundantly in an exceptional variety of
genres: lyrics, satires, epics, philosophical
poems, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays,
political speeches, funeral orations, diaries,
letters public and private, and dramas in verse
and prose.
AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND: VICTOR HUGO
Hugo is considered to be one of the greatest and best-
known French writers. Outside France, his most famous
works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and The
Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris),
1831. In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections,
such as Les Contemplations (The Contemplations) and La
Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at
the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play
Cromwell and drama Hernani. Many of his works have
inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death,
including the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de
Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime,
and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of
capital punishment.
 Les Misérables: The Novel
Les Misérables [le mizeʁabl(ə)]) is a French historical novel
by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of
the greatest novels of the 19th century.
In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to
by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been
used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable
Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims and The
Dispossessed. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June
Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of
several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean
Valjean and his experience of redemption.

Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the
architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and
the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables has been popularized through
numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical.
 Les Misérables: The Movie

The new movie Les Misérables — the one with all the singing
and dying — is already a palpable hit, having earned about $60
million in North America and more than $100 million worldwide in
its first six days. The grumpiness of a few critics, including this one,
won’t stop Tom Hooper’s screen version of the 1985 West End
musical from cleaning up at the box office and earning Oscar
nominations galore. But love it or hate it, the current film is just one
of about 30 screen adaptations of Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel
describing the travels and travails of the saintly ex-convict Jean
Valjean, his decades-long pursuer Inspector Javert, the waif Fantine,
her daughter Cosette, the nasty, innkeeping Thénardiers and their
daughter Éponine. For Les Mizophiles and Les Mizanthropes alike,
here’s one man’s countdown of some of the worthiest versions —
movies, stage shows, concerts, TV and radio adaptations and a few
YouTube parodies.
Les Misérables: The Musical
The music was composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg and the
lyrics were written by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-
language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer. Set in early 19th-century France,
the plot follows the stories of many characters as they struggle for
redemption and revolution. An ensemble that includes prostitutes, student
revolutionaries, factory workers, and others joins the lead characters.

The musical opened at the Barbican Centre in London, England on

8 October 1985. It is the second longest-running musical in the world
after The Fantasticks, the longest-running show in the West End, and the
fifth longest-running show in Broadway history.

In January 2010, it played its ten-thousandth performance in

London, at Queen's Theatre in London's West End. On 3 October 2010,
the show celebrated its 25th anniversary with three productions running
in the same city: the original show at the Queen's Theatre in London's
West End; the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary touring production at the original
home of the show, the Barbican Centre; and the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary
concert at London's O2 Arena.

Les Misérables employs
Hugo‘s style of imaginative
realism, a very detailed and
believable creation of an
imagined world, and is set in
an artificially created human
hell that emphasizes the three
major predicaments of the
nineteenth century.
Each of the three major
characters in the novel symbolizes
one of these predicaments: Jean
Valjean represents the degradation
of man in the proletariat, Fantine
represents the subjection of women
through hunger, and Cosette
represents the atrophy of the child
by darkness. In part, the novel‘s
fame has endured because Hugo
successfully created characters that
serve as symbols of larger problems
without being flat devices.
 Your Tasks
1. A Brief Summary ̳Les Miserables‘. Victor Hugo.
Retrieved on June 23, 2020. Retrieved from Les
Misérables: Plot Overview

1. Watch the movie:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dFiOTCNLCTvWs
NIj-iK84Us9auUuyIXj/view?usp=sharing
3. Viewing Proper: While viewing list down your
favorite lines from the dialogues that best describe
the behavior of the characters as well as their
experiences.
4. Author’s Purpose: Tell the purpose of the author in
writing the story by answering the activity sheet provided.
Give details on how each purpose was achieved by Victor
Hugo in his play ‘Les Miserables’
5. Movie Treat: Watch ̳Les Miserables‘ and invite your parents to
watch it with you. After watching the movie, discuss the following
questions with them and list down the answers on the appropriate
column in the table.
6. My Strengths and Weaknesses: Try to identify your strengths and
weaknesses. Write them on the circle provided. Them think of the
challenges you are facing right now and write them on the big circle
below. Then, write down on the next chart how you can use your
strengths as well as your weaknesses to overcome the challenges you
are facing right now. You can list as many ways as you can.