Social Injustice In Les Miserables

Based on the film “Les Miserables” many themes are displayed. One of them is social injustice. The social significance of Les Miserables is that there is a genuine trade about being poor and having no social or political power. Valjean, Fantine, and other characters show throughout the movie how people who have less than have no power and how society views them. Valjean encounters a good deal of social injustices throughout the film but he also learns a lot in the process.

Valjean eventually becomes a better person and figures out that he can’t escape from his past but should live with his decisions. In this film, you will see how the French society treats the unwealthy through the characters' struggles. They will try to rise above poverty and inequality, which are problems we are still facing in our era of society now. The purpose of this is to show how bias the social classes were and the imbalance of riches and influence.

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Inspector Javert is an upper-class man who takes advantage of his power and his role as an officer. Even though Valjean only stole bread and then turned his life around, Javert will always see him as a criminal. Javert has a strict view of the law and wants to uphold it in every aspect, but watching you can say that what Javert is doing is breaking the law. In the film, you can see how Javert shows how badly society is divided and how the lower class has unfair treatment.

Since he has too much power he fails to see how his views are one-sided and the poor don’t benefit from his decisions.

To illustrate how unfair the class system is the author shows how innocent people can become criminals. Through the character Fantine you see how women are viewed by society. While working in a harsh environment, they find out that she has a bastard child and working to support her child, but yet she still gets fired from her job and resorts to prostitution. Later on, Fatine is assaulted by a couple of men while Javert watched and she retaliates by hitting the men. Instead of the men being held accountable for their actions Fantine is punished for being a prostitute and for her actions. This shows how Javert can use his power as he pleases, and that men have a higher power over women, and how society views poor people as nothing.

Another theme you'll see throughout the movie is crime and punishment. Jean Valjean is an ideal example of this. Back then the punishment was very harsh for petty crimes, what they were doing we now see that as cruel and unusual punishment.