SOCIAL INJUSTICE IN VICTOR HUGO’S LES MISÉRABLES: SOCIO-HISTORICAL APPROACHES

Les Misérables is a story about poor people in France who got unfair treatment from the high class society. Hugo describes the poor conditions suffered by France during the revolution in 1789 until 1799. Hugo elucidates injustice, high food prices, and a very large tax burden for the poor, and also discrimination among upper, middle, and low class as the problems faced by many characters in the novel. To analyze the social problem, the writer uses Marxist criticism. In this novel there are societies that are categorized into three classes, which are high, middle and low class society. The high class is more respected than the lower class. The writer applies sociological approach and historical approach to analyze the condition and social problems at that time. Sociological approach is used to analyze the treatments and views of the society and the social injustice toward bourgeois and common people in the nineteenth century in France. Historical approach is used to analyze the era of French history, particularly at the revolution, and also its relation with the story This analysis shows that high class society always gets the best position in society because they have money as a tool of power. That power is actually used to manipulate..