The genius ahead of the heroes

Victor Hugo between authorship and narration

Abstract

Prolific in his written output and notable in his social praxis, Victor Hugo spearheaded an aesthetic project directly intertwined with politics and public debate. In this article, through a comparative analysis of the novels The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829) and Les Misérables (1862), we focus on the similarities and differences between the protagonists and plots, highlighting not only the critique of poverty and the death penalty that permeates both works but also the distinct narrative strategies employed by Hugo to reinforce his arguments, as a public figure, regarding these issues. Thus, we emphasize how Hugo manipulates the narrative voices of his novels to support, on one hand, the singular dramas of the protagonists in the modern social context, and, on the other hand, his own ambitions and convictions about aesthetics and politics, often blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, narrative and authorship.