Les Miserables Lesson Plan

Discuss with the class how Marius's financial struggles mirrored Hugo's lived experience.

The harrowing description of Marius' struggle to live on 700 francs per year may parallel events from Victor Hugo's own life: in 1821, after the death of his mother, Hugo refused to accept financial support from his father and endured a year of terrible poverty. Eventually his literary career took off, but this experience left him with a sharp sense of the struggles of poverty.

The vivid detail in this chapter (the meals Marius eats, his falling-apart clothes, and so on) may come from Hugo's own life. Marius' voluntary poverty increases the reader's admiration for his sense of...