Les Miserables Research Paper

The French Revolution was a time of extreme poverty and was also heavily based on King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Les Misérables is a Broadway musical and movie based on the book of the same name by Victor Hugo that was historically popular because it was supposed to be based on the French Revolution. The French Revolution and Les Misérables both showed an extravagant amount of poverty but Les Misérables did not show much about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette even though the French Revolution revolved around them.
One of the very significant similarities between the French Revolution and Les Misérables was the excessive poverty. There was a great deal of poverty shown in the movie, such as the little eight to nine year old boy calling two toddlers his babies. This signified poverty because they were all probably abandoned by their parents because they couldn’t afford to keep them and provide them with food. Similarly, during the French Revolution, over 40,000 children were abandoned by their parents because they had to pay half of their income as a tax which meant they didn’t have enough money
to provide their families with food. Likewise, another display of poverty in the movie that’s similar to the French Revolution is all the people living and sleeping in the streets. During the French Revolution not many people could afford homes because they had to pay taxes and work for the lord. They were all very skinny too which showed starvation and desperation. Les Misérables did a good job of representing this poverty that occurred in the French Revolution. The events in this movie take place in 1832 which is approximately thirty-nine years after King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined.
Usually the French Revolution revolves around King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but the movie was revolved around another character and showed few similarities to the French Revolution. Another one of the few similarities were the rebellions. In the movie, the poor rebel against the king and get killed. During the French Revolution, many rebellions broke out as well such as the attack of the Bastille, the Tennis Court Oath etc. Although, similarly in the movie and during the French Revolution, they were both trying to overthrow aristocracy and bring the bourgeoisie or others from the third estate to power. It never essentially worked in the movie but in the French Revolution the eventually managed to overthrow
aristocracy.
From a historical fiction perspective, the movie was enjoyable and interesting but it wasn’t a movie directed towards the French Revolution. Also, the directors of the film did a good job setting the backdrop of the movie against the events of the June Rebellion. Lastly, this movie may have a meaning of ‘do good things and good things will happen to you’ because Jean Valjean started doing the right thing all the time which led him to be a free man at the end of the movie. In conclusion, Les Misérables is a great film that seems like it is based on the French Revolution because of many similarities, but it’s a historic fiction movie.