Victor Hugo's entertaining novel Les Miserables is just lik…

Victor Hugo's entertaining novel Les Miserables is just like being inside a narcissist's brain and is so similar to modern leftist thought that it could almost have been written today, except that Hugo's way of thinking is all fitted within a Christian outlook, whereas modern leftists hate Christianity. The first thing that needs to be said about the book is that the characters are all one-dimensional and over about 1500 pages, no realistic characterization is ever attempted. Instead, the characters represent abstract concepts such as justice. In fact, the idea of the book seems to imply that people do not really have character because it suggests that people can make a 180 change after a single experience. The book begins with the application of blank slate theory to a middle-aged convict named Jean Valjean who, after a selfless act of mercy from a Bishop from whom he had stolen, is inspired to become the perfect exemplar of Hugo's interpretation of Christian morality for the rest of the novel. Narcissists do not feel like they are consistent characters themselves and they do not feel responsible for their previous crimes and they believe that they deserve mercy and forgiveness (like any addict). For comparison, a short work from Hugo called The Last Day of a Condemned Man, is designed to provoke sympathy for a condemned criminal without explaining what his crime was (he gets executed before he could write that part). Jean Valjean's counterpart, Javier, is an inspector from the government who trails Valjean across time and space to put him back in jail no matter how much he proves his goodness. Javier represents justice as unthinking rules and absolute tenacity. If you were to combine Javier and Valjean, you might have more of a complete character. This can be interpreted as an example of splitting, which is an infantile way of thinking in which the good and bad aspects of a person are separated, as if they are different people rather than a consistent whole. The reader may interpret the rest of the novel for himself.