Les Misérables is a novel very much focused around characters fighting against their oppression and exploitation. Some of them, like Jean Valjean, are successful in their struggle, others, such as Fantine, are not. The main form of exploitation and oppression in the novel is that of economics, as Hugo portrays characters forced into terrible positions by poverty. Hugo also portrays the struggle between classes, for example, Fantine is unfairly arrested for retaliating to a bourgeois who taunted her for being a prostitute and threw snow down her back[10]. Marx devotes the opening to his landmark work The Communist Manifesto to this class conflict, saying that throughout history, social classes have fought against each other as “oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight”[11] and one which Hugo revisits throughout the novel.
I saw the version from 15 years ago with Geoffrey Rush as Javert and didn’t get that impression even if Hugo’s intent
Hugo was big on despair
Yes, Victor Hugo was a lefty. Most of the great works of fiction are written by lefties. That is because lefties live in a fantasy world. They are governed by emotions and feelings. We conservatives live in reality. We are governed by logic and thought. So we are not as good at writing fiction as the lefties are.
But that does not mean we cannot enjoy great leftist yarns like Les Mis.