![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Review: Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit) (1869)
This was an interesting book. Admittedly, this had come to my attention because Exo's Suho was performing in a musical based on the Man Who Laughs.
This was a very rich book, but I definitely would have understood it more with some guidance from a teacher, as the themes run complicated and deep here.
Spoilers.
Story
The basic story is as follows. Gwynplaine was born the son of a lord, but when he was a child the king had orchestrated for him to be kidnapped and mutilated. From then on, he lived as a street urchin. He picked up an infant one day (whose mother had perished in the cold), and was found by a man called Ursus, who took both him and the baby in. Ursus had a pet wolf called Homo.
After a time skip, Gwynplaine and the baby, Dea were grown up and in love. They made money as sort of a travelling troupe.
In the court, there was a Duchess Josiana who was the half-sister of the Queen. Barkilphedro, who worked for the Queen, arranged for Gwynplaine to be reinstated to his lordship so that he would marry Josiana, which would humiliate her.
When Gwynplaine went to court, he was ridiculed for his face. After deciding that the peerage was not for him, he returned home, only to find his love Dea on her deathbed because Ursus and Dea had been told by Barkilphedro that Gwynplaine was dead. Though they reunited, Dea still died from weak health, and then Gwynplaine jumped off the ship.
The thing about this book is that Victor Hugo spent a lot of time setting up events. I feel like it took almost half of the book for us to even meet Gwynplaine. So we know that the actual events of the book aren't the selling point, but Hugo's words, but still, it was a bit hard to keep up with, especially in the beginning, in the scenes on the ship.
I'm not sure who translated the version of the book that I read, so unfortunately, I cannot comment. I got the ebook from Global Grey eBooks.
Characters
Gwynplaine
Gwynplaine was born a lord, but as a child, he was abducted an mutilated to have a permanent smile. I'm not sure if I missed something, but I felt like I wasn't made aware that he had a permanent smile until he met Ursus, who pointed it out.
As an adult, I actually felt that Gwynplaine was relatively well-adjusted. He understood that he was considered grotesque because of his permanent face. However, in the novel, he said that he saw it as a blessing, because at least he could make money with his mutilation, as opposed to if he was a normal person in poverty with nothing to sell. In addition, Gwynplaine had a very loving family. Ursus complained a lot, but he did consider Gwynplaine his child, and of course, Dea and Gwynplaine were madly in love.
When Gwynplaine first met Duchess Josiana, he was very sexually attracted to her, and it took him by surprise when Josiana was writing love letters to him. He was abducted and thrown into the peerage by Barkilphedro, and throughout that process, he was just in shock. Everything was happening around him and he was just trying to keep up.
When Josiana first saw Gwynplaine in her house, she was delighted, because she thought him amusing and she wanted to seduce him. But her attitude quickly did a 180 when she found out that he was actually Lord Clancharlie and that she was to marry him. So it was clear that Josiana never liked him for him, but only as a thrill.
Gwynplaine made his debut as a lord, and he was not taken seriously at all. He made a moving speech about class differences and how the poor suffered for the amusement of the nobles, but he was waved off. His half-brother, Lord David Dirry-Moir stood up for him, as did a few other nobles, but he also had a beef to pick with Gwynplaine because his speech had also insulted his mother.
Anyway, Gwynplaine decided that the peerage was not for him, and he escaped back to his family, only to be met with his love on her deathbed, and he later killed himself.
Gwynplaine's story took a very different direction from what I had expected when I started this book. I had expected his story to be more dramatic, but I found it tragic more than anything. Gwynplaine himself was a man with a good head on his shoulders, but he was hindered by two things: his low class, and his mutilated face, both of which were things that were out of his control.
Gwynplaine was even briefly dazzled by the beauty of the rich, but that was difficult to enjoy when he realized that peerage was useless in his hands because no one would take him seriously.
Gwynplaine returned home to the only people who mattered. I was expecting Dea to die, and she did, and I guess it made sense for Gwynplaine to follow, since he loved her so much :(
Ursus
Ursus was one of the first characters introduced to us. Of course, Ursus means bear, and it's ironic that his wolf has the name Homo which means man. He basically felt that humanity was bad and that being an animal was better (hence the name). He also complained a lot, but we saw that chattiness was just who he was. He actually did have a good heart, raising Dea and Gwynplaine to adulthood.
Back to Ursus' theory on people though. I guess his philosophies were a reflection on human society, how these arbitrary things such as social class condemn some humans to live in poverty like they did, when such things hardly mattered in animal societies. In animal societies, anybody who could survive was good enough.
Ursus was tricked by Barkilphedro into thinking that Gwynplaine was arrested for being a rebel and then subsequently executed. So he and Dea were grieving, only to have Gwynplaine come back, and commit suicide after Dea's death in a short period of time, leaving their family of four back to two :(
Dea
Dea was the baby that Gwynplaine had saved as a child. After the time skip, she was around 16 years old, and was found to be blind. But she was beautiful, and madly in love with Gwynplaine.
The fact that Dea was blind meant that Gwynplaine's physical mutilation didn't really have an effect on her, and that she saw Gwynplaine for who he really was on the inside.
I did think that their relationship was sweet. It was quite pure, and they only ever thought the best of each other.
Dea was named in reference to gods/deities. This serves as a sort of contradiction when comparing her to Josiana, which I will do below.
Anyway, poor Dea fell ill with grief after finding out that Gwynplaine was dead, and even though she was reunited with Gwynplaine, she was still too ill, and she died :( The fact that I have ended Gwynplain, Ursus, and Dea's sections with unhappy faces says things about the lower class in this book :(
Duchess Josiana
Josiana was the illegitimate child of King James II, the father of the current Queen Anne. I believe her mother was a queen, and Josiana herself was kind of a spoiled lady. She was very strong-willed, which I guess she can afford because she is of such high status.
Josiana was betrothed to Lord David Dirry-Moir, back when David Dirry-Moir was the closest living relative that was known to Lord Clancharlie. What's interesting was that they both agreed to stay engaged but unmarried, as it elevated both of their statuses. If Josiana married, she would be confined in the house, being second to Lord David Dirry-Moir, whereas if she was a single Duchess, she was at least the master of her own house. As well, being single made her look more desirable.
Josiana also had a rivalry with Queen Anne, who had a strong inferiority complex. As mentioned, Josiana was the daughter of a queen, whereas Queen Anne's mother was just a duchess (or a noble lady of lower class than queen). As well, I was under the impression that Queen Anne was kind of stuffy whereas Josiana was urban and trendy.
After Josiana saw Gwynplaine, she liked him quite a bit because of his grotesqueness, so much so that she wrote him a love letter. Later, when Gwynplaine was brought to her house, she was super excited to have him as a lover. But right after she found out that they were to be betrothed, she immediately pushd him away, which shows that she had only wanted Gwynplaine as a plaything, and not that she had ever liked Gwynplaine as a person. After she had been betrothed to Gwynplaine, Josiana had written to Queen Anne saying that she would take Lord David Dirry-Moir as her lover.
We don't really know what happened to Josiana after Gwynplaine escaped, but it doesn't really matter.
Queen Anne
As mentioned, Queen Anne had a bone to pick with Josiana, and with Barkilphedro as her assistant, she tried to get Josiana married to Gwynplaine to humiliate her.
Barkilphedro
Barkilphedro was the person who orchestrated for Gwynplaine to be reinstated as a lord, so that Josiana would have to marry her. Barkilphedro was a very shifty little guy, someone I would not trust at all. However, it was implied that Barkilphedro was a little in love with Josiana, and it was because of that that he wanted to see her fall. I can't explain it, but it sort of makes sense lol. I think it's because Josiana is sort of haughty that it's satisfying to see things not follow her plans accordingly. Maybe knocking her down a peg would narrow the gap between Josiana and Barkilphedro. Or maybe this is all just retribution for the fact that Josiana would never have someone like Barkilphedro. In any case, he is a shifty dude. Do Not Trust.
Themes
This is the most important section of this writeup, and I know I am not going to do this justice because I have probably missed so many things. I shall try my best.
Humans and Animals
Ursus was a huge misanthrope, so much so that his name was Ursus lmao. As mentioned above, I think his point of view was to reflect the fact that human society was broken, more specifically, the arbitrary class system that blocked people from the right to survive.
In this book, Gwynplaine lived both in poverty and in luxury (sort of), and so he understood how stark the contrast was, and that he had come into luxury completely by chance, because it had been discovered that he was the son of a lord, someone whom he had never met. At one point, I had actually suspected whether Barkilphedro and Hardquannone had lied about Gwynplaine being Lord Fermain Clancharlie, because all they had was a letter and Hardquannone's testimony. And as mentioned, Barkilphedro was personally interested in seeing Josiana knocked down a peg. In any case, through Gwynplaine's eyes, we saw how arbitrarily one could be in poverty or luxury.
Smiling
I thought there would be more discussion over smiling and laughing, since the book is called the Man Who Laughs, and the grotesque smile is the most eye-drawing thing about Gwynplaine, but in my opinion, it was not one of the more widely discussed themes.
The point that the book made was that a smile was often affirmative, whereas a laugh is often ironically negative. When someone smiled, they were actually happy, or they were indicating a "yes" answer. However, when someone laughed, they were sometimes laughing at how ridiculously bad something was, or they were in such disbelief of something.
So the fact that Gwynplaine was "constantly laughing" perhaps implied that he was in perpetual suffering.
Disfigurement
Hugo dedicated a chunk of the novel to discussing disfigurement for entertainment. The more direct examples we saw in the book were the "Comprachicos," who purposely disfigured children, who would then be forced to beg or to be circus freaks. Gwynplaine was disfigured by such a person, and he did earn money like a circus freak. In fact, Gwynplaine said that he was glad for his disfigurement because it gave him something to earn money with. Hugo described ways in which people were disfigured, as well as the fact that sometimes this disfigurement was ordered by the state and people in positions of authority.
Hugo also dipped into the topic of castration, which is also often sanctioned by authorities. In Ancient China and Turkey, eunuchs served positions in the court and palace. And castratos were castrated to preserve their singing voices. Hugo mentioned that virtuosi represented a time when eunuchs were respected, but that is probably an exception.
Hugo stated that the paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor, and we see that still today, in different ways. Sometimes I look at luxury items and I wonder who worked on manufacturing that product. Things like that.
Disabilities
Disabilities are not made equal, at least not by those who are able-bodied and ableist. There are some disabilities that are romanticized, or, because they do not interfere with normal beauty standards, they are seen as less harmless. For example, Dea was still acknowledged as beautiful, because her blindness didn't affect her face as much as Gwynplaine's disfigurement did. However, this did not make sense to Dea, as she always told Gwynplaine that she thought he was the beautiful one.
I think such cases definitely run true today, where some disabilities are swept under the rug or ignored because they are considered "ugly."
Politics
We got a little bit of insight on Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, and why he had made an enemy out of King James II. Apparently he had supproted the republic and not the aristocracy, which of course would not have sat well with King James II whose power comes from the aristocracy.
But there was some discussion about how Linnaeus Clancharlie had simply supported the wrong side, and had not known when to retract his support. It's true though. A lot of political struggles are just the struggles between two sides.
Not saying I don't appreciate democracy the way we have it now, but in the time of Lord Clancharlie, I feel like people would also have found more reasons to support the aristocratic system as well, especially because it was the winning side.
Aristocracy
There was commentary on the political system in place. Hugo mentioned that people attributed to the king what they did themselves. So such an example would be farmers praising the king for a good season when it was themselves that did the hard work. I think this comes from the fact that people see themselves as under the control of a higher power.
That being said, Hugo also mentioned the dangers of such a system for those in power. He noted that the people have much power, that "an elephant hated by a worm is in danger." This would have been true in the olden days, before modern weapons were created. Because now, I think it's much more difficult for people to overthrow authorities they don't like because of things like guns and cannons.
In Gwynplaine's big speech, he said that chance was the father of privilege, and that the son of privilege is abuse. Through his experiences, he tried to tell those in the peerage that what they had earned was entirely by chance. After all, who controls what family they are born into? And then, he tried to explain the fact that those in power are often hurting others, such as how he was disfigured by the king. Barely any lords listened to him, unfortunately.
Marriage
I thought it was extremely interesting how Josiana had more power as an unmarried woman as she would have as Lord David Dirry-Moir's wife. To be fair, it was a special case, because she was a Duchess in her own right, and a daughter of a king and a queen. If she was to marry, all of her estate would go to her husband.
The comparison that Hugo made was that a maiden was a sovereign, but a wife was a subject. As the unmarried Duchess Josiana, she was the master of her own estate, but if she married, she was Lady Dirry-Moir.
Being single made Josiana more desirable, but being engaged meant that at least she wouldn't be hounded by people who were after her estate. It was definitely a very good situation for her.
It was clear that Josiana hated the idea of marriage. The moment she found out that she was to marry Gwynplaine, she immediately hated him. Part of that was because she just saw Gwynplaine as a plaything, but also because she hated being tied down. Her saying that she would take David Dirry-Moir as a lover was probably more out of spite than her actually liking David Dirry-Moir, in my opinion.
Contradictions
This book was full of contradictions.
I started noticing so many of them when it came to Josiana. Josiana was a daughter of a king, but was a bastard. Being a royal is of course a huge boost, but being a bastard denied her certain things in life. Josiana could never love her husband. I think she was convinced that she never could. Though, at this point in history, I'm not sure if marrying for love was really a widespread thing yet. And of course, the fact that Josiana was more well-protected as a single woman than a married one was a contradiction.
In status, Josiana was definitely above Dea, but in Gwynplaine's eyes, Dea was the true goddess to Josiana's duchess. Admittedly, Gwynplaine was briefly blinded by his lust for Josiana, but I think he quickly saw the truth for what it was when Josiana did a 180 on him to his face.
Gwynplaine himself did also represent some contradictions, such as the fact that his disfigurement was a blessing. I wouldn't call his love with Dea a contradiction, but more of a coincidence, that he fell for the one woman who could see most clearly beyond his disfigurement.
Overall
This was an interesting book. However, I did get a bit frustrated at the beginning because I was waiting for Gwynplaine to show himself lol. This book is one that is a lot less about what happened, and more about the buildup and the discusssion of how things came to be. That being said, I appreciate Hugo's writing's style. He spends more time talking about the themes, and the events in the book are supposed to support the themes, rather than the other way around, which is interesting and something that is new to me.
This was a very rich book, but I definitely would have understood it more with some guidance from a teacher, as the themes run complicated and deep here.
Spoilers.
Story
The basic story is as follows. Gwynplaine was born the son of a lord, but when he was a child the king had orchestrated for him to be kidnapped and mutilated. From then on, he lived as a street urchin. He picked up an infant one day (whose mother had perished in the cold), and was found by a man called Ursus, who took both him and the baby in. Ursus had a pet wolf called Homo.
After a time skip, Gwynplaine and the baby, Dea were grown up and in love. They made money as sort of a travelling troupe.
In the court, there was a Duchess Josiana who was the half-sister of the Queen. Barkilphedro, who worked for the Queen, arranged for Gwynplaine to be reinstated to his lordship so that he would marry Josiana, which would humiliate her.
When Gwynplaine went to court, he was ridiculed for his face. After deciding that the peerage was not for him, he returned home, only to find his love Dea on her deathbed because Ursus and Dea had been told by Barkilphedro that Gwynplaine was dead. Though they reunited, Dea still died from weak health, and then Gwynplaine jumped off the ship.
The thing about this book is that Victor Hugo spent a lot of time setting up events. I feel like it took almost half of the book for us to even meet Gwynplaine. So we know that the actual events of the book aren't the selling point, but Hugo's words, but still, it was a bit hard to keep up with, especially in the beginning, in the scenes on the ship.
I'm not sure who translated the version of the book that I read, so unfortunately, I cannot comment. I got the ebook from Global Grey eBooks.
Characters
Gwynplaine
Gwynplaine was born a lord, but as a child, he was abducted an mutilated to have a permanent smile. I'm not sure if I missed something, but I felt like I wasn't made aware that he had a permanent smile until he met Ursus, who pointed it out.
As an adult, I actually felt that Gwynplaine was relatively well-adjusted. He understood that he was considered grotesque because of his permanent face. However, in the novel, he said that he saw it as a blessing, because at least he could make money with his mutilation, as opposed to if he was a normal person in poverty with nothing to sell. In addition, Gwynplaine had a very loving family. Ursus complained a lot, but he did consider Gwynplaine his child, and of course, Dea and Gwynplaine were madly in love.
When Gwynplaine first met Duchess Josiana, he was very sexually attracted to her, and it took him by surprise when Josiana was writing love letters to him. He was abducted and thrown into the peerage by Barkilphedro, and throughout that process, he was just in shock. Everything was happening around him and he was just trying to keep up.
When Josiana first saw Gwynplaine in her house, she was delighted, because she thought him amusing and she wanted to seduce him. But her attitude quickly did a 180 when she found out that he was actually Lord Clancharlie and that she was to marry him. So it was clear that Josiana never liked him for him, but only as a thrill.
Gwynplaine made his debut as a lord, and he was not taken seriously at all. He made a moving speech about class differences and how the poor suffered for the amusement of the nobles, but he was waved off. His half-brother, Lord David Dirry-Moir stood up for him, as did a few other nobles, but he also had a beef to pick with Gwynplaine because his speech had also insulted his mother.
Anyway, Gwynplaine decided that the peerage was not for him, and he escaped back to his family, only to be met with his love on her deathbed, and he later killed himself.
Gwynplaine's story took a very different direction from what I had expected when I started this book. I had expected his story to be more dramatic, but I found it tragic more than anything. Gwynplaine himself was a man with a good head on his shoulders, but he was hindered by two things: his low class, and his mutilated face, both of which were things that were out of his control.
Gwynplaine was even briefly dazzled by the beauty of the rich, but that was difficult to enjoy when he realized that peerage was useless in his hands because no one would take him seriously.
Gwynplaine returned home to the only people who mattered. I was expecting Dea to die, and she did, and I guess it made sense for Gwynplaine to follow, since he loved her so much :(
Ursus
Ursus was one of the first characters introduced to us. Of course, Ursus means bear, and it's ironic that his wolf has the name Homo which means man. He basically felt that humanity was bad and that being an animal was better (hence the name). He also complained a lot, but we saw that chattiness was just who he was. He actually did have a good heart, raising Dea and Gwynplaine to adulthood.
Back to Ursus' theory on people though. I guess his philosophies were a reflection on human society, how these arbitrary things such as social class condemn some humans to live in poverty like they did, when such things hardly mattered in animal societies. In animal societies, anybody who could survive was good enough.
Ursus was tricked by Barkilphedro into thinking that Gwynplaine was arrested for being a rebel and then subsequently executed. So he and Dea were grieving, only to have Gwynplaine come back, and commit suicide after Dea's death in a short period of time, leaving their family of four back to two :(
Dea
Dea was the baby that Gwynplaine had saved as a child. After the time skip, she was around 16 years old, and was found to be blind. But she was beautiful, and madly in love with Gwynplaine.
The fact that Dea was blind meant that Gwynplaine's physical mutilation didn't really have an effect on her, and that she saw Gwynplaine for who he really was on the inside.
I did think that their relationship was sweet. It was quite pure, and they only ever thought the best of each other.
Dea was named in reference to gods/deities. This serves as a sort of contradiction when comparing her to Josiana, which I will do below.
Anyway, poor Dea fell ill with grief after finding out that Gwynplaine was dead, and even though she was reunited with Gwynplaine, she was still too ill, and she died :( The fact that I have ended Gwynplain, Ursus, and Dea's sections with unhappy faces says things about the lower class in this book :(
Duchess Josiana
Josiana was the illegitimate child of King James II, the father of the current Queen Anne. I believe her mother was a queen, and Josiana herself was kind of a spoiled lady. She was very strong-willed, which I guess she can afford because she is of such high status.
Josiana was betrothed to Lord David Dirry-Moir, back when David Dirry-Moir was the closest living relative that was known to Lord Clancharlie. What's interesting was that they both agreed to stay engaged but unmarried, as it elevated both of their statuses. If Josiana married, she would be confined in the house, being second to Lord David Dirry-Moir, whereas if she was a single Duchess, she was at least the master of her own house. As well, being single made her look more desirable.
Josiana also had a rivalry with Queen Anne, who had a strong inferiority complex. As mentioned, Josiana was the daughter of a queen, whereas Queen Anne's mother was just a duchess (or a noble lady of lower class than queen). As well, I was under the impression that Queen Anne was kind of stuffy whereas Josiana was urban and trendy.
After Josiana saw Gwynplaine, she liked him quite a bit because of his grotesqueness, so much so that she wrote him a love letter. Later, when Gwynplaine was brought to her house, she was super excited to have him as a lover. But right after she found out that they were to be betrothed, she immediately pushd him away, which shows that she had only wanted Gwynplaine as a plaything, and not that she had ever liked Gwynplaine as a person. After she had been betrothed to Gwynplaine, Josiana had written to Queen Anne saying that she would take Lord David Dirry-Moir as her lover.
We don't really know what happened to Josiana after Gwynplaine escaped, but it doesn't really matter.
Queen Anne
As mentioned, Queen Anne had a bone to pick with Josiana, and with Barkilphedro as her assistant, she tried to get Josiana married to Gwynplaine to humiliate her.
Barkilphedro
Barkilphedro was the person who orchestrated for Gwynplaine to be reinstated as a lord, so that Josiana would have to marry her. Barkilphedro was a very shifty little guy, someone I would not trust at all. However, it was implied that Barkilphedro was a little in love with Josiana, and it was because of that that he wanted to see her fall. I can't explain it, but it sort of makes sense lol. I think it's because Josiana is sort of haughty that it's satisfying to see things not follow her plans accordingly. Maybe knocking her down a peg would narrow the gap between Josiana and Barkilphedro. Or maybe this is all just retribution for the fact that Josiana would never have someone like Barkilphedro. In any case, he is a shifty dude. Do Not Trust.
Themes
This is the most important section of this writeup, and I know I am not going to do this justice because I have probably missed so many things. I shall try my best.
Humans and Animals
Ursus was a huge misanthrope, so much so that his name was Ursus lmao. As mentioned above, I think his point of view was to reflect the fact that human society was broken, more specifically, the arbitrary class system that blocked people from the right to survive.
In this book, Gwynplaine lived both in poverty and in luxury (sort of), and so he understood how stark the contrast was, and that he had come into luxury completely by chance, because it had been discovered that he was the son of a lord, someone whom he had never met. At one point, I had actually suspected whether Barkilphedro and Hardquannone had lied about Gwynplaine being Lord Fermain Clancharlie, because all they had was a letter and Hardquannone's testimony. And as mentioned, Barkilphedro was personally interested in seeing Josiana knocked down a peg. In any case, through Gwynplaine's eyes, we saw how arbitrarily one could be in poverty or luxury.
Smiling
I thought there would be more discussion over smiling and laughing, since the book is called the Man Who Laughs, and the grotesque smile is the most eye-drawing thing about Gwynplaine, but in my opinion, it was not one of the more widely discussed themes.
The point that the book made was that a smile was often affirmative, whereas a laugh is often ironically negative. When someone smiled, they were actually happy, or they were indicating a "yes" answer. However, when someone laughed, they were sometimes laughing at how ridiculously bad something was, or they were in such disbelief of something.
So the fact that Gwynplaine was "constantly laughing" perhaps implied that he was in perpetual suffering.
Disfigurement
Hugo dedicated a chunk of the novel to discussing disfigurement for entertainment. The more direct examples we saw in the book were the "Comprachicos," who purposely disfigured children, who would then be forced to beg or to be circus freaks. Gwynplaine was disfigured by such a person, and he did earn money like a circus freak. In fact, Gwynplaine said that he was glad for his disfigurement because it gave him something to earn money with. Hugo described ways in which people were disfigured, as well as the fact that sometimes this disfigurement was ordered by the state and people in positions of authority.
Hugo also dipped into the topic of castration, which is also often sanctioned by authorities. In Ancient China and Turkey, eunuchs served positions in the court and palace. And castratos were castrated to preserve their singing voices. Hugo mentioned that virtuosi represented a time when eunuchs were respected, but that is probably an exception.
Hugo stated that the paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor, and we see that still today, in different ways. Sometimes I look at luxury items and I wonder who worked on manufacturing that product. Things like that.
Disabilities
Disabilities are not made equal, at least not by those who are able-bodied and ableist. There are some disabilities that are romanticized, or, because they do not interfere with normal beauty standards, they are seen as less harmless. For example, Dea was still acknowledged as beautiful, because her blindness didn't affect her face as much as Gwynplaine's disfigurement did. However, this did not make sense to Dea, as she always told Gwynplaine that she thought he was the beautiful one.
I think such cases definitely run true today, where some disabilities are swept under the rug or ignored because they are considered "ugly."
Politics
We got a little bit of insight on Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, and why he had made an enemy out of King James II. Apparently he had supproted the republic and not the aristocracy, which of course would not have sat well with King James II whose power comes from the aristocracy.
But there was some discussion about how Linnaeus Clancharlie had simply supported the wrong side, and had not known when to retract his support. It's true though. A lot of political struggles are just the struggles between two sides.
Not saying I don't appreciate democracy the way we have it now, but in the time of Lord Clancharlie, I feel like people would also have found more reasons to support the aristocratic system as well, especially because it was the winning side.
Aristocracy
There was commentary on the political system in place. Hugo mentioned that people attributed to the king what they did themselves. So such an example would be farmers praising the king for a good season when it was themselves that did the hard work. I think this comes from the fact that people see themselves as under the control of a higher power.
That being said, Hugo also mentioned the dangers of such a system for those in power. He noted that the people have much power, that "an elephant hated by a worm is in danger." This would have been true in the olden days, before modern weapons were created. Because now, I think it's much more difficult for people to overthrow authorities they don't like because of things like guns and cannons.
In Gwynplaine's big speech, he said that chance was the father of privilege, and that the son of privilege is abuse. Through his experiences, he tried to tell those in the peerage that what they had earned was entirely by chance. After all, who controls what family they are born into? And then, he tried to explain the fact that those in power are often hurting others, such as how he was disfigured by the king. Barely any lords listened to him, unfortunately.
Marriage
I thought it was extremely interesting how Josiana had more power as an unmarried woman as she would have as Lord David Dirry-Moir's wife. To be fair, it was a special case, because she was a Duchess in her own right, and a daughter of a king and a queen. If she was to marry, all of her estate would go to her husband.
The comparison that Hugo made was that a maiden was a sovereign, but a wife was a subject. As the unmarried Duchess Josiana, she was the master of her own estate, but if she married, she was Lady Dirry-Moir.
Being single made Josiana more desirable, but being engaged meant that at least she wouldn't be hounded by people who were after her estate. It was definitely a very good situation for her.
It was clear that Josiana hated the idea of marriage. The moment she found out that she was to marry Gwynplaine, she immediately hated him. Part of that was because she just saw Gwynplaine as a plaything, but also because she hated being tied down. Her saying that she would take David Dirry-Moir as a lover was probably more out of spite than her actually liking David Dirry-Moir, in my opinion.
Contradictions
This book was full of contradictions.
I started noticing so many of them when it came to Josiana. Josiana was a daughter of a king, but was a bastard. Being a royal is of course a huge boost, but being a bastard denied her certain things in life. Josiana could never love her husband. I think she was convinced that she never could. Though, at this point in history, I'm not sure if marrying for love was really a widespread thing yet. And of course, the fact that Josiana was more well-protected as a single woman than a married one was a contradiction.
In status, Josiana was definitely above Dea, but in Gwynplaine's eyes, Dea was the true goddess to Josiana's duchess. Admittedly, Gwynplaine was briefly blinded by his lust for Josiana, but I think he quickly saw the truth for what it was when Josiana did a 180 on him to his face.
Gwynplaine himself did also represent some contradictions, such as the fact that his disfigurement was a blessing. I wouldn't call his love with Dea a contradiction, but more of a coincidence, that he fell for the one woman who could see most clearly beyond his disfigurement.
Overall
This was an interesting book. However, I did get a bit frustrated at the beginning because I was waiting for Gwynplaine to show himself lol. This book is one that is a lot less about what happened, and more about the buildup and the discusssion of how things came to be. That being said, I appreciate Hugo's writing's style. He spends more time talking about the themes, and the events in the book are supposed to support the themes, rather than the other way around, which is interesting and something that is new to me.