Les Misérables · Chapter
I: Master Gorbeau explained
The chapter describes the desolate and decaying quarter of the Marché-aux-Chevaux in Paris, focusing on a decrepit building at 50-52 Boulevard de l'Hôpital.
What happens
The chapter describes the desolate and decaying quarter of the Marché-aux-Chevaux in Paris, focusing on a decrepit building at 50-52 Boulevard de l'Hôpital. The area is depicted as a gloomy, sinister place, haunted by crime and poverty, with a history of mysterious assassinations and executions. The narrative contrasts the ugliness of the present with the impending transformation brought by the Orleans railway, symbolizing the encroachment of civilization and modernity.
Themes in this chapter
Social Injustice and Poverty
The dilapidated building and the surrounding slums illustrate the harsh living conditions of the poor in 19th-century Paris.
The Human Condition and Fate
The oppressive symmetry and gloom of the boulevard evoke a sense of existential despair and the inescapable fate of the marginalized.
Key passages
“Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is at the very foundation of grief. Despair yawns.”
Symmetry is deeply oppressive because it embodies boredom, which is the root of sorrow; despair itself is a kind of yawning emptiness.
Hugo reflects on the psychological impact of the monotonous, orderly architecture of the boulevard.
“Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored.”
A hell of boredom is even worse than a hell of pain.
This aphorism underscores the chapter's theme of existential despair.
“Wherever it is placed on the borders of a capital, a railway station is the death of a suburb and the birth of a city.”
A railway station on the edge of a city destroys the old suburb and gives rise to a new urban area.
Hugo comments on the transformative power of industrialization and modern transportation.