Les Misérables · Chapter
The Surface of the Question explained
This chapter examines the nature and consequences of popular uprisings, contrasting the bourgeois perspective that sees them as costly disasters with a more nuanced view that considers their causes and the distinction between different type
What happens
This chapter examines the nature and consequences of popular uprisings, contrasting the bourgeois perspective that sees them as costly disasters with a more nuanced view that considers their causes and the distinction between different types of popular movements. It explores the composition of revolt as a mixture of noble and base elements, and critiques the 'golden mean' school of political thought.
Themes in this chapter
Revolution and Social Upheaval
The chapter is a deep analysis of revolt and uprising, exploring their causes, composition, and consequences, and distinguishing between different types of popular movements.
The Human Condition and Fate
The text reflects on the elements that make up revolt—passions, suffering, wretchedness, and the unknown—and how individuals are swept up by forces beyond their control.
Social Injustice and Poverty
The chapter mentions the rabble, the bare-armed and barefooted, and those who demand bread from chance, highlighting the role of poverty and marginalization in fueling revolt.
Key passages
“All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business, precipitates failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public credit shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing, work at a discount, fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town.”
Every revolt disrupts the economy: shops shut down, financial markets panic, trade halts, businesses fail, money disappears, private wealth becomes uncertain, public trust in credit erodes, industry falters, capital flees, employment suffers, and fear spreads, causing ripple effects in every city.
This passage outlines the bourgeois critique of uprisings, focusing on their economic and social costs.
“Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which forms suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes, uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and the feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw.”
Revolt is like a social whirlwind that arises unexpectedly under specific conditions, swirling violently, rising and falling, destroying everything in its path, and carrying away both the powerful and the weak, the great and the insignificant.
This metaphor captures the chaotic and indiscriminate force of popular uprisings.