Victor Hugo lived in France in the mid to late 19th century as a republican, playwright, poet, and novelist. France was consumed in a long period of political instability, and had several bloody conflicts to determine the shape of government in the country. In Hugo's 19th century novel, Les Misérables, he advocates a democratic government, and condemns the monarchy in power whose social evils make it impossible for those in the darkness of poverty to see the light of freedom.

Hugo shows French classes do not give any flexibility for the desperate and starving of the lower class. She dealt with "the secondhand dealer, who had taken back nearly all his furniture...constantly saying to her: `When will you pay me wretch"'" (page 57). Fantine must give in to the whims of higher-class people to barley scratch a living for her and her daughter. Fantine must go...