The miserables of law: an analysis of social inequality in the brazilian punitive system based on the novel “Les misérables”, by Victor Hugo

Abstract

Les Misérables is a great novel not due to the long text, but mainly for being able to deal so simply with the complex debate about the ideal of justice. Through the saga of Jean Valjean, sentenced to prison for stealing a loaf of bread, Victor Hugo unveils all the cruelty of the nineteenth-century French society, denouncing its extreme social inequality and its biased judiciary system. The author warns that the narrative would remain necessary for as long as the real situations similar to those described in the book should last. Almost two hundred years later, in the twenty-first-century Brazil, there is a surprising similarity to the French reality: miserable women and men, taken by crime due to the extreme poverty and receiving the disproportionate punishment of a selective judicial system. Thus, the objective of the article is to draw the parallels between the time and space of Les Misérables and the Brazilian reality, through an analysis of the punitive practice in force within the country. Using the literature review of Law and related areas, in addition to statistical studies of the contemporary Brazil, the aim is to draw parallels between the two realities. This study demonstrates how gravely contemporary Victor Hugo’s ideas are, especially in light of the data collected, which demonstrates the urgent need to explore them.