The emotions displayed in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables range from anger and despair to joy and peace. Emotions play a major role in the reader's perception of characters, situations, and the novel as a whole. They can be used to manipulate the reader into thinking or feeling different things. The strongest emotions in Les Mis are love and hate. These two are so far from each other that they provoke the reader to make their own decisions regarding characters and situations. Each can bring out the best or the worst in a reader as well. For instance, love can cause the reader to feel especially warm towards certain characters involved.

Love can be traced through almost every chapter of Les Mis, whether it be between two people who are living or two people separated by death. In Cosette and Jean Valjean's case, the love is like that of two lovers, but is completely pure. Cosette, until her adulthood, is not even aware of the fact that Valjean is not her father. It causes the reader to feel a childlike love for Jean Valjean. Another instance of love in a different form is that of Cosette and Marius. This is very similar to Cosette's love for Jean Valjean, devoted and pure, but she loves Marius

that spans the line between life and death is that of Fantine to Cosette. Even though Cosette is unaware that she has a mother and that she loves her, the emotion does display itself in the moments before Fantine's death. She expresses her love and her longing to be with her beautiful daughter to Jean Valjean. Love can put readers on an emotional "high" just like it can in real-life situations. That can be dangerous and unrealistic, but love also brings readers to an understanding with characters and their situations. Hate does the opposite.

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Hate can bring about dislike for the perpetrators of misery and discomfort resulting from the darkness behind the emotion. The hate that permeates the entire novel comes from Javert, directed at Jean Valjean. Because Javert takes his duty to God and to his job so seriously, he makes it his life's mission to find Jean Valjean and make him pay dearly for his crimes. Javert's cruelty gives the reader no alternative but to hate him. Surely, Jean Valjean loathes Javert just as much as he despises Jean Valjean, but the difference is in the way the hate is put into words and actions. Javert has no remorse

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Approximate Word count = 821
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)