"파리의 떠돌이 아이들(le gamin de Paris)"에 관한 소고

On the Kids of Paris: Through Gavroche des Misérables

I am interested in the kids of Paris in this article. I will try to encircle closely the character of Street urchins in Les Misérables. For Hugo, early childhood is the image of happiness and innocence. But the kids of Paris are poor and abandoned children, without a roof. without bread, They ask for charity from the passers-by, and sometimes even eat flys. However they are joyful, because they are free. Victor Hugo defines the kids of Paris as the spirit of Paris, and Paris as the spirit of the universe. Gavroche is the ideal of kid of Paris. Poor but generous he does not hesitate to give help to kids in need. Full of the humor, he laughs at everything and likes mocking everything; religion, the egoism of the middle-class persons, the despotism... the powerful of the society. But he suffers with society's lower people, and he stands for the republic and freedom. In the uprising of 1832, Gavroche becomes the driving force of this republicans revolt. When a bullet of the Garde Nationale touched him, he was 12 years old. To my opinion, through the character of Gavroche, Hugo wanted to show the hope of the new world, that is the spirit of "freedom, equality, brotherhood" and the spirit of solidarity. For Hugo, this means that the advent of the new world will come from the lowest, the oppressed, and the poor, not by the height the rich and selfish middle-class people. Because childhood is the hope towards the future.