Subjectivité de l’expression de l’auteur — narrateur dans Les Travailleurs de la mer de Victor Hugo

In this essay we intend to emphasize first the subjective way of Victor Hugo in expressing his own thoughts, ideas, visual impressions and feelings within the introductory chapter of this book, entitled “The Archipelago of the Channel”. Then, we intend to show the subjective manner of the narrator in constructing Gilliatt, the main character of the proper novel. In this undertaking, the narrator seems to be objective, while, in fact, he is highly subjective, presenting the hero from an outside view point, and defining his temper and disposition by a collection of gossips and slanders on Gilliatt, from the narrow and xenophobe perspective of his fellow-citizens. The subjectivity of both the author and the narrator is disconcerting for the reader, who should not judge superficially this book, but rather try to find, between the lines, its different values and significations, which are in perfect accord with Victor Hugo’s philosophical and aesthetic conception, based upon the harmony of contraries, upon the coexistence of good and evil, sublime and grotesque, light and darkness.