The Story Archive

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

Victor Hugo · 1829 CE · Novel · French · Romantic

A man whose name and crime are never given keeps a journal in the condemned cell at Bicêtre, counting hours, watching the chain gang fitted with irons in the yard below and rehearsing a sentence he cannot stop hearing. He has a mother, a wife and a daughter of three who no longer recognises him, and a lawyer who treats the appeal as a formality. Hugo published it anonymously as an argument rather than a story, and campaigned against the scaffold for the rest of his life.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalPolitical
Theme
Death & MortalityIndividual vs SocietySuffering & EnduranceIsolation & AlienationFreedom vs Fate
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanScapegoat
Plot structure
ConfessionMeditation
Symbol / motif
The PrisonThe ClockThe Threshold
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
RealistTragic
Culture / tradition
French

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