Romanticism, which formed the understanding of taste and aesthetics in the axis of historical, cultural and social events in the middle of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, emerged as a product of a reaction against classicism. Romance, which includes many artists such as Schiller, Goethe, Lamartine, Montesguieu and Voltaire, especially Jean Jack Rousseau, gains a successful momentum with the literary essays of Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo, who joined the romanticism movement with his work Cromwell's Önsözü, thus makes a new start in his literary adventure and achieves great success after a few literary trials bearing the traces of this movement. Sefiller is one of the best examples we can evaluate in this context.
Sefiller, tells the tragic process of a person surrounded by impossibilities and the multifaceted change created by this process. The novel can be thought of as a literary reaction against the system that shows the human as a concrete object or substance, by erasing the sense of value. This reaction, which is reflected in the person of the protagonist Jean Valjean, is given on a parallel plane to Jean Valjean's change process. The change that spreads over time, does not develop instantaneously, and brings many questions; It carries an affirmative and healing dimension in a way that also supports the message it wants to give in terms of people and concepts. Jean Valjean, who builds his relationship with life on values such as conscience, love, loyalty and justice, symbolizes the ideal person.
In this study, determinations will be made about the change process of Jean Valjean, who is insecure, restless and alone by being squeezed into the concept of crime-punishment; In line with Jean Valjean's choices, the adventure of self-knowledge and discovery will be emphasized.