teal?” Hugo intended to give the reader the feeling that Gueux was not remorseful and took responsibility for his actions, but he wanted the jury to think long and hard as to why he has committed those actions. He committed them out of necessity and not insanity.In life we are faced with adversity, and this adversity has to be overcome with confidence and determination in order to be successful. If we choose the path less traveled we are bound to face problems and tough decisions, yet we will never have these decisions made for us by our surroundings. We choose the lives that we lead and try to do the best we can to achieve total happiness. Like the case of Gueux, the decisions he made were not the best according to society, but at the time they were the ones that made him content and the ones that he felt that would better his life. When someone like Gueux has a hard life that is dismally ended, people look on and say that he was puppeteered by his environment and his actions were a product of society. Ironically if Gueux would have taken his situation and turned it around for the better and became ludicrously successful, many would say that everything he has was earned by sweat and blood and not by any outside influence. Why does society have a double standard? This double standard is just an excuse for the vagrants and the misfits; they blame it on their surroundings and say that they had no choice. But they do, every person has a choice in every action he or she commits and has to live with the consequences, both positive and negative. Hugo witnessed the atrocities of the French depression and all the poverty that the citizens had to incur. He noticed that many people were resorting to a life of crime and malice due to the lack of opportunities, yet he noticed something much more important. No matter how hard times were and how bad the environment was, people always made decisions on their own free will....
