The Sea Workers

“The Sea Workers” is one of Hugo’s most popular novels, and it takes the sea as its primary setting. The sea has always attracted creative minds, prompting them to think and reflect on its vast expanses and mysteries. They viewed it from a comprehensive and profound perspective. Hugo followed their example, especially since he had lived by the sea for a long time in his life, including in exile in Niez.
The story is simple, even naive. Gilliat, a sailor who has changed his place of residence, lives with his mother, who has surrounded him with maternal care after she gave him life. However, he suffers, even to the point of disappearing, from his loss of her, and from his isolation and loneliness. Nevertheless, he is a son of the people who exerted his utmost effort to prove his humanity and perform a miraculous act: saving the shipwrecked ship Loiterie off the Dover Rock, which he named the Adorand. Hugo glorifies the character of Gilliat as a hard-working, poor man who gives without measure, devoting his abilities to a noble cause. His goal is to build, not destroy or take revenge. Hugo, in particular, creates a novel that confronts the obstacle of “false beliefs and preconceived notions,” reaffirming the value of sublime human values ​​in the face of the worship of money and wealth, the dominance of cheap instincts and fleeting material things, and elevating the justifications that make the human being worthy of life.