Vendre son

Sammanfattning: This study examines some of the literary topoi in Victor Hugo’s work Les Misérables, to see how these topoi resemble the topoi present in the typical stories of the devil. The study also poses the question of whether the theme “selling your soul to God” qualifies as a topos. The study uses the definition of a “topos” according to the article “Comment repérer et définir le topos” (2016) (“How to spot and define the topos” [2016]). The result of this study indicates that Hugo on the one hand uses many of the same topoi which can be found in the stories of the devil, but on the other hand one could argue that Hugo uses them in a reverse way. The question of whether the theme “selling your soul to God” qualifies as a topos is not possible to answer without further studies.