Ayn Rand calls The Man Who Laughs Victor Hugo's "best novel," the one with "the most dramatic, ingenious and tightly integrated of Hugo's plot-structures." This course examines that plot-structure, Hugo's colorful, stylistic antitheses, and his portrayal of Gwynplaine, a hero with the soul of Hercules and the passion of Prometheus. Dr. Milgram focuses on key dramatic events in the plot: the three turning points in Gwynplaine's life, and the final moments of the "comprachicos"-the moment about which Ayn Rand states: "in all literature, this is the one scene I wish I had written."