The theme of Hugo's Ninety-Three, according to Ayn Rand, is "man's loyalty to values." This theme, she says, is brilliantly integrated with the novel's plot: "Every event is an instance of man's violent, tortured, agonized, yet triumphant dedication to his values." This course examines Hugo's integration of plot and theme, his techniques of characterization and style, and his excision of the extraneous. Ninety-Three, the shortest of his major novels, is the most purely "Hugo-esque." In it, he presents a spiritual universe in which exalted human beings compete in heroic struggles, and in which nobility is not the exception, but the glorious norm. (Reading the novel in advance is recommended, but not required.)