The theme of Hugo's Ninety-Three, according to Ayn Rand, is "man's loyalty to values," a theme 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, in detail, Hugo's plot-theme integration, his techniques of characterization and style, and his excision of the extraneous. Ninety-Three is not only the shortest of his major novels, but the most purely "Hugoesque." 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.