繼《死囚末日記》後，雨果於1834年出版了短篇小說《克洛德．格》，故事內容取材於真人真事的社會案件，主人翁克洛德是巴黎的窮苦工人，資質聰穎、沒受過正規教育，飢寒交迫下偷了東西，換來家中三天短暫溫飽卻也得面臨五年的牢獄之災。小說第一部份主要描寫的是克洛德淪為階下囚的獄中生活，因為法律不合理對待，以致殺死典獄長，一直到被處以極刑的遭遇。該部份的描述說明主要為引出第二段雨果的論述，包括對死刑的控訴、對社會的反思、對教育託付的理想。雨果認為克洛德．格一生坎河，秉性良善卻被放在敗壞的社會裡，因此成了殺人犯。雨果呼籲人民的腦袋需要得到培植、開發、灌溉、段發、教化與運用，而不是鑄成大錯後再處以死刑砍頭彰顯刑罰的嚴厲。本文將就雨果所論及的理想說明闡述，剖析其筆下解決當下19世紀貧窮的良方。

After Le Dernier jour d'un condamné, Hugo published Claude Gueux, a short story of how a smart but hardly educated poor worker, Claude, stole things to feed his family for three days at the expense of being jailed for five years. The first part is about Claude's life in jail, during which he killed the warden due to unreasonable legal treatment and finally was executed. The storyline is meant to introduce Hugo's statements in the second part, including his denouncement against the capital punishment, reflection about the society and the ideals he entrusted to education. Hugo advocated that people needed cultivating, developing, nurturing, enlightening, teaching and working rather than having them executed to show the harshness of the punishment after they made big mistakes. Here we would explain and explicate Hugo's ideals and analyze his cure for the poverty of the 19th century.