ANALYSIS: SETTING
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Paris, 1482
Hugo is oddly specific about when and where this story takes place. In fact, Time gets the first line of the novel: "Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago, the good people of Paris awoke to the sound of all the bells pealing in the three districts of the Cité, the Université, and the Ville" (I.I.1). The emphasis here is on the past—the really, really precise past. You won't find any "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…" here. We as readers get the sense that if Hugo is going through the trouble to be so darn exact about the date, then we're actually about to read some "real" history. The setting helps us out in this regard; after all, who hasn't heard of that magical, make-believe kingdom of Paris, France?
But why 1482? Why not 1481, or 1483, or 1526, or 1642? Because Hugo is so specific, it behooves us to really look at what was going on around 1482 that would make it relevant to the story. So here's your "What was happening in 1482 in France?" cheat sheet:
The Hundred Years' War between England and France had ended in 1453 (it's referred to occasionally in the novel), and Louis XI had ascended to the French throne in 1423. He died in 1483, as the novel mentions, which means that the story takes place at the very tail end of his reign. Louis really wanted to consolidate the power of the monarchy, because as it was France was ruled by some really powerful dukes who were basically mini-kings. A particular thorn in Louis's side was the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, who owned a big chunk of the east of France, including Flanders. Louis defeated Charles and got these territories in 1477, but there were some complications with this guy Maximilian I, so basically the Dauphin (who was twelve years old) and Maximilian's daughter, Margaret of Flanders (who was three), had to be betrothed so that Louis could keep this territory.
This history might sound try and distant and pseudo-relevant, but it's actually all over the novel. Think about it: the first scene of the novel is of Gringoire's play, which deals with the Dauphin's marriage to Margaret of Flanders and is attended by some big-wig Flemish ambassadors; and there is a long chapter towards the novel's climax of Louis XI strutting around the cage of one of his opponents and talking about how France really ought to have just one king. This novel is fraught with discussions about centralized state power, who has jurisdiction over what, who determines justice, etc.
But Hugo also has the benefit of hindsight, and he loves to use the events of the past as harbingers of the future. So, for Hugo in 1831, the major recent historical event would have definitely been the French Revolution of 1789. In that year the Bastille, which, in the novel, is where Louis sits comfortably as he talks about the power of the monarchy, was stormed and destroyed by a mob. Four years later, the King of France (Louis XVI) was executed via guillotine. But then along comes a little general named Napoleon Bonaparte, who crowns himself emperor from 1804 to 1815. After Napoleon, however, France is back to monarchs again.
So really, Hugo seems to be contrasting a period in history when state power was absolute, to a period when that absolute power had been seriously called into question. Hugo also loves to contrast the physical layout and architecture of the Paris of yesteryear with the Paris of the 1830's, showing us how impossible it is to stop the tide of change from working its magic/destruction. There is also a whole chapter devoted to the printing replacing architecture in the fifteenth century, so 1482 also represents a major turning point in history when the status quo of the church is going to be severely shaken up (see our Symbols, Imagery, Allegory section for more on why the printing press is so great).
In short, time is really important to this novel. Check out our Themes section if you want some more convincing.
ANALYSIS: NARRATOR POINT OF VIEW
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Third Person (Omniscient)
WARNING: Do not assume that the narrator of this novel is Victor Hugo. Sure, he may constantly remind us of how he is writing the novel in the 1830's, like when in Book VII.IV in the middle of the narrative he mentions a bit of graffiti from 1829. Sure, he keeps referring to "the reader," as if aware of the fact that he is the writer. But we at Shmoop are here to tell you to ignore every bit of your intuition.
Now, it may not seem immediately harmful to assume that Hugo is the narrator. But instead we're going to suggest that you assume that the narrator, while he is clearly the writer of the novel, is also a character as well. There's a really good reason why you should do this too. The narrator of The Hunchback is a really opinionated guy. He makes a lot of sarcastic comments about the characters and the way things were run way back in medieval Paris (which you can read more about in our Tone section). But we don't want to assume that those opinions belong to the real flesh- and-blood Hugo for the simple fact that there are novels out there in which we're not supposed to trust the narrator's opinion.
Sometimes, we get books where we're supposed to know that the narrator is taking a stance that is the opposite of what the writer agrees with. Take a book like Pride and Prejudice, for example, which back-handedly makes fun of everyone's obsession with marriage and money by pretending to also be obsessed with marriage and money.
So it's a good rule of thumb to just always maintain that distance between a narrator and a writer. Which brings us to another point about why the narrator is in fact a character and not Hugo: the Author's Preface. In it, the author claims that he was inspired to write the novel based on some medieval graffiti that he saw one time at Notre-Dame. This fun little anecdote might be true, but there is also nothing preventing it from being completely made up. Its real purpose is to help situate the novel in "reality." We as readers know that the novel is fiction, but we suspend our disbeliefand pretend for a while that Louis XI really did visit a made-up character like Frollo one night in 1481. So while it's completely plausible that Hugo's narrator is just Hugo, we need to recognize that this is still a work of fiction and that there is nothing stopping Hugo from making things up and claiming that it is real. It might only be "real" in the world of the narrator. Everything is fair game in fiction QUASIMODO
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Quasimodo is the hunchback—you know, the one from the title. He's deformed, he's ostracized, and he's the bell- ringer of Notre-Dame.
He's also got a heart of gold, if you'd just give him a chance to prove it.
There have been so many representations of Quasimodo in pop culture it's ridiculous. We're not just talking about the Disney movie either, which, for all of its awesome musical numbers, totally G-rates the story. (What, you mean all that death at the end of the novel is too much for toddlers? Pshaw).
There's just something about Quasimodo's grotesqueness that captures peoples' imaginations. Early filmmakers found him really appealing, as well; we're guessing they were jumping at the chance to try and create the ugliest person imaginable, which is what Lon Chaney attempted in 1923. The image of him clambering up the sides of the great cathedral with Esmeralda dangling off his back is pretty much iconic.
But if you think that pop culture has taught you everything you need to know about The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, think again. Most people assume that Quasimodo is the protagonist of the novel, and in many adaptations,he is. But we think of him as sharing the stage with a number of protagonists (see our "Character Role Identification" section to learn why).
Still, one thing is for certain: more than for anyone else, we feel compelled to root for this guy. Maybe it's because he can't seem to get a break, what with that unsightly visage and all. Maybe it's because everyone loves a character who's misunderstood. Or maybe it's because, out of all the characters in the novel, we feel like Quasimodo is the only one capable of pure, genuine love. He's the ultimate ugly-on-the outside, beautiful-on-the-inside character. Even Disney can't make him escape his looks.
How could you not feel for this guy? A Face Not Even a Mother Could Love
Quasimodo's defining feature is his ugliness—and we mean defining, as in his entire character is based around the idea of his ugliness. On a literal level, we can use the explanation that the narrator gives us: "He was, in truth, bad because he was wild; he was wild because he was ugly" (IV.III.10). In other words, all that demonization has made him into something of a real demon. But remember, all it takes is one act of kindness from Esmeralda to totally flip that around. On a broader level, Quasimodo's extreme ugliness means that he will never find love. See, there is a difference between an unattractive character and a character like Quasimodo: Hugo chose to create a character so grotesque that Esmeralda can't even bear to be in the same room as him. The people of Paris automatically despise him. Basically, his appearance is an insurmountable barrier.
Yet unlike Frollo, this knowledge that he's never going to be in a relationship doesn't turn Quasimodo into some kind of lustful, obsessive monster. Instead, Esmeralda's one act of kindness while he's on the pillory turns him into an incredibly compassionate and caring person. As he says when Esmeralda asks why he rescued her,
"You have forgotten a wretch who tried one night to carry you off, a wretch to whom, the very next day, you brought relief on the vile pillory […] You have forgotten that wretch—but he has not forgotten." (IX.III.13)
This kind of generosity is not lost on poor Quasimodo. Considering how this is one of the few acts of kindness he has ever received in his life, it's not too surprising that he would be way more interested in reciprocating that kindness than he would be in fulfilling a possessive sexual desire, as Frollo does.
It's this refusal to be the monster that society thinks he is that allows Quasimodo to at least momentarily transcend his ugliness. Remember that it's when Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda that he is described as "really beautiful":
Yes, he was beautiful—he, that orphan, that foundling, that outcast; he felt himself august and strong; he looked in the face that society from which he was banished, and in which he had so powerfully intervened. (VIII.VI.105)
When Quasimodo asserts that he is beyond the rules and customs of society (society has done nothing good for him, anyway), he is able to be something other than what society has always defined him as. Yes, Quasimodo is more than just an ugly face. What Is Love?
Hollywood might love a happy ending, but having Quasimodo ride off into the sunset is not on Hugo's agenda. The fact of the matter is that it's pretty much impossible to conceive of any kind of positive outcome for the poor hunchback. He's never going to get the girl—even the Disney movie didn't attempt to convince us that it was plausible —and it's hard to imagine all of Paris having a sudden change of heart and deciding unanimously that beauty is on the inside. Nope, that's all way too happy for this novel.
That doesn't mean, though, that Quasimodo can't teach us, the readers, a little thing or two about love.
Because Quasimodo is the most unlikely candidate for love, he's also the perfect character to teach us something about its nature. He uses his last line of dialogue to do just that: gesturing at the dead bodies of Esmeralda and Frollo, he cries out, "There is all I ever loved!" (XI.II.30). One person he did everything to protect; the other person he killed. Love is complicated.
But let's start from the beginning. The Festival of Fools is "the first gratification of self-love that [Quasimodo] had ever experienced. Until then he had encountered nothing but humiliation, contempt for his condition, and disgust for his person" (II.III.23). It's telling that the only time Quasimodo feels accepted is when people are praising him for being the ugliest person around. Even here, people are totally focused on what Quasimodo looks like on the outside. Once the festivities are over, they're just going to go back to treating him as they always have.
Later, we also learn about the master-servant relationship that Quasimodo has with Frollo in the chapter "The Dog and His Master" (IV.IV). We're starting to get a picture of someone so starved for love that any kind of positive attention is good attention.
But that doesn't stop Quasimodo from knowing real kindness when he sees it, and he sees it in Esmeralda on the day she gives him some water on the pillory. But his newfound love for Esmeralda is not possessive, lustful, or jealous. It's selfless, through and through. Heck, he even offers to throw himself off of the cathedral towers for her just so she won't have to look at him. But Quasimodo's devotion to Frollo and his devotion to Esmeralda are bound to collide. The first challenge arises when Frollo tries to rape Esmeralda in her cell. Quasimodo proceeds to kick the tar out of him, but as soon as he realizes that the assailant is in fact his master, here's what he does:
Quasimodo looked at him, was seized with a trembling, relaxed his grasp, and started back […]
Quasimodo stood for a moment with bowed head, and then, falling on his knees before the door of the gypsy, said, "Monseigneur," in a tone of gravity and resignation, "kill me first, and do what you please afterward." (IX.VI.21-22) Old habits die hard. Even Frollo's clearly nefarious intentions can't make Quasimodo disobey him. Quasimodo remembers how Frollo acted kindly by adopting him, and he's fiercely loyal to those who have been kind to him.
This incident makes us worry, though, that when it comes down to it, maybe Quasimodo's slavishness towards Frollo overrides Esmeralda's compassion. But the scales do eventually tip, and when Quasimodo sees Frollo bark out a laugh at Esmeralda's death, he recognizes that his master is no longer a person at all capable of love.
That's because Quasimodo realizes that true love comes from kindness—and he is not the kind of character to take acts of kindness for granted. His love might be too ideal for the real world to handle, but as an outsider, he's the one to at least give us a glimpse of it. ANALYSIS: GENRE
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Historical Fiction, Romanticism, Tragedy
Historical Fiction
Victor Hugo, one of the most famous writers of the nineteenth century, rarely ever wrote about the nineteenth century. He was all about times past. That makes his books doubly complicated: they're not just about the past; they're about the distant past from the point of view of a more recent past. To get what Hugo is up to here, we have to understand a little bit about both the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century.
Now, one of the things that makes historical fiction so great is that it tends to use events set in the past to make comments about things that are still relevant—maybe the political situation of the present, maybe laws or customs that still endure but in a different form, or maybe just unchanging human nature.
Hugo may be a Middle Ages connoisseur, and there may be all kinds of cool details about the Middle Ages all over The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, but the novel is actually more concerned with the France of Hugo's era than France in 1482. That's why we get all those weird asides about guillotines, state power, and the Bastille, all of which were more or less contemporary concerns for Hugo (though we should also add that the French Revolutioncame about fifty years before Hugo wrote this novel). Romanticism
Speaking of historical eras, The Hunchback was published in 1831, which puts it smack-dab in the middle of the Romantic period (the first half of the nineteenth century). No, it's not that people were more lovey-dovey then. It's that writers were more focused on emotion and people's internal lives than on, say, reason or scientific facts.
In English literature, for example, Romanticism is associated with poets likeLord Byron, Keats, Shelley (both of them), Coleridge, and Wordsworth. These writers wanted to create art where the emphasis was on emotion, the individual, and natural beauty.
Now, just because something was written during the Romantic period does mean that it's necessarily Romantic. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, though, fits the bill in a lot of ways. First of all, it romanticizes a distant past by making it pretty and dramatic. Sure, the past as presented in the novel isn't always that pretty, but the narrator spends a whole book complaining about how contemporary Paris lacks that certain je ne sais quoi it used to have during the Middle Ages.
Second, the entire story centers on the lives of individuals—and, more importantly, on their emotional responses. That's all very romantic. Hugo does eventually go on to talk about grand themes and events (also Romantic themes), but he does so throughthe personal experiences of these individuals.
Tragedy
Last but not least, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a tragedy. The easiest way to recognize this is by counting the number of corpses you have by the last page.
Yeah, it's a lot.
All right, a high body count doesn't necessarily make something a tragedy (though it helps). What really makes this novel a tragedy is that pesky hand of fate doing its thing all over the place. Hugo brings up fate right away in the Author's Preface, and the theme never really goes away: it sets the tone for the whole novel.
As the characters get more and more wrapped up in each other's' lives, we see them moving unstoppably toward some sort of climax. We get a sense that not everyone is going to come out of this novel in great shape. In classical Greek drama, tragedy involves the inevitable fall of a great character, and fate in The Hunchback gives all of the events in the novel that same sense of an inevitable catastrophe.
But there is a little play on this genre at the end of the novel. By Shakespearean standards, tragedies end in death, and comedies end in marriages. Now, the last two chapters of The Hunchback are called "The Marriage of Captain Phœbus" and "The Marriage of Quasimodo." What's up with that?
Neither of these are particularly happy marriages—the narrator even tells us that Phœbus himself "came to a tragic end" (XI.III.5) in marriage (we're supposed to get a chuckle out of that), and Quasimodo's marriage involves two corpses—but they do provide an ending that focuses, in a way, at least partly on hope, rather than just on death and more death. Fate, though it has wreaked a lot of havoc, in the end brings Quasimodo and Esmeralda together, and we guess that is something. MINOR CHARACTERS
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Another comic character, Jehan du Moulin, alternately called Joannes Frollo de Molendino, is Claude Frollo's younger brother and the quintessential Prodigal Son.
Money burns a hole in Jehan's pocket, especially when there are drinks and prostitutes to be had, but his older brother just can't say no to him. Jehan keeps cropping up everywhere in the book to cause trouble and say bawdy things (though you should take a look at our "Character Role Identification" section to see why they are important bawdy things). He comes to a rather gruesome end at the hands of Quasimodo. The Sack Woman
The Sack Woman, a.k.a. the recluse, a.k.a. Sachette, a.k.a. Paquette la Chantefleurie, formerly of Reims, has quite the backstory: she has lived in a door-less cell called the Rat Hole for fifteen years, her daughter was taken and presumably eaten by gypsies, and she hates Esmeralda more thanIndiana Jones hates snakes. Needless to say, she doesn't get out much. But she's got a crazy, totally coincidental twist to her story that helps amp up the novel's tragedy-meter to a whole new level. Djali
Djali is Esmeralda's über-talented goat. For a goat, she actually plays a pretty big role in the story: aside from being Gringoire's love interest, she gives away Esmeralda's crush on Phœbus, she stands trial for sorcery, and she narrowly escapes death. But don't worry, all you animal lovers! We like to imagine she lives out her days in a field in France making cheese. Clopin Trouillefou
Clopin is the head of the Cour des Miracles, the leader of the Tramps, the King of Thunes, and the supreme ruler of the realm of slang. Sometimes he's even a beggar. He's got so many titles on his résumé to make anybody jealous. Fleur-de-Lis
Fleur-de-Lis is Phœbus's wealthy bride-to-be. She's green with envy of Esmeralda's good looks, but Phœbus manages to sweet-talk himself back into her good graces. Her job is to be respectable and boring. Jacques Charmolue Charmolue is the King's Proctor and is in cahoots with Frollo to help convict Esmeralda. He's the nasty guy who oversees all the "justice." Djali does a mean imitation of him. Louis XI
Yes, he was a real king of France. In the novel he visits Claude Frollo in his cell, and then later on while Notre-Dame is being besieged and he gives this spiel about how the monarchy should be all-powerful and how the Bastille will never fall (oh, the irony).
PHŒBUS
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Phœbus, or Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers to use his full name, is the swaggering, crude, handsome, sex-driven soldier Esmeralda worships as if he really were the sun god (as his name suggests).
He isn't the nicest of guys, to say the least: he devotes most of his energy to getting down with the ladies. Yet despite getting stabbed, things don't turn out so badly for Phœbus in the end. Unlike most other characters in the novel, he avoids a violently tragic ending—unless, as the novel implies, you consider getting married a tragic ending. Mr. Universe
Think of Phœbus as your ultimate frat bro: someone who spends a lot of time at the gym, doesn't use his brain too much, and gets a lot of female attention despite the fact that he's a total jerk. The novel gives pretty much this exact description of him:
By her side stood a young man, of a bold but somewhat vain and swaggering look—one of those handsome fellows to whom all the women take a liking, though the serious man and the physiognomist shrug their shoulders at them. (VII.I.3)
So Phœbus is a pretty face without much behind it. It's not very surprising, then, that he's also self-centered and shallow. Though Esmeralda might fall for his well-rehearsed declarations of undying love, commitment isn't exactly on Phœbus's mind. Look at how he responds when Quasimodo tells him that a woman wants to meet with him:
"A rare imbecile," said the Captain, "to suppose that I am obliged to go to all the women who love me, or say they do. After all, perhaps she is like yourself with that owl's face. Tell her who sent you that I am going to be married, and that she may go to the devil." (IX.IV.37) Phœbus obviously thinks the world of himself to assume that he's that hot of a commodity (though he probably really is that hot of a commodity).
Of course, the irony here is that there probably isn't a person in the novelless deserving of Esmeralda's love, and yet he's the one who gets it all. To the very end, Esmeralda is swooning and crying Phœbus's name. Remember Quasimodo's little example of the earthenware and crystal vases in Book IX.IV? Phœbus is totally the cracked vase with all the dead flowers inside—but how, his pretty face sure does take him a long way.
We don't mean to be overly pessimistic, but it really does seem as if in Hugo's world, the good people suffer while the shallow and nasty people ruin others' lives and walk away happily, obliviously scot-free.
PHŒBUS TIMELINE AND SUMMARY
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Phœbus rescues Esmeralda when Quasimodo tries to kidnap her.
While bored to death at the house of his fiancée Fleur-de-Lis de Gondelaurier, Phœbus re-encounters Esmeralda. He arranges to meet with her later that evening.
Before his hot date, Phœbus is accosted by a man in a cloak who demands that Phœbus prove to him that he is meeting Esmeralda... by letting him spy on them. Seeing nothing odd about this and needing money for a room, Phœbus agrees.
Phœbus tries to get into Esmeralda's pants by making all sorts of declarations of love. She's just about to give in when Frollo stabs Phœbus.
A few months go by, and Phœbus brushes off the whole stabbing incident. He tries to patch things up with Fleur-de-Lis, but while he's over at her place, he happens to see Esmeralda doing penance in front of Notre- Dame. Awkward.
Phœbus is called in when Notre-Dame is attacked. Esmeralda calls out his name while she's in the Sack Woman's cell, but he's already gone.
In the end, Phœbus gets married. His happy ending is kinda sorta happy, we guess. PIERRE GRINGOIRE
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Pierre Gringoire is a playwright with a very high opinion of himself. He's pretty central to the major events in the story —he's technically Esmeralda's husband, and he helps arrange the attack on Notre-Dame—but his main job is to provide some comic relief. A Poet and He Knows It
Gringoire takes pride in himself as a man of letters, but he's also the only one who doesn't realize how incredibly bad he is at it. On the occasions when we're treated to Gringoire's talents, the review is always a resounding thumbs down—like when the narrator tells us that "[t]he prologue [of Gringoire's play] was long-winded and empty of meaning, which is to say that it obeyed the rules of drama" (I.II.89).
Gringoire's speech, in keeping with his writing, tends to be long-winded and empty of meaning. He's totally that person who thinks he's way smarter than he really is, or that person who knows some big words but doesn't actually know how to use them. Take his explanation of his new profession to Frollo:
"It is a sad thing, I admit, to let the gentlemen of the watch run the risk of belaboring under this sorry disguise the shoulders of a Pythagorean philosopher. But how can I help it, my reverend master? The blame rests with my old coat, which basely abandoned me in the depth of winter, on the pretext that it was falling to tatters. What could I do? Civilization is not yet so far advanced that one may go stark naked, as Diogenes of old wished to do." (VII.II.20)
What the heck? Gringoire's just saying that he needs a new coat. He's just going on and on, trying to be all poetic, taking a whole paragraph to say what he could get across in a single sentence. He's not a man of few words, that Gringoire. Not even the King of France can shut him up:
"Sire, Your Majesty will deign to hear me. Ah, sire! Let not your wrath fall upon so humble an object as I am! The thunderbolts of God are not hurled against a lettuce. You, sire, are an august and most powerful monarch. Have pity on a poor but honest man who would be more helpless in kindling an uprising than an icicle could strike a spark. Most gracious sovereign, clemency is a virtue of lions and kings; severity only drives the minds of men more indomitable. The fierce wind cannot make the traveler throw off his cloak […]" (X.V.168)
So when you're powering through Gringoire's page-long speeches, don't worry if you can't figure out what the heck he's saying. He's really not saying anything. Gets His Goat
Esmeralda's accidental husband is just about the only character in the novel who isn't head over heels for her. Instead, he really cares about her pet goat, Djali. If you're confused and weirded out, that's because you should be. Gringoire's attachment to Djali is a bit, shall we say, unnatural. Maybe we're reading too much into this, and Gringoire really just loves his pet like anybody else would, but we should be a little leery when Gringoire actually compares the figures of Esmeralda and Djali: Luckily, however, he soon recovered and quickly rediscovered it, thanks to the gypsy girl and her Djali, who were still walking before him—two elegant, delicate, charming creatures, whose small feet, handsome shapes, and graceful manners he admired, almost confusing them in is imagination. He regarded them both as young girls for intelligence and their fondness for each other, and thought of them both as young goats for their agility and lightness of step. (II.IV.16)
Wow. We've seen some pretty goats in our time, but this takes the cake. So yes, when Gringoire runs of with Djali at the end of the novel, we're supposed to have that "Wait, really?" reaction. Call it funny, call it gross, call it another form of love, but it's definitely more than a little odd. Maybe the point is that Gringoire is so removed from reality with all his excess language that the best love he can muster is love for a goat.
PIERRE GRINGOIRE TIMELINE AND SUMMARY
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Gringoire writes a play to be performed at the Palace of Justice during the Festival of Fools. It's a flop.
Gringoire decides to follow Esmeralda in the street and witnesses her attempted kidnapping, though he gets knocked out when he tries to intervene.
Gringoire accidentally finds himself in the Cour des Miracles, where he narrowly escapes the hangman's noose thanks to Esmeralda. The two are "married" for four years, though Esmeralda doesn't let him get within ten feet of her.
Gringoire joins the Tramps and starts performing on the street. Frollo questions him about his sexual relations with Esmeralda.
By chance, Gringoire finds himself at Esmeralda's trial.
Frollo convinces Gringoire to help him "rescue" Esmeralda from Notre-Dame, so Gringoire helps organize the Tramps' attack.
During the commotion, Gringoire and Frollo steal into the cathedral and take Esmeralda away by boat. When they land, Gringoire leaves with Djali.
Gringoire lives out his days writing plays. CLAUDE FROLLO
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The Disney version of this story may have made the Archdeacon of Josas evil to the core, but as it turns out, Frollo wasn't always such a bad guy. He has his redeeming moments: he's devoted to his good-for-nothing brother, for example, and he was the one who took pity on little Quasimodo and adopted him.
It makes us all the more uncomfortable, then, when Frollo gets warped into such a thoroughly twisted figure in the novel. One-Track Mind
Frollo has a hard time letting things go. Case and point: he's obsessed with knowledge, and he takes this obsession so far that it leads him right into superstition and alchemy:
[…] he was forced, if he could not make up his mind to stop where he was, to seek further nourishment for the insatiable cravings of his understanding. The antique symbol of the serpent biting its tail is peculiarly appropriate to science, and it appears that Claude Frollo knew this from experience. (IV.V.4)
Frollo's obsessive nature prepares us for the moment when he goes all-out stalker on Esmeralda. Look at what he says to himself in his cell:
"One fixed idea haunts me and pierces my brain like a red-hot iron."(VII.IV.23)
Then there's this gem, which he says to Esmeralda while she's in prison:
"I kept hearing your song ringing in my ears, kept seeing your feet dancing on my breviary, at night, in my dreams […] When I had seen you twice I wished to see you a thousand times, to have you always in my sight."(VIII.IV.55)
Yep, Frollo has got a certified one-track mind.
But while having goals is great and all, the problem is that Frollo's mono-vision ends up obscuring whatever it was he originally set out to do. It's a classical can't-see-the-woods-for-the-trees situation. His passion in his quest for knowledge, for instance, ends up drawing him away from knowledge and into the pseudo-magic that is alchemy. Likewise, his desire to possess Esmeralda leads him to have her killed.
That's irony, folks. A Bitter (Not So) Old Man Frollo might be a rotten apple, but he's also the one who saved the baby Quasimodo when everybody else wanted to throw him on the garbage pile.
If Frollo wasn't always so mean, then what turned him? We're given a few clues, like when we're told in Book IV.V that Frollo's lost the youthful idealism that had compelled him to adopt Jehan and Quasimodo. It seems Frollo had a lot of dreams about the future, and things didn't really turn out the way he thought they would. Now, the dude is disillusioned and prematurely old: the book tells us that "if, as he grew older, gaps opened up in his science, they did in his heart as well" (IV.V.10).
But something else is afoot. Frollo is a gloomy, troubled, and withdrawn person as it is, but we also find out that "[t]hese symptoms of a violent moral preoccupation had acquired an unusual degree of intensity at the period of the events related in this story" (IV.V.11). In other words, something is eating at Frollo. We're next told that Frollo's recently developed an unusual aversion to women and gypsies. Sounds suspicious…
These clues let us know that Frollo is taking out his sexual frustration on Esmeralda. As the story progresses, we get to see a lot more facets to Frollo's emotions, but the real kicker comes after he thinks that the deed is done and Esmeralda is dead. At this point, he goes to the outskirts of Paris to do some serious soul-searching:
And when, while diving into his soul this way, he saw how large a space nature had prepared there from the passions, he laughed still more bitterly. He stirred up from the bottom of his heart all its hatred and its malice, and he perceived, with the cold indifference of a physician examining a patient, that this hatred and this malice were only distorted love; that love, the source of every virtue in man, was transformed into horrid things in the heart of a priest, and that someone constituted as he was, in becoming a priest made himself a demon. (IX.I.4)
All right, Frollo, go ahead and blame the priesthood. Really, though, it sounds like young Frollo once saw the world through rose-colored glasses and is now realizing—too late—that you can't utterly deny yourself something like romantic love without becoming a teensy bit bitter about it.
Now, Quasimodo and Esmeralda are both young characters who are unable to find love—Quasimodo because he's too ugly, Esmeralda because she's too beautiful. Frollo shows us what happens to someone who never gets love, and it ain't pretty. Do you think Quasimodo and Esmeralda would end up like Frollo in fifteen years' time? Would they become bitter and nasty?
We can't say for sure, but one thing we do know: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame shows us how essential love is for everyone. CLAUDE FROLLO TIMELINE AND SUMMARY
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Frollo is born to a wealthy bourgeois family who own a good chunk of Paris. His parents decide to make a churchman out of him, so he goes to school to study Latin and other scholarly things.
When Frollo is nineteen, both of his parents die in a plague outbreak. He decides to care for his infant brother, Jehan. Around this time, Frollo also adopts the foundling Quasimodo.
Around 1481, Frollo receives a personal visit from the King of France, Louis XI.
Frollo is about thirty-six when the novel takes place. One day, he sees Esmeralda dancing and goes nuts over her.
During the night of the Festival of Fools, Frollo attempts to use Quasimodo to kidnap Esmeralda. It doesn't work out, so he goes back to the drawing board.
Plan B is to have Esmeralda arrested for witchcraft by Jacques Charmolue, the King's Proctor. It's at this time that Jehan witnesses Frollo write "ANÁΓKH" on the wall of his cell.
By chance, Frollo overhears Phœbus telling Jehan that he made plans to meet Esmeralda that night. Frollo follows the captain and gives him money to let him spy on the encounter.
While Phœbus is in the process of seducing Esmeralda, Frollo jumps out of the closet and stabs him.
Frollo goes to visit Esmeralda in prison after she has been sentenced to death. He declares his love for her and asks her to come away with him, but she refuses.
After seeing Esmeralda's penance in front of Notre-Dame, Frollo runs off in a high moral fever. When he sees Esmeralda in the cathedral later, he thinks that it is her ghost.
After learning that Esmeralda claimed sanctuary in the cathedral, he goes to her cell one night and tries to rape her. Quasimodo stops him but backs off once he realizes that it is his master.
Frollo coerces Gringoire into arranging the Tramps to attack Notre-Dame. During the siege, they get Esmeralda from her cell and take her away.
Frollo brings Esmeralda to the Place de Grève and asks her again to choose between him and death. She goes for death. He hands her to the Sack Woman and runs off.
From the towers of Notre-Dame, Frollo watches Esmeralda hang. Unfortunately for him, Quasimodo is watching him watch Esmeralda hang, and the hunchback throws him off of the tower.
ESMERALDA
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Pretty much everyone in Paris is in love with Esmeralda.
Actually, that's not quite true. People either love her or hate for being a witch, or both. Really, though, Esmeralda is just a sixteen-year-old girl trying to navigate through a mean world. She wonders who her parents are, she naïvely falls in love for the first time, and she performs good deeds when she can—while trying to brush off her two haters, Frollo and the Sack Woman.
Unfortunately, such a good person is destined for tragedy in this novel.
Like Quasimodo, Esmeralda has mesmerized readers for as long as this novel has been around. Some of the earliest adaptations of the novel to opera and ballet where actually just called La Esmeralda, just to give you an idea of how popular of a figure she was (after all, why should Quasimodo hog the spotlight?). She's totally one of the most popular gypsies in literary history.
What makes Esmeralda so cool? Well, she's got a lot going for her. • She has a mysterious past. Who were her parents? Where did she come from? • She has a mysterious present. What kind of person is she? How does her goat know so many tricks? Is she in cahoots with the devil?
Esmeralda's also a completely innocent bystander who gets wrapped up in everything against her will (you have the hand of fate to thank for that). She's also, like Quasimodo, one of the few genuinely good characters in the novel. She has her flaws, like her blind devotion to Phœbus (who can't even remember her name), but given all the stuff she's up against—lecherous priests, racism against gypsies, sorcery accusations—we think she deserves our support. Too Hot to Handle
Esmeralda is the yin to Quasimodo's yang: people just can't stop talking about how beautiful she is. Just as Quasimodo's defined by his looks, Esmeralda's defined by hers—but not in the positive ways that you might assume. After all, her looks win her the licentious attentions of Phœbus and Frollo.
Now, that's a problem for more reasons than one, but what gets Esmeralda in the most trouble may be that fact that she's so naïve about love. For example, early on in the book, after Esmeralda saves Gringoire by marrying him, we hear her expressing her views on love:
"Oh! Love!" she said, and her voice trembled, and her eye sparkled. "It is to be two and yet but one—it is a man and a woman melting into an angel—it is heaven itself." (II.VII.35)
Sound corny? It's meant to. Esmeralda might be street smart, but that doesn't mean that she isn't susceptible to the same desire for love as everybody else. So when she meets a player like Phœbus, it's not surprising that she eats up every word he feeds her. Let's not even start on Frollo.
Esmeralda's looks earn her a ton of unwanted attention. Mostly, this comes from Frollo, who is so taken by her beauty that he attributes it to the devil and sets out to either possess her or destroy her. But Esmeralda's appearance also earns her the animosity of the jealous Fleur-de-Lis and her friends. Basically, Esmeralda ends up suffering for her looks in the same way Quasimodo does.
See what we mean by yin and yang? Quasimodo and Esmeralda may look like total opposites, but in the end their differences make them oddly similar. It's Just Like the Old Gypsy Woman Said
Hugo didn't just make Esmeralda a gypsy so that she could dance around with a tambourine. In medieval French society, gypsies were considered outsiders. People had all of these misconceptions about where they came from (hence all the mentions of Egypt) and what they believed in (witchcraft, apparently).
Esmeralda is the quintessential exotic Other, which is a term for a person who is made to be ethnically, racially, religiously, or culturally different from the norm (in European literature, usually white and Christian). Just look at Gringoire's reaction on first meeting her:
"In truth," thought Gringoire, "she is a magical creature, a nymph, a goddess, a bacchanae of Mount Menelaeus!" At that moment one of the magical creature's tresses came loose, and a piece of yellow brass that had been fastened to it fell to the ground. "But no," he said," she is a gypsy!" The illusion was shattered. (II.III.6)
Talk about an abrupt shift. We're supposed to see Gringoire's racism as pretty representative of what your average run-of-the-moulin Parisian thinks about gypsies. People are both fascinated and repelled by the gypsies—just think about the story the ladies tell about Paquette la Chantefleurie. In that story, everyone goes to get their fortunes told, but then they have no problem assuming that all gypsies are a bunch of Satan-worshipping baby-eaters.
Looks like it's all fun and games until gypsies start eating babies.
Because Esmeralda is a gypsy outsider, it makes it a lot easier for people like Frollo and the Sack Woman to accuse her of heinous crimes, like sorcery and kidnapping. It's one of the things that makes her a tragic figure, but it also gives her something in common with Quasimodo: neither of them are accepted within Parisian society. That's why reason why they make such a good "couple" at the end of the novel. Damsel in Distress?
One of the saddest aspects about Esmeralda the way she becomes more and more powerless as the novel goes on. In one of her first scenes, she's all stepping forward to save Gringoire's life out of sheer compassion, even wielding a dagger like the free-spirited Miss Independent that she is. She even gives the slip to Phœbus when he first rescues her. In short, helpless she is not.
But things go downhill for Esmeralda pretty quickly. She's accused of murdering Phœbus; she's tortured, imprisoned, and sentenced to death; and in the end, she's completely in Frollo's power. Well, almost. She's defiant toward Frollo to the very end, choosing death instead of sexual enslavement to him:
She tore herself from his clasp and fell at the foot of the gallows and kissed the deadly contraption; then, half-turning her head, she looked over her shoulder at the priest. The priest stood like a statue, motionless, his finger still raised towards the gallows.
"This horrified me less than you," the gypsy said at last. (XI.I.51-52)
There are times when Esmeralda strikes us as the typical beautiful maiden in need of manly rescuing, but this moment is not one of them. Esmeralda may be completely at Frollo's mercy, but we shouldn't forget that initial image of her when she was free and capable of taking care of herself.
If there's one thing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame shows us, it's that good, strong, loving people, and independent people can be struck down just as easily as anyone else. In fact, they may be even more likely than most to face destruction. Not a happy thought, but it's something to think about. ESMERALDA TIMELINE AND SUMMARY
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Esmeralda is born to Paquette la Chantefleurie. While still a baby, she is kidnapped by gypsies.
Esmeralda comes to Paris and dances in the street with her pet goat Djali.
On the night of the Festival of Fools, Quasimodo and Frollo attempt to kidnap Esmeralda. She is valiantly rescued by Phœbus.
When Gringoire is about to be hanged at the Cour des Miracles, Esmeralda saves his life by offering to marry him. Their marriage is strictly in name, though.
Esmeralda is brought to the Gondelaurier mansion to perform for Fleur-de-Lis and her friends. While there, the Fleur-de-Lis and the girls discover that Djali has been taught to spell out "Phœbus" with block letters, and they kick Esmeralda out. Phœbus follows her and arranges to meet her later.
Esmeralda meets Phœbus at a dingy inn where he attempts to seduce her. Just as she gives in, Frollo jumps out of a closet and stabs him. Esmeralda passes out, and when she comes to, she finds herself accused of stabbing Phœbus.
At her trial, Esmeralda refuses to confess. She is briefly tortured and admits to anything and everything. Her sentence is death.
While in prison, Esmeralda is visited by Frollo, who professes his love for her and begs her to come away with him. She refuses, and Frollo tells her that Phœbus is dead.
Esmeralda is brought in front of Notre-Dame to do penance before her execution.
Just as she is being led away, Esmeralda sees Phœbus watching her from a balcony. She is then rescued by Quasimodo.
Frollo tries to rape Esmeralda while she is in Notre-Dame.
When the Tramps attack the cathedral, Gringoire and Frollo come to Esmeralda's room to lead her away.
Frollo gets Esmeralda alone and takes her to the Place de Grève, where he tells her to choose between the gallows and him. She chooses the gallows. Frollo gives Esmeralda to the Sack Woman, who is all too happy to see Esmeralda die. But then it's revealed that Esmeralda is actually her long-lost daughter.
The reunion doesn't last, though, and guards come to execute Esmeralda.
Esmeralda's body is taken to Montfaucon, where it is found in the embrace of Quasimodo years later. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF APPEARANCES
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You've probably heard the old spiel about not judging a book by its cover. Well, the saying exists because people do tend to judge covers. Sometimes, an entire identity is constructed around a cover. Books, people, you name it—we all judge.
In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,the idea that you can't judge a book by its cover doesn't just apply to Quasimodo, the character most ruthlessly judged on the basis of his appearance. Frollo is convinced that Esmeralda is evil because she's sexy; Esmeralda is convinced that Phœbus is noble and heroic because he's hotter than Johnny Depp in the desert… you get the picture. There's a lot of cover-judging in this book—and a lot of catastrophe as a result. Questions About Appearances
1. Do any of the characters in the novel overcome their initial dependence on appearances by the end of the novel?
2. Why are appearances so important to everyone in the novel?
3. How does a preoccupation with appearances fit in with a novel about a cathedral?
4. Do you think that Victor Hugo is simply telling us not to judge things by their appearances, or is there more to it than that? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Appearance is pretty much the only thing that matters to anyone in the novel. Appearance in the novel is complicated: Quasimodo and Phœbus are misjudged for their appearances, but Esmeralda and Frollo aren't. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF LOVE
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"Love is a many splendored thing." "Love lifts us up where we belong." "All you need is love."
We can't tell if we're quoting different songs or just Moulin Rouge, but the point is that love does a lot of different things and looks a lot of different ways to different people. Just take all the many ways people love each other in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame: Quasimodo's love for Esmeralda, Esmeralda's love for Phœbus, Frollo's love for Esmeralda, Gringoire's love for Djali… it's like a love hexagon.
Does each of these characters experience love in quite the same way? Not so much. It's irrational, it hurts, it's complicated—but it's irrational, it hurts, and it's complicated in different ways for different characters. Which brings us to something else you might want to consider: love isn't always as hunky-dory as cheesy love songs would have you believe. Questions About Love
1. Do you think this novel is actually all about love?
2. What's the difference between love and lust in this novel? Is there a difference?
3. Does love have a strict definition in this novel?
4. Which love songs would you assign to each of the relationships in the novel? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. The only true love in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is the love that Quasimodo feels for Esmeralda.
Love is what compels the characters in the novel to do ridiculous things. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF FATE AND FREE WILL
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Let's talk about the F-word.
We mean fate, of course. It comes up a lot in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame; in fact, Victor Hugo tells us in his preface that the entire book is written on the idea of fate. Remember ANÁΓKH? Turns out it's not a fraternity.
The character who's most into this idea is Frollo. He's not really one to believe in choosing his own adventure. For him, it's all about fate as a kind of inescapable web. Why try to fight it when it is your destiny?
But fate seems to have a hand in more than just Frollo's wicked designs. He, like the other characters in the novel, is more caught up in it than he thinks—and fate, we'd like to point out, seems to have a way of not quite letting you know what it's got in store for you.
So what's fate, and what's free will? How much choice do the characters in this novel have? Let's find out. Questions About Fate and Free Will
1. Are we meant to see the hand of fate in the events of the novel as much as Frollo does?
2. Does this novel set fate against free will? Do we have any instances of blatant free will in this story?
3. Would you say that all of the characters' fates are intertwined? Why or why not? What might Hugo be trying to show about the nature of fate?
4. Why do you think Victor Hugo chose this one word (ANÁΓKH, or fate) as the basis for the entire story? How does the preface change how we read the novel? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Everything is way too coincidental in this novel for us not to see the hand of fate behind everything that happens.
While Frollo asserts that everything is the work of fate, it's more his belief in fate than fate itself that drives him to do the things he does. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF SUFFERING
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Pretty much nothing goes right for our main characters in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, at least while they're alive. We guess that goes with the territory in a tragedy.
There's a lot of suffering in this novel. It seems like at any given point,something is going badly for someone, whether it's Paquette losing her baby daughter, or Quasimodo being pelted with rocks on the pillory, or Esmeralda being tortured and hanged. But, as is the rule in tragedy, in order for the suffering to really matter, it needs to be punctuated by a few moments of joy and hope; so we get Esmeralda giving Quasimodo a drink of water, Paquette momentarily reuniting with her daughter, and Esmeralda being saved from the gallows—all temporarily, of course.
Why is there so much suffering in this novel? Does it reflect reality? Is there any point to all this suffering? Questions About Suffering
1. What is the role of fate in causing the characters to suffer?
2. Which characters get off scot-free in terms of suffering? Why do you think this is?
3. Though the novel has its funny moments, it's definitely a tragedy. What do you think the novel gains by being a tragedy instead of a comedy? If the ending were a happy, Disney-esque one, how would that change our reading of the novel?
4. Is there any single force behind all of the suffering in the novel? Or, limiting it to the three major characters (Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Frollo), would you say that there is one central cause behind everything they suffer? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. All of the characters in the novel are touched by some sort of loss or lack that they are trying to fill.
We can tell early on in the novel which characters' fates are going to be steered toward tragedy and which toward comedy. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF LUST
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We're gonna level with you, folks: sex is a major player in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
Or at least, the desire to have sex is a major player. The problem is, that desire is usually unrequited. What we end up with is a lot of sexual frustration that then manifests itself in some pretty ugly ways. We're talking, of course, mainly about Frollo here (though Phœbus is also a pretty lusty character). Frollo's lust makes him jealous, possessive, evil, and violent—yet he insists in calling his feelings for Esmeralda "love." We're not so sure, but regardless of what Frollo calls his feelings, one thing is for sure: they drive him crazy.
But wait, what's the difference between love and lust? That's a tough one, but rest assured: Victor Hugo has some ideas. Questions About Lust
1. Is the line between love and lust immediately clear in the novel? Is there a line between love and lust at all?
2. Frollo obviously doesn't handle lust very well. Does he act out of uncontrolled lust, or is he just an evil person? What's the difference?
3. How would you compare Frollo's feelings for Esmeralda with Phœbus's or Quasimodo's feelings for her?
4. According to the novel, what causes Frollo to act out his feelings for Esmeralda in such over-the-top the ways? How do we make sense of his actions? What makes him so evil? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. Frollo's lust gets out of hand because he allows himself to use things like sorcery and fate as justifications rather than recognizing his lust for what it is.
Frollo's lust gets out of hand because he knows that he isn't really supposed to feel lust. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF TIME BACK
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Time is not on anyone's side in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Time wears history away, it wipes away peoples' existences, it leads to inevitable decay and change… basically, time paves things over and makes way for the new. Individual lives are placed in huge historical contexts, and they can be easily and irrevocably wiped out.
Very few things are permanent in this book. Hugo gets into several discussions about how the Paris of 1482 is so different from the Paris of 1831—and in some ways, 1482 Paris seems better than 1831 Paris. In any case, there are two things in this novel that can withstand the test of time: a huge stone cathedral, and a printed book. It's art that has the capacity to defeat time; maybe it's the only thing that can. Questions About Time
1. Do you think the cathedral is the sign of permanence in the novel? Why or why not?
2. Why do you think Hugo makes a point of mentioning the "future" (things that happen after 1482)?
3. Which side do you think Hugo (or his narrator) would take in the printing press versus cathedral debate, seeing as how the printing press is what allows the novel to exist in the first place? Does the novel take a side, or merely describe a change?
4. What "artifacts" from the novel survive to the author's present day? What doesn't survive? What might this tell us about how history endures? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. The novel argues that all evidence of history eventually disappears.
The novel argues that all evidence of history eventually disappears unless we find a way to preserve it. HE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF JUSTICE
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NEXT The Hunchback of Notre-Dame begins at the Palace of Justice and ends at the gallows at Montfaucon. We also get two trial scenes, a scene of the pillory, a scene of the gallows, a scene of torture, and a few scenes of prisons— including a horrific closed-up box—thrown in for good measure.
Justice—or should we say "justice"?—is all over the place in this novel, and it's not given a very flattering portrait. The medieval French justice system, as Hugo portrays it, is lazy, inept, ineffective, cruel, and run by flippant people who are more interested in getting to supper on time than in administering actual justice. Not surprisingly, most of our characters don't fare so well within this justice system.
Is Hugo criticizing medieval justice alone, or he is he drawing our attention to issues that never really go away? Questions About Justice
1. What do you think the novel is criticizing about the justice system? Is it saying something about the medieval justice system specifically? Is it saying something about the current one? Is it saying something about justice in general?
2. Why do you think that justice plays such a big part in this novel?
3. Which characters don't suffer at the hands of justice? Do they have anything in common? Which characters suffer the most?
4. Is there some sort of "divine justice" in the novel? In other words, the legal system aside, do any of the bad characters get their comeuppance, and do the good characters get their reward? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. The novel criticizes a justice system that is all too happy to torture, imprison, and execute people for pretty much any reason.
The novel criticizes a justice system that is run by people who are more concerned with their statuses than with actual justice. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE- DAME THEME OF THE SUPERNATURAL
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NEXT In case you haven't picked up on it, people in the Middle Ages could be pretty superstitious. Satanic goats, baby- eating, coins turning into leaves, some guy named "Beelzebub"… people sure were imaginative back then.
Most of this superstition is attached fears about the gypsies in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The gypsies aren't actually practicing all that witchcraft; everyone just thinks they are. The gypsies (along with Quasimodo) are what you'd call "the Other" in the story, meaning that they are viewed as exotic outsiders whose customs are seen as weird and different by your average Jacques in French society.
But hey, here's a thought: it's the two Other characters, Quasimodo and Esmeralda, who are the only really good characters in the novel. What does this tell us about the society Hugo depicts? Questions About The Supernatural
1. What is the narrator's attitude towards the characters' general belief in witchcraft? How can you tell?
2. Why do you think sorcery keeps coming up in Esmeralda's trial?
3. Why is Frollo convinced that Esmeralda is a witch? Or do you think he doesn't believe that she's a witch and is just using that as an excuse?
4. Why do the characters in the novel attribute all that supernatural stuff to the gypsies? Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate. The supernatural is used to demonize a particular group of people in the novel.
The supernatural is a convenient way for the justice system to prove people guilty in the novel.