De Luna, Gretchen R.

De Roxas, Stephanie Jane P.

Lope, Ryan Rusty V.
III-AMA
European Literature, French Literature:
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Victor Hugo

Authors Background:
Victor Hugo began writing Notre-Dame de Paris in 1829, largely to make his
contemporaries more aware of the value of the Gothic architecture, which was neglected and
often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings, or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings
in a newer style. For instance, the medieval stained glass panels of Notre-Dame de Paris had
been replaced by white glass to let more light into the church.[2] This explains the large
descriptive sections of the book, which far exceed the requirements of the story. A few years
earlier, Hugo had already published a paper entitled Guerre aux Dmolisseurs (War to the
Demolishers) specifically aimed at saving Paris' medieval architecture.[3] The agreement with
his original publisher, Gosselin, was that the book would be finished that same year, but Hugo
was constantly delayed due to the demands of other projects. In the summer of 1830 Gosselin
demanded that Hugo complete the book by February 1831. Beginning in September 1830, Hugo
worked nonstop on the project thereafter. The book was finished six months later.

Summary:
During the 1482 Festival of Fools in Paris, Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, is
elected the Pope of Fools for being the ugliest person in Paris. He is hoisted on a throne and
paraded around Paris by the jeering mob. Pierre Gringoire, a struggling poet and philosopher,
tries unsuccessfully to get the crowd to watch his play instead of the parade. Archdeacon Claude
Frollo appears and stops the parade and orders Quasimodo back to Notre Dame with him.
Looking for something to eat, Gringoire admires the graceful beauty of La Esmerelda, a gypsy
street dancer, and decides to follow her home. After rounding a corner, she is suddenly attacked
by Quasimodo and Frollo. Gringoire rushes to help her but is knocked out by Quasimodo as

Frollo runs away. The King's Archers, led by Phoebus de Chateaupers arrive just in time and
capture the hunchback. Later that night, a group of beggars and thieves are about to hang
Gringoire when La Esmerelda comes forward and offers to save his life by "marrying" him for
four years only.

The next day, Quasimodo is put on trial and sentenced to two hours of torture in the Place
de Grve. He suffers both the pain of being stretched and pulled apart as well as being publicly
humiliated by the crowd of people, who hate him for his ugliness. He begs for water, but no one
answers his pleas until La Esmerelda comes forth and brings him something to drink. Nearby, a
recluse called Sister Gudule, screams at La Esmerelda for being a "gypsy child- thief" and
blames her for her daughter's kidnapping fifteen years earlier. A few months later, La Esmerelda
is dancing in front of Notre Dame and Phoebus calls her over to him. She has fallen in love with
him and blushes when he asks her to meet him later that night. Frollo watches them from the top
of Notre Dame and becomes insanely jealous of Phoebus. His obsessive lust for La Esmerelda
has made him renounce God and study alchemy and black magic. In his secret cell at Notre
Dame, he plans to trap La Esmerelda like a spider catching a fly with its web. Later that night he
follows Phoebus to his tryst with La Esmerelda and stabs Phoebus repeatedly. He escapes and La
Esmerelda is captured by the King's guard. After being tortured at her trial, La Esmerelda falsely
confesses to killing Phoebus and being a witch. She is sentenced to hang in the Place de Grve.
Frollo visits her in jail and declares his love. He begs her to love him and show him some pity
but she calls him a "goblin-monk" and a murderer, refusing to have anything to do with him.
Before her execution, La Esmerelda is publicly humiliated in front of Notre Dame. Looking
across the square, she suddenly sees Phoebus and calls out his name. He actually survived the
murder attempt but doesn't want anyone to know that he was injured. He turns away from La
Esmerelda and enters the house of his bride-to-be. Just then, Quasimodo swings down on a rope
from Notre Dame and carries her back to the cathedral, crying out "Sanctuary!" He had fallen in
love with her when she brought him water and had been planning her escape all along.

La Esmerelda is safe from execution just as long as she stays inside the cathedral. At first,
she finds it hard to even look at Quasimodo, but they form an uneasy friendship. Even though he
is deaf, he enjoys being around her when she sings. Meanwhile, a group of vagabonds resolves to
save La Esmerelda after hearing that Parliament has ordered that she be removed from Notre
Dame. But when Quasimodo sees them attack the cathedral, he thinks they have come to kill La
Esmerelda and he fends them off as best he can, killing a large number of them. Frollo has used
the attack as a diversion to sneak La Esmerelda out of the cathedral. He offers her two choices:

she can either say she loves him or be hanged. She demands to be executed and he leaves her
with Sister Gudule. To their astonishment, they discover that they are mother and daughter.
Gudule tries to protect La Esmerelda, but it is too late. Back at Notre Dame, Quasimodo goes to
the top of the north tower to find her. Gazing off into the distance, he sees the figure of La
Esmerelda in a white dress hanging from the scaffold. He bellows out in despair and grabs Frollo
by the neck. Holding him up in the air, Quasimodo sighs with grief and then throws Frollo down
to his death. Looking at La Esmerelda hanging off in the distance and Frollo's wrangled corpse
down below, Quasimodo cries out: "There is everything I ever loved!" Quasimodo is never seen
again. Years later when a gravedigger stumbles across La Esmerelda's remains, he finds the
skeleton of a hunchback curled around her.

Content-Analysis:

Setting:
The story is set in Paris, France in the Late Middle Ages, during the reign of Louis XI.

Literary Characteristics:
Historical Fiction
Romanticism
Tragedy

Characters:
Pierre Gringoire: An aspiring poet and playwright with a sunny disposition and nothing
to his name but he clothes on his back.

Quasimdodo: The maligned and misunderstood hunchback bell ringer of Notre Dame
whose terrible ugliness and deformities mask a good-hearted soul.

Claude Frollo: The Archdeacon of Notre Dame, Claude Frollo was from his youth a
dedicated scholar of a serious character. He develops an intense passion for Esmeralda.

La Esmeralda: A beautiful orphan girl raised by gypsies of about 16 years of age. Her
public dancing attracts the attention of Claude Frollo. Esmeralda falls in love with
Captain Phoebus.

Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers: A young soldier of noble birth but poor means,
Phoebus rescues Esmeralda from Quasimodo and earns the young girl's love.

Sister Gudule: The current occupant of the cell in the Tour-Roland, this woman remains
in a posture of abject sorrow, pining for her infant daughter stolen by gypsies fifteen
years prior. She has a deep hatred of gypsies and discovers too late that Esmeralda, the
gypsy she hates the most, is her long lost daughter.

Jehan Frollo: Claude Frollo's young brother.

Conflict:
Man vs. Man. When Quasimodo tried to save La Esmeralda by fighting the mob
of gypsies and later kills Claude Frollo, who is responsible for La Esmeralda
disappearance.
Man vs. Society. Anyone who committed mistakes are put on trial and sentenced
to two hours of torture in the Place de Grve. Also suffers both the pain of being
stretched and pulled apart as well as being publicly humiliated by the crowd of
people.

Point of View:
Like most of Victor Hugo stories The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is told by an
omniscient third-person narrator, while he is clearly the writer of the novel, is also
a character as well.

 Theme:
Appearances- 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 Phbus is noble and heroic because he's hotter than Johnny Depp in the desert
Love- their 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
Phbus, Frollo's love for Esmeralda, Gringoire's love for Djali it's like a love
hexagon.
Fate- 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.
Suffering- 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 Sister Gudule losing her baby
daughter, or Quasimodo being pelted with rocks on the pillory, or Esmeralda being
tortured and hanged.
Lust- 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 Phbus is also a pretty lusty character). Frollo's lust makes him jealous,
possessive, evil, and violentyet 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.
Time- is not on anyone's side in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Time wears history
away, it wipes away peoples' existences, and it leads to inevitable decay and change.
Supernatural- 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.
Loyalty- Quasimodo's intense loyalty to Claude Frollo initially prevents the
hunchback from perceiving his master's madness and when he does understand

following Frollo's attempted rape of Esmeralda, Quasimodo is powerless to harm

him. In the end, however, the loyalty Quasimodo feels to Esmeralda (the only other
person besides Frollo to show him kindness) trumps his loyalty to his master and he
pushes Frollo from the parapet to his death. Many of the characters are bound to
someone or something by loyalty and the instances where they break that tie figure
prominently in the story.
Cultural Evolution- Victor Hugo delivers several discourses upon the manner in
which mankind has transmitted ideas from one age to another. He draws a sharp
delineation between the ancient epochs during which man's ideas were literally
carved into stone and the increasingly modern trend to inscribe those ideas upon the
pages of books. The setting for the novel is during the transitional period of the late
middle ages and Hugo uses the innovations of the time, most importantly the printing
press, to highlight the changing tastes of society.

Message:
One shouldnt judge people by their appearance
Try to find the beauty of his attributes
Exercise sense of morality
Responsibility of actions