The Hunchback Of Notre.docx

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME THEME OF APPEARANCES ou'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 "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. 2. 3. 4.

Do you think this novel is actually all about love? What's the difference between love and lust in this novel? Is there a difference? Does love have a strict definition in this novel? 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 et'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 Pretty much nothing goes right for our main characters in The Hunchback of NotreDame, 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 We're gonna level with you, folks: sex is a major player in The Hunchback of NotreDame. 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 JUSTICE he 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 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 NotreDame. 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

ANALYSIS: PLOT ANALYSIS Exposition (Initial Situation): Meet the Players In most stories, we expect to meet the important people right away, but in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, there are quite a few important people—and it's not immediately apparent how they're all related. The episode with Pierre Gringoire going to the Cour des Miracles and marrying Esmeralda helps line up all of the players and show us their roles. In Book II, we get some backstory that also gives us a sense of who's who and what everyone's motivations are. In fact, all the way up until Book V, we're still being shown insights into the characters' lives before we get back to the actual meat of the plot.

Rising Action (Conflict, Complication): Trouble In Parisdise Come Book VI, we're back in the year 1482. Now we get a sense of where things are headed: Quasimodo is publicly humiliated, the old Sack Woman is crazy, everyone wants to get into Esmeralda's pants… you know, typical drama. All of these events end up being related, and they move the plot forward to Phœbus's stabbing, Esmeralda's imprisonment and condemnation, and her rescue by Quasimodo.

Climax (Crisis, Turning Point): What Happened to That Whole "Sanctuary" Thing? All of these events set us up for the climax. This is when things start to get really messy in front of Notre-Dame. Remember how the Tramps attack in Book X? Think of that as the moment when things finally boil over and the tension hits its absolute peak. A lot of people are going to die, and fate is going to finally run its course and do all the things we've been waiting for it to do. When Esmeralda and Frollo meet their deaths, we know the story can't go on much longer.

Falling Action: Not Everyone Dies… Right? Now, the novel doesn't just end right there. After all, Esmeralda and Frollo aren't everything, right? Victor Hugo treats us to a "What happens to the other characters?" section in Book XI. It's like a moment to re-group after all of that tension.

Resolution (Denouement): Not a Disney Ending

But of course, you can't just end a novel with side characters, either. We need to know what happens to our other main character, Quasimodo, and we need some closure with the major plot. This comes later in Book XI, when we see Quasimodo and Esmeralda "wedded" together.

ANALYSIS: TRIVIA Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge The novel isn't actually called The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in French. It's NotreDame de Paris, or simply "Notre-Dame of Paris" (source). "Notre Dame" means "Our Lady," as in the Virgin Mary. It's pronounced "No-trah Dahm." Not "Noter Dame." This isn't college football. Since its publication, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame has been adapted to film, television, theater, opera, and ballet multiple times over (source).

ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH THE ENDING? The very last chapter of the novel is called "The Marriage of Quasimodo," and the very last image of the book is the skeletons of Quasimodo and Esmeralda (conveniently still in her white dress) locked in an embrace. The ugly and the beautiful, together at last. What a happy ending, right? Okay, not really. For those of you who are wondering, the message is not "beauty is on the inside." Remember, Esmeralda never gets over her aversion to Quasimodo; to the very end, she's all about the svelte physique of Phœbus. After all, this is a novel about appearances and how they matter, like, a lot(check out our "Themes" section for more). Quasimodo, frankly, doesn't have a chance. But it's no coincidence that the final image is of the ugliest character next to the most beautiful character. The fact is, the only way Quasimodo and Esmeralda could ever be together is in death, when appearances cease to matter. Pretty morbid, huh? But the end of the book actually goes beyond appearances. Let's look at another big theme here: the idea of temporality. Remember how Book V.II was all about how the

printing press will kill the cathedral because printed books can endure through history better than even a building can? While you're at it, take a look this passage from the Author's Preface: The man who wrote this word on the wall disappeared man centuries ago, the word in its turn has disappeared from the wall of the church, the church itself will perhaps soon disappear from the face of the earth. The widely printed novel may be more permanent than a stone edifice, but both are more permanent than the human body. You see, human histories are pretty frail objects. Once a person dies, all that might remain of his or her life are some graffiti they once etched onto a cathedral wall. But the novel itself is like a cathedral: it makes an individual's story permanent. Quasimodo's skeleton might fall to dust, but his novel survives. It's his cathedral. 