The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

• Pierre Gringoire: Timid and struggling poet who later finds himself in the Court of Miracles.
• Quasimodo: The deformed protagonist of the novel. The bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral as well, and is under the care of Claude Frollo.
• Claude Frollo: Archdeacon in charge of Quasimodo (he made it his duty to do so) and who lives in an underground room in the cathedral. He falls for Esmeralda.
• La Esmeralda: Beautiful gypsy dancer who is very kind and compassionate. In contrast to other gypsies at the time, she does not tell fortunes or does anything really out of the ordinary, except sing and dance beautifully. She goes around with her goat, Djali.
• Phoebus: Saves Esmeralda from her plight and later forms a relationship between her, but falls victim to Frollo's plan.
• Jehan Frollo: Claude Frollo's younger and spoiled brother. He always asks Claude for more money and is a continual disappointment to Claude.
• Paquette: Young girl who gives birth to a child and loses her to gypsies
• Clopin Trouillefou: Clopin disrupts Gringoire's play and later turns out to be not just a simple beggar, but "King" of the vagabonds. He tries to save La Esmerelda from being hanged but Quasimodo thinks that Clopin is trying to kill her.
• Gervaise: One of the books greatly influenced me. Each page - a new discovery of talent of the author.
• Djali: La Esmerelda's goat. Djali can perform magic tricks and spell the name Phoebus out of a group of letters. At La Esmerelda's trial Djali is accused of being possessed by the devil.
• Oudarde: Add a description of this character.
• Parvis: The name of the Place in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
• Mahiette: Woman who goes to visit a holy woman
• Jacques Charmolue: The King's arbiter for ecclesiastical affairs.
• Guillaume Rym: A Flemish representative.
• Tourangeau
• Henriet Cousin
• Master Jacques: The King's arbiter in ecclesiastical affairs; he is involved with Dom Claude Frollo in his search for gold.
• Robin Poussepain
• Gisquette
• Jacques Coictier
• Master Coppenole: A Flemish representative and a hosier; he introduces the feast of fools to the populace of Paris.
• Tristan
• Eustache: Mahiette's son
• Master Olivier
• Gudule: The sacked nun, she hides herself in a cell known as the 'rat-hole' to make up for her mental agitation at the loss of her daughter.
• Lienarde
• Charles
• Musnier
• Master Florian Barbedienne: The deaf judge who condemns Quasimodo to torture.
• Berangere
• Colombe
• Porte Saint-denis: One of the bridges connecting the islands of Paris - the university on the left bank, the town on the right, and Notre Dame in the middle.
• Pierrat Torterue: The King's head torturer in criminal trials.
• Olivier Le Daim
• Marc Cenaine

Quotes edit see section history

• “...nothing is so conducive to reverie as following a pretty girl without knowing where she is going.”

• “Each particle of water in the gutter carried away a particle of heat from him and the equilibrium between the temperature of his body and the temperature of the gutter was beginning to establish itself in a merciless way.”

• “"Oh, love!" she said. Her voice trembled and her eyes sparkled. "It's being two and yet being only one. A man and a woman fused into an angel. It's heaven!"”

• “"Jehan, you must think seriously of redeeming yourself. You're on a slippery downward path; do you know where you're going?""Yes, to the tavern.""The tavern leads to the pillory.""It's as good a guide as any.""The pillory leads to the scaffold.""The scaffold is a balance which has a man at one end and the whole world at the other; it's a fine thing to be a man.""The scaffold leads to hell.""At least it's warm down there."”

• “"First I loved women, then animals and now I love stones. They're just as amusing as women and animals and they're much less treacherous."”

• “I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

• “When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.”

• “That's life," said the philosopher each time he was almost laid prostrate, "it's often our best friends who make us fall.”

  Pierre Gringoire

• “"Ah!" said he, "how cheerfully I would drown myself if the water were not so cold!"”

  Pierre Gringoire

• “"Race précieuse et jamais interrompue de philosophes auxquels la sagesse, comme une autre Ariane, semble avoir donné une pelote de fil qu'ils s'en vont dévidant depuis le commencement du monde à travers le labyrinthe des choses humaines. On les retrouve dans tous les temps, toujours les mêmes, c'est-à-dire toujours selon tous les temps." - "Nòi giống quý báu và không bao giờ đứt đoạn của những triết gia, đã được sự khôn ngoan, giống như một Arian khác trao cho cuộn chỉ để họ tháo gỡ từ buổi khai thiên lập địa mà đi qua mê cung của nhân tình thế thái. Thời nào cũng gặp lại họ, bao giờ họ cũng giống nhau, nghĩa là luôn luôn gặp, tùy theo mỗi thời."”

  Victor Hugo

• “Than ôi! Bọn triết gia nghèo khổ chúng ta, nếu đem so sánh với một nguyên soái, chẳng khác gì luống cải bắp và su hào bên cạnh vườn ngự uyển ở điện Luvrơ. Dù sao cũng bất cần! Cuộc sống con người đối với ông lớn cũng như với chúng ta, đều lẫn lộn cả tốt và xấu. Nỗi khổ luôn ở cạnh niềm vui, câu thơ vế dài cạnh câu thơ vế ngắn.”

  Pierre Gringoire

• “- Có gì mà thày phải bám chặt lấy cuộc sống như vậy?- Ồ! Có hàng ngàn lý do!- Xin cho biết những lý do nào?- Những lý do nào ư? Không khí, bầu trời, buổi sáng, buổi chiều, đêm trăng, lũ bạn ăn mày tốt bụng, những vụ cãi vã với gái điếm, các kiến trúc đẹp thành Pari cần nghiên cứu, ba cuốn sách lớn phải viết xong, trong số đó một cuốn chống giám mục và các cối xay lúa của y, còn bao nhiêu thứ nữa, kể sao cho xiết? Triết gia Anaxagôra từng nói ông ta sinh ra ở đời để ngắm mặt trời. Vả lại, tôi được cái may mắn suốt ngày từ sớm đến tối cùng chung sống với một thiên tài là tôi đây, như vậy quả dễ chịu lắm rồi.”

  Claude Frollo & Piere Gringoire

• “Nỗi đau quá độ cũng như niềm vui quá độ là những thứ mãnh liệt không thể kéo dài. Trái tim con người chẳng thể dừng mãi ở một cực điểm.”

  Victor Hugo

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Notre-dame: The cathedral
• France
• Rheims
• Montfaucon
• Rome
• Chatelet
• Ghent
• Thunes
• Saint-martin
• Terrain
• Pont Saint-michel
• Great Hall
• Greece
• Saint-germain
• Tower Of Roland
• Bohemia
• Europe
• Sicily

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The Cathedral: Notre Dame is the geographical and moral center of Hugo's fictional Paris. The French title of the novel is Notre Dame de Paris, emphasizing Notre Dame's role as a symbol of the city. Not only does most of the novel's action unfold inside or around the cathedral, but from the top of its towers, Claude Frollo and Quasimodo can spy on virtually anyone in the entire city. Architecturally, Notre Dame is an "amalgamation" that mirrors Quasimodo's own deformities. Indeed, at the time Hugo was writing, Notre Dame was falling apart and there was very little respect for its architecture. Nothing had been done to repair the damage done to it during the French Revolution. However, the Romantic literary movement seized upon the cathedral as a symbol of France's glorious Christian past. For example, in Eugène Delacroix's famous depiction of the 1830 Revolution, Liberty Guiding the People, the two towers of Notre Dame can be seen in the background, evoking the mythic presence of Paris. Hugo greatly admired this painting, and strove to represent Notre Dame as the cultural and political center of Paris. In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo describes the cathedral as a "chimera" that represents all of France. Its mix of architectural styles and the scars of ages past are not the works of an individual but "social works" and the "offspring of the nation." Notre Dame is a symbol of national unity. Time was its architect, and the entire country its mason. At the Romantics' urging, Parisians gradually came to see Notre Dame as a national monument and symbol of France. By 1845, a massive restoration program of Notre Dame began.
• Sweet Villain: Claude Frollo is not an average antagonist bent on causing pain and suffering. In fact, he is very bright and compassionate. He dearly loves his brother, Jehan, and does everything in his power to make Jehan happy after their parents die. He extends the same compassion to Quasimodo, whom he tries to mold into a scholar like his brother by teaching him how to read and write. Hugo explains Frollo's descent into black magic through his failure to bring up both Jehan and Quasimodo. Jehan drinks and gambles all his money away, completely neglecting his studies, while Quasimodo's deafness makes it virtually impossible to teach him anything. The hunchback's complete devotion to Frollo becomes both a symbol of Frollo's failure as a "father," and a powerful tool of vengeance to wreak his frustrations on the world. Moreover, his supposed hatred of women is a desperate attempt to mask his infatuation with La Esmerelda. Indeed, despite Frollo's heinous deeds, the emotions driving him to such extremes are quite tragic. From Jehan's poor behavior to La Esmerelda's disgust and fear of the "goblin-monk," Frollo suffers a broken heart and the pangs of unrequited love, just as La Esmerelda does for Phoebus and Quasimodo does for La Esmerelda. Like these two, Frollo is also an orphan, which urges the reader to both compare him to the novel's two victims as well as feel sympathy for him.
• Fatality: Claude Frollo has rejected God and believes only in fatality. This recurrent theme dominates The Hunchback of Notre Dame, especially in the scene where Frollo watches a fly get caught in a spider's web. Many characters in the novel do not believe in free will. For example, when Pierre Gringoire follows La Esmerelda he "resigns his free will" and accepts any direction that she chooses. Similarly, Frollo believes that all actions have been predetermined and that nothing can stop him from catching La Esmerelda. Just as the fly is bound to get caught in the spider's web, he thinks that she is bound to fall into one of his traps. He thus uses this example of "fatality" to justify his actions since nothing he or anyone else can do will change the predetermined outcome. As he warns his associate, one should never "meddle with fatality."In effect, when Frollo later accosts La Esmerelda in the dungeon of the Palace of Justice, he insists that it was never his intention to fall in love with her nor harm her in any way, but he "felt the hand of Fate" upon him. He then insists that "Fate proved more mighty than I… it was Fate that caught thee, and threw thee among the terrible works of the machine which I had secretly constructed." Hugo acknowledges that fate plays a powerful role in the novel, but implies that free will is possible. Hugo suggests that Frollo's deterministic attitude and resignation of free will is what allows him to become such a horrible person. Hugo suggests that we must all exercise our free will to retain our sense of morality and the responsibility for our actions.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Victor Hugo (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Diana Stewart
2. Marc Cerasini
3. Julie Christie
4. Michael Teitelbaum
5. Tim Wynne-Jones - Wrote a picture book retelling of Victor Hugo's classic

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PQ2288 .A31
• Dewey: 843.7

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( H ) › Hugo, Victor
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Project Gutenberg: Free e-book
• Librivox: Free audio book read by Mark Nelson (Total running time: 21:50:33)

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (IMDb): 1996
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (IMDb): 1939
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (IMDb): 1923
• The Hunchback (TV 1997) (IMDb): Starring Mandy Patinkin, Richard Harris, and Salma Hayek
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (IMDb): 1956

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history