“Hop-Frog” is presented from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who claims to have witnessed the events described in the story firsthand. As the story unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the speaker of the story is an unreliable narrator whose perspective colors their narration in various ways. When the speaker describes “some grand state occasion,” for example, Poe’s writing emphasizes this unreliability:
On some grand state occasion—I forget what—the king determined to have a masquerade; and whenever a masquerade, or any thing of that kind, occurred at our court, then the talents both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costume, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance.
The speaker narrates the story as if recalling a half-forgotten event from the past, acknowledging—for example—that they “forget which” sort of event served as a backdrop to the king’s humiliation of Hop-Frog and abuse of Trippetta. This imprecise narrative style contributes to the folk-tale style of the story, emphasizing the role of storytelling. Other small details underscore the narrator’s apparently faulty memory, including their use phrases like “it seems,” which suggests that this narration is imprecise and approximate.
