Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hop-Frog, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cruelty and Comeuppance
Subversion, Jest, and Trickery
Physique and Character
Summary
Analysis
The story’s narrator describes a king who is unusually fond of jokes. The king seems to live only to perform jokes, and because of this, his seven ministers are accomplished jokers too. They, like the king, are “large, corpulent, oily men.” (The narrator observes that jokers are often fat.) The king’s humor is vulgar and unrefined, and he prefers practical jokes to verbal ones. At his court, he has a “fool” (jester) named Hop-Frog, who is both crippled and a dwarf. The king delights at the fact that Hop-Frog has deformities, as he can laugh at both Hop-Frog’s features and his witticisms.
The story is, from its first lines, quite fanciful—it concerns a comically fat king who lives only to make jokes. The potentially unreliable narrator relates many details of the king’s appearance and personality, heightening both the extravagance and fairy-tale-like quality of the story. The first lines of the story also suggest the thematic centrality of cruelty; the narrator describes the king’s twisted enjoyment of the jester Hop-Frog’s deformities, unambiguously characterizing him as a twisted tyrant. They also establish the story’s emphasis on the relationship between physique and character—that is, a person’s physique is an indication of their character (like the fat king’s love of jokes) and can also impact others’ treatment of them (like Hop-Frog’s deformities).
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Hop-Frog received his name as a result of his inability to move around normally: in order to walk, he must perform a movement that resembles both a leap and a wiggle. His strained movements endlessly entertain the king. Though Hop-Frog’s legs are underdeveloped, his arms have sizable muscles and considerable strength. The narrator observes that Hop-Frog’s immense dexterity makes him resemble a monkey or squirrel (far more than any frog) when he climbs trees or ropes.
The narrator describes Hop-Frog’s physique at length: both the distinctive movement Hop-Frog must perform due to his lower body’s deformity, and the immense potential of the jester’s upper body. These are further examples of the story’s emphasis on the impact of physique on behavior. In this passage in particular, the narrator emphasizes that, though Hop-Frog’s lower limbs are feeble, his upper body gives him considerable adaptability while climbing, a conspicuous observation that foreshadows the jester’s future actions.
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The narrator doesn’t know exactly where Hop-Frog came from. One of the king’s victorious generals forcibly carried him off from a distant region and sent him to the king. A young dancing girl from an adjacent province named Trippetta was sent along with him as an additional gift. The two captives quickly became sworn friends. Due to her beauty and grace, Trippetta has great influence in the court and uses her power to benefit Hop-Frog when she can. Hop-Frog, by contrast, has no power to help Trippetta.
The narration reinforces the story’s fanciful tone here. The story ostensibly takes place in an odd country which conquers distant neighbors and sends back curiosities as spoils. The narrator again emphasizes the determining role of physique on one’s character, noting the differing influences that Hop-Frog and Trippetta have and explaining it in terms of physique: Hop-Frog is a deformed dwarf and has little influence despite his frequent courtly activity, while Trippetta is a beautiful dancer and wields considerable influence as a result.
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The king plans an elaborate masquerade for a grand state occasion. Hop-Frog has a talent for inventing characters and arranging costumes, so he assists greatly with such events. On the night of the occasion, Trippetta has elaborately decorated a hall. Everyone has decided on their costumes, apart from the king and his ministers, who can’t decide. They send for Hop-Frog and Trippetta as a last resort.
The elaborateness nature of the masquerade and the king’s preoccupation with a suitable costume demonstrate the king’s preoccupation with fun and jests. It appears these are the defining feature of his governance of the kingdom.
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The king is in a bad mood and, as a practical joke, forces Hop-Frog to drink wine. Hop-Frog is overwhelmed almost to the point of madness when he drinks, and the king takes pleasure in observing his discomfort. The king tells him to drink to his “absent friends,” causing him to cry as he grabs a goblet from the king. The king’s ministers laugh at Hop-Frog once he drinks, joking that his eyes are shining with inspiration.
The precise nature of the king’s cruel humor is demonstrated in this passage. The king’s sense of humor is sadistic; he cheers himself up by watching his servant become more and more uncomfortable. This characterization makes the king quite unsympathetic, while readers are encouraged to sympathize with the suffering Hop-Frog.
Themes
The king asks the maddened Hop-Frog to assist him in creating characters for the masquerade. Hop-Frog, confused because he’s drunk, doesn’t make a suggestion immediately. The king is angered and tells Hop-Frog to drink more, joking that he is “sulky” and must want more wine. Hop-Frog hesitates to drink, enraging the king, who then threatens him. But before Hop-Frog can be forced to drink more, Trippetta advances to the king’s seat and begs him to spare Hop-Frog.
The king doubling down on his practical jokes reinforces his sadistic characterization. Yet, despite the king’s unforgivably abusive behavior, Hop-Frog responds calmly and without anger, as though the king’s behavior is hardly affecting him. Perhaps Hop-Frog is lucid enough to refuse to give the king the satisfaction of an angry response. Regardless of Hop-Frog’s exact motives, his behavior suggests his inner poise—and hints that he's got something up his sleeve.
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Trippetta’s audacity stuns the king. He’s briefly at a loss as to what he should do, but then he violently pushes her back and tosses the contents of his goblet at her. Trippetta withdraws and resumes her position at the foot of the table. There is then dead silence in the room for half a minute. Suddenly, a harsh and prolonged grating noise seems to come from every corner of the room. The king is alarmed and asks Hop-Frog why he is making that sound, but the jester quickly responds that it could not have been him.
The king’s response to Trippetta’s act is revealing; whereas his cruelty usually takes a joking form, his violence toward Trippetta shows that there is genuine rage underneath. The harsh grating noise is a strange detail—at this point, it’s not clear where the noise came from, but it seems to be associated with Hop-Frog—and it’s notable that everyone hears the noise right after the king mistreats Trippetta. These points will come up again later.
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A minister suggests that the noise came from a parrot outside the room. Hop-Frog laughs at the king’s suggestion that it could have been the grinding of his teeth. He then says he’s willing to swallow as much wine as the king wants, which pacifies the king. Beginning to plan for the masquerade, Hop-Frog says that just as the king threw Trippetta to the ground, he remembered a group act that people in his home country used to do at masquerades. It requires a company of eight people, he explains, and is called the “Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs.”
The shift in Hop-Frog’s attitude during this passage is profound. Before the prolonged silence and the grating noise, Hop-Frog acted reservedly. But in this passage, Hop-Frog laughs and spiritedly appeases the king. The contrast between Hop-Frog’s behavior before and after the incident with Trippetta suggests that the confrontation was a significant, perspective-altering event. The claim that Hop-Frog conceived of his masquerade act while the king threw Trippetta to the ground sounds far-fetched. At this point, readers should suspect that Hop-Frog is up to something.
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The king delights at the apparent coincidence that the act is for eight people, and that he with his group of ministers is a group of eight. He gleefully agrees to enact it. Hop-Frog explains that the act will frighten women (which makes the king roar in approval) and that he’ll dress up the king and the minsters as “ourang-outangs” (orangutans) who have escaped from their keepers. Disguised as apes, they’ll rush into the hall and disrupt the masquerade with “savage cries” and the sounds of their jangling chains. The group moves at once to execute Hop-Frog’s scheme.
Hop-Frog clearly aims to appeal to the king’s unsophisticated sensibilities with his ad-hoc and rather strange scheme—he explains that the act will be wild and frighten women. The king seems to completely trust his jester’s scheme, despite Hop-Frog’s disobedience only moments before this conversation. This trust, combined with the oddness of the scheme (and the fact that it just happens to be tailored to a group of eight), suggests that the king isn’t very bright.
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Hop-Frog equips the group with tight-fitting garments, which are then saturated with tar. He insists on covering the layer of tar with flax instead of feathers, in order to represent the beasts’ hair. Finally, he ties a long chain around the king’s waist and chains him to an adjacent minister, before doing the same with this minister, the next minister, and the rest of the group. He has the group stand as far apart from one another as they can, creating a circle, and passes the chain across them in two diameters forming right angles. (The narrator notes that this chaining method is how chimpanzees and other large apes are captured at the time.)
Hop-Frog intervenes during the preparation to ensure two main things: first, he makes sure that the costumes use flax, overruling a minister’s suggestion that they use feathers. Second, he assumes responsibility for the arranging of the costumes’ chains, preventing the king and his ministers from haphazardly tying themselves together. Given Hop-Frog’s careful involvement with these two elements of preparation, readers should suspect that he has a specific outcome in mind. The third person limited point of view reinforces this suspense, as readers aren’t given access to Hop-Frog’s thinking.
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At Hop-Frog’s suggestion, Trippetta removes the chandelier that normally illuminates the hall, as its waxen drippings could damage the guests’ clothes. Counterbalanced by some other weight outside the room, it normally hangs from a chain that descends from a skylight. The king and ministers, dressed as orangutans, wait until midnight before rushing into the hall. They terrify the guests, tricking many into thinking that they are truly ferocious beasts of some sort. Many people try to flee from the room, but the king already ordered the doors to be locked and gave the keys to Hop-Frog.
The king presumably had the doors locked on Hop-Frog’s instruction, given how closely the jester has been involved with the act’s planning. The removal of the chandelier and the conspicuousness of the skylight-chain suggest that there’s more to Hop-Frog’s scheme than he’s revealed to the king and ministers.
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During this commotion, the chain that normally holds the chandelier descends to three feet off the ground. The king and his ministers soon find themselves at the center of the hall, surrounded by a crowd. While encouraging the group to keep causing mayhem, Hop-Frog takes hold of the chain at the intersection of the two portions that span the chandelier’s diameter. He attaches the hook from the chandelier chain to this portion of the group’s chain. Then, an unseen force yanks the chandelier chain upward, pulling the group into a tight bundle.
The chaos in the hall has clearly been orchestrated by Hop-Frog. The commotion he’s stirred up serves as a distraction while he attaches the chandelier chain to the group’s own chain, and it also ensures that the king and ministers have a rapt audience. At this point, readers should be reminded of the king’s practical joke on Hop-Frog earlier in the story, when Hop-Frog was forced into a vulnerable position and humiliated in front of the king and his men.
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The guests recover from their alarm and begin to laugh at the orangutans’ predicament. Hop-Frog seizes a torch from a statue and announces that he will find out who they are, then jumps on top of the group and climbs a few feet above them. He holds the torch in front of the group, pretending to examine their features. He then produces a shrill whistle, and the chandelier chain is violently pulled upward again, leaving the eight masked men suspended in mid-air.
Hop-Frog’s unusual upper-body strength, hinted at earlier, comes into play as he climbs the chain. It’s evident that the spectacle is planned and not merely an opportunistic act, as Hop-Frog communicates with an accomplice who can respond to his signals. Hop-Frog has carefully plotted out this sequence of events, which first appears as a humorous practical joke. However, the violence with which the men are pulled upward, and their prolonged suspension in mid-air, suggest that this is more than a joke.
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The men’s ascent astonishes the guests so much that there is a minute’s silence. It is broken by the same grating noise that occurred previously. However, this time it’s clear that the sound is coming from Hop-Frog’s fang-like teeth. Glaring at the eight with a maniacal expression, Hop-Frog exclaims that he recognizes the people. Pretending to closely examine the group, he holds the torch close to their costumes, setting the flax on fire.
The extent of Hop-Frog’s resentment is revealed in this passage. He glares at the king and his ministers with unprecedented anger—in every previous episode, Hop-Frog has acted with composure. Shockingly, he sets fire to the group, an act which seems unthinkably brutal for a person who normally acts calmly and dutifully. It’s now clear that the king’s cruelty to Hop-Frog and Trippetta had a much greater effect on him than Hop-Frog ever let on, leading him to respond not simply with a joke in kind, but with a premeditated act of arguably greater cruelty.
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The group burns in a fierce blaze while the horrified guests stare and shriek. Hop-Frog climbs higher on the chain, so as to avoid the flames that are now spreading. The crowd once again falls silent. Hop-Frog seizes the opportunity to speak once more, stating that he now “sees distinctly” what sort of people the masked people were: they are a king who would strike a defenseless girl and ministers who would assist him in the act, he announces. He declares, furthermore, that he is Hop-Frog the jester, and that this is his final jest. By the end of his speech, the eight corpses are a black, indistinguishable mass. The jester hurls his torch down at them and disappears through the skylight. The narrator explains that Trippetta likely aided Hop-Frog from the roof, and that the two probably escaped back to their home country, as neither is seen again.
Hop-Frog seizes the opportunity to act theatrically in front of the audience. Instead of immediately evacuating after he sets fire to his victims, he chooses to announce the crimes of the king as well as his orchestration of the king’s and ministers’ deaths. He commits to the pretense of his practical joke until the very end; Hop-Frog announces repeatedly that he must examine the intruders closely in order to make out who they are before he reveals their identities and his motive. Given these choices, it seems that Hop-Frog intends for his brutal retaliation to be a public spectacle. He is committed to using jest as the vehicle for his subversion, because he wants to one-up the king’s cruel humor. In addition, it may be the case that retaliating with public trickery is cathartic for Hop-Frog: answering the king’s comedic sadism this way gives him closure before he and Trippetta escape to his homeland. Readers are left to decide if Hop-Frog’s revenge was proportional or not.
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