In “Hop-Frog,” court jester Hop-Frog and fellow servant Trippetta severely punish their cruel king. The king has essentially enslaved the two of them, and he uses them for his cruel amusement. For instance, he forces Hop-Frog to drink copious amounts of wine, even though drinking alcohol makes Hop-Frog feel distressed and almost crazed. When Trippetta tries to stand up for Hop-Frog in this situation, the king pushes her and tosses his own drink on her. Following these acts, Hop-Frog plots violent revenge on the king that reflects the tyrant’s own sadism: after tricking the king and his abetting ministers into performing a masquerade act that involves them being chained together, Hop-Frog and Trippetta burn the group alive.
Ironically, Hop-Frog and Trippetta are implied to otherwise be calm and good-natured: up until this point, they dutifully accept their tasks as slaves. Hop-Frog is resigned to his abuse, responding to the king’s questions and requests in an aloof manner. But when the king strikes Trippetta, whom Hop-Frog deeply cares for, Hop-Frog decides to punish his tormentors—a decision that’s signified by the previously unheard sound of Hop-Frog grinding his teeth. In this sense, a specific act of cruelty provokes the two servants to seek retribution, even though they aren’t naturally inclined toward violence. The resulting reckoning of the king is extremely brutal—perhaps even disproportionate in harshness to his cruel deeds. By illustrating this striking turn of events, the story suggests that there are inevitable consequences for cruelty: wicked deeds tend to provoke violent reciprocation, sometimes even from people who might otherwise be kind and mild-mannered. In this sense, the story also cautions against underestimating seemingly meek, subservient people.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Cruelty and Comeuppance ThemeTracker
Cruelty and Comeuppance Quotes in Hop-Frog
I NEVER knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor.
About the refinements, or, as he called them, the 'ghost' of wit, the king troubled himself very little. […] Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais' 'Gargantua' to the 'Zadig' of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited his taste far better than verbal ones.
It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his 'absent friends' forced the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.
‘Ah! ha! ha!’ roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. – ‘See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!’
Hop-Frog also laughed although feebly and somewhat vacantly. […]
"I am endeavoring to think of something novel," replied the dwarf, abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.”
Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to object to any one's laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as much wine as desired.
Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and, of course, in immediate contact with the chain. […] The dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend[.]
“I now see distinctly” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,--a king who does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester--and this is my last jest.”
