Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gothic Architecture, History, and Art
Lust, Sin, and Misogyny
Appearances, Alienation, and Hypocrisy
Fate and Predestination
The Supernatural, Rationalism, and Knowledge
Justice, Punishment, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Quasimodo desperately searches Notre Dame for Esmeralda. Before Tristan found Esmeralda in the square, Quasimodo led him all over the church to try to find her. Quasimodo thinks that the truants are the ones who want to harm Esmeralda and he believes that the guards want to help her. Quasimodo would have accidentally betrayed her if she had not escaped with Gringoire and Frollo. When Tristan leaves, Quasimodo continues to search.
Quasimodo distrusts the people of Paris, like those who joined the riot, because they have always been cruel to him and ostracized him from society because of his deformed appearance. Therefore, Quasimodo believes that they also want to harm Esmeralda, since they have always been unkind to him.
Themes
When he can find no trace of Esmeralda, Quasimodo returns to her cell. He finds it still empty and, in a fit of rage and grief, he smashes his head against the wall and knocks himself unconscious. When he wakes up, he suddenly remembers Frollo’s attempt to rape Esmeralda. Quasimodo’s love and respect for Frollo grieve him and make him feel conflicted. He knows, however, that Frollo has a key to the tower where Esmeralda stayed.
Quasimodo knows that Frollo is sexually obsessed with Esmeralda and will go to any lengths to satisfy his lust for her, even if this means he must hurt her. In contrast, Quasimodo, who also loves Esmeralda, hurts himself because of his love for her. Again, it’s clear that outward appearances can often contrast sharply with inner virtue.
Themes
As he lies there, Quasimodo notices a figure that paces the aisle above him and looks out from the edge of the tower. It is Frollo. Frollo is extremely distracted and does not notice Quasimodo. Quasimodo climbs up the tower behind Frollo. Frollo is lost in thought and stares out across Paris, which looks beautiful as the sun rises. Quasimodo can see that Frollo’s eyes are fixed on one spot—the Place de Grève.
Notre Dame is the center of Paris in the novel and all parts of the city can be seen from its towers. This vivid image again reinforces the theme that Gothic architecture was a central aspect of life in the medieval period.
Themes
Quasimodo follows Frollo’s gaze and sees the hangman climb the ladder up to the gallows, carrying Esmeralda. Quasimodo watches her hang and, at that moment, Frollo lets out a terrible, satanic laugh. Quasimodo rushes at Frollo and shoves him from the tower. Frollo screams out “Damnation!” as he falls. His robe catches on a waterspout and he clings on with both hands. Quasimodo looks down at Frollo but ignores his pleas for help. Instead, Quasimodo stares at the gallows and weeps for Esmeralda.
Frollo believes that it was his destiny to kill Esmeralda and that, because events in human lives are predetermined by God, that there is nothing he could have done to change this. This has led Frollo to go to extreme lengths to persecute and kill Esmeralda—whom he was sexually obsessed with and whom he blamed for his sexual feelings. In a sense, Frollo’s fate plays out as he expects—he kills Esmeralda and falls, literally and morally. However, Frollo’s fate is a self-fulfilling prophecy because, as he believed he had no choice but to act in destructive ways, he missed countless opportunities to make things turn out differently.
Themes
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Frollo tries to hoist himself back onto the ledge via the waterspout. He struggles to cling on and stares around in horror at the stone roofs and pavements below and at the stone monsters on the wall, thinking that everything around him is stone. Finally, the spout gives way and Frollo plunges from the tower of Notre Dame. He lands on the roof of a house below, then slides off to the pavement. He is dead before he hits the ground.
Although Frollo has tried to push the boundaries of the medieval society he lives in (through his interest in alchemy and science, which would develop rapidly and lead to the widespread availability of rational knowledge in the next few centuries), his destructive passions and his misogynistic beliefs about women and sexuality have led to his downfall. The way that everything around him seems to be stone reflects his inability to escape this age which has shaped him and his beliefs. His end further suggests that, although people are capable of learning, pursuit of knowledge is always limited by mortality and by people’s limited capacity for learning. Frollo’s death is the logical result of his destructive quest to destroy Esmeralda and he falls, both literally and morally, from grace, which is symbolized by the beautiful cathedral.
Themes
On the tower, Quasimodo weeps as he watches Esmeralda’s final death throes. He looks down at Frollo’s body on the pavement and cries, “Oh, all that I have loved!”
Quasimodo symbolizes the medieval period, which is about to come to an end in the era when the novel is set. Beautiful Gothic architecture—symbolized by Esmeralda—will not be appreciated in the following centuries, and the power of the Church, which commissioned beautiful buildings like Notre Dame and which Frollo represents, will also go into decline.
Themes
