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
In 1482, Quasimodo is 20 years old. Frollo is now the archdeacon of Notre Dame and he appoints Quasimodo the bell-ringer of the cathedral. Quasimodo has grown up inside Notre Dame and the cathedral has become a home to him. He is totally familiar with its structures and has seen little of the outside world. He seems to become a part of the building and to be totally in harmony with it. When Frollo firsts hear Quasimodo ring the church bells, he feels as though this is Quasimodo’s own language.
Quasimodo is ostracized from society because of his unusual appearance and is forced to grow up in isolation. This suggests that people in medieval society reject or accept people based on how they look. Quasimodo is shaped by his environment—Notre Dame—and grows to be like the building. He is like a work of Gothic architecture because his ugliness is extreme, but Hugo indicates that this doesn’t make him any less human; Quasimodo’s feelings are as real and valuable as anyone else’s, just like Gothic architecture is beautiful and worth understanding.
Themes
Quasimodo spends so much time in Notre Dame that he seems almost to become part of it. He grows to resemble the building and the building itself shapes him and his ideas about the world. He knows every inch of the church and easily climbs its walls and towers, scaling great heights that would terrify other people. His strange appearance fits in perfectly with the appearance of the cathedral.
Like Gothic architecture itself, Quasimodo is not afraid of extreme heights or frightening statues and he, himself, is extremely ugly in a way that seems to reflect the cathedral itself. He is, therefore, the novel’s most extreme example of how people are products of their environments.
Themes
Life inside Notre Dame also shapes Quasimodo’s mind. He lives in extreme isolation and rarely communicates with anyone. Although Frollo taught Quasimodo to speak, fate intervened, and Quasimodo went deaf at a young age because of the noise from the bells. This leaves him further cut off from the world.
Here, Hugo makes it clear that buildings reflect social values and the psychology of the people who built them. This is taken to extremes in Quasimodo, who is totally cut off from other people and can’t even hear because of the effect the bells have had on him. Hi condition subtly reflects that of medieval society more generally: Hugo suggests that, because medieval people lack the psychological and scientific knowledge to rationally understand the world, they are alienated from each other and can only take things at face value.
Themes
Quasimodo falls into a state of depression after he goes deaf. As his deafness makes it hard for him to speak, people often laugh at his attempts and, therefore, he deliberately remains silent. It is impossible to tell what he thinks about or feels because he cannot express or communicate his thoughts. Due to his lack of experience outside Notre Dame, Quasimodo’s perspective on the world becomes limited and impossible to easily comprehend. He is like a prisoner kept for a long time in an isolated cage.
Although Quasimodo wants to connect with people, medieval society judges him on how he looks. Quasimodo is alienated because he does not fit in, which suggests that social rejection is extremely painful and causes individuals to become sad and bitter. Eventually Quasimodo stops trying to connect with people because they do not care about getting to know him, highlighting Hugo’s point that individuals reflect the societies that shape them.
Themes
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Locked in isolation in the cathedral, Quasimodo goes slightly mad. He does not understand the outside world, which seems very far away to him, and his alienation makes him “vicious” and defensive. His aggressive nature, however, is not his natural character—it only develops because, everywhere he goes, he is ostracized and insulted. He avoids people and stays in Notre Dame because he knows that society hates him.
Quasimodo rejects society because society rejects him and judges him unfairly purely based on his appearance. This suggests that people imitate the behavior that they have experienced; someone who has been treated cruelly is more likely to be cruel than someone who has been accepted and loved. Quasimodo’s plight also reflects the plight of Gothic architecture in 19th-century society—it is scorned and forgotten because people think it is ugly, even though it contains valuable insight into humanity’s past.
Themes
Quasimodo views the statues inside Notre Dame as his friends and protectors. While people mock him and try to hurt him, the statues of the saints and monsters on the walls of Notre Dame are companions who accept him. They seem to take his side against humanity, and Quasimodo sees himself as one of the stone gargoyles inside the church, which he sits with all day and talks to.
Hugo blurs the line between the architecture and the people of Paris, since Quasimodo believes that the stone figures are in some way alive. The cathedral has shaped Quasimodo, but here, he shapes it in return; his presence and attention brings the architecture to life. Architecture, therefore, reflects the values and psychology of a society, just as people themselves do.
Themes
Notre Dame is the whole world to Quasimodo. He feels that the cathedral is his mother and the bells are like his children, or his pet birds which sing for him. He views the bells as female and gives them women’s names. The big bell, Marie, is his favorite. The sound Marie makes shakes the whole bell tower and Quasimodo watches excitedly as the bell swings. Although he is deaf, Marie’s chime is so loud that he can still hear it slightly, and this is like beautiful music to him. As the bell swings, Quasimodo goes into a frenzy of excitement and leaps up to pull the cord again.
Quasimodo communicates with Notre Dame in a way that he cannot communicate with people. He is ostracized from society because of his appearance, which people find hideous and frightening. And while he cannot hear people when they talk, he can hear the bells, which he rings. This suggests that Quasimodo has a reciprocal relationship with Notre Dame. He helps the church perform its function and use its voice (the bells communicate time and mark social occasions for the populace), and this allows Quasimodo to express himself and, indirectly, communicate with the Parisians. This supports Hugo’s idea that people and architecture live in a kind of dynamic symbiosis.
Themes
To the outside world, Quasimodo’s presence in Notre Dame seems to bring the cathedral to life. The people of Paris often seen him as he scrambles over the stonework and they believe that he has some magical connection with the cathedral. They believe that he can bring the statues to life and that, somehow, the cathedral obeys his commands. People are afraid of Quasimodo and therefore afraid of the cathedral, which they believe he haunts. They come to believe he is a demon, but really he is “the soul” of Notre Dame.
While Notre Dame is forgotten and neglected in 19th-century Paris, to the medieval Parisians the cathedral is a powerful presence. Quasimodo symbolizes medieval society’s relationship with Gothic architecture. It is not just something functional or decorative; it is spiritually important and almost magical. Although modern society’s approach to architecture has changed, Hugo suggests that historical architecture is an important resource for understanding how previous societies viewed the world.
Themes
In the 19th century, with Quasimodo long dead, Notre Dame feels deserted and abandoned, like a body that has lost its soul. Without Quasimodo, the cathedral is like a skeleton rather than a body.
Notre Dame is dead because people in the 19th century, when Hugo is writing, no longer believe that Gothic architecture is important. This suggests that people bring architecture to life when they use it, appreciate it, and understand its history. Without this two-way relationship, architecture becomes meaningless and the historical knowledge that it contains is lost—something Hugo considers a terrible shame.
Themes
