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
Three respectable women, two from Paris (named Gervaise and Oudarde) and one from a province called Rheims (named Mahiette), walk towards the Place de Grève. The woman from Rheims drags her young son, Eustache, behind her as she walks. Eustache holds a cake and stares at it longingly. The women are eager to reach the pillory to watch the public punishment. As they walk, they gossip about the “Feast of Fools” and compare the delights of Paris, rather competitively, to those of Rheims.
Public punishment and execution were popular and were considered entertaining in the medieval period. This shows that medieval society was not empathetic and did not care about the people who suffered under these brutal and unjust punishments. Hugo thus suggests again that a cruel justice system breeds cruel people.
Themes
As they approach the square, they hear Esmeralda’s tambourine. Oudarde and Gervaise hurry Mahiette along, eager for her to see the gypsy. When Mahiette hears this, however, she refuses to go any further for fear that Esmeralda will steal her child. The group retreats slightly and Oudarde and Gervaise observe that the “sachette” (or recluse) who lives in the “rat-hole” also believes that gypsies steal children. The women plan to give the cake to the recluse when they pass the cell.
Esmeralda is judged purely because she is a gypsy, not because the women have any evidence that gypsies eat children—these ideas are based on superstition and gossip. This moment foreshadows how Esmeralda will later be persecuted on the basis of superficial characteristics that she can’t even control.
Themes
Mahiette says that she is afraid of gypsies because of a story she heard about a woman named Paquette la Chantefleurie. Mahiette begins her story by saying that it is Paquette’s own fault that she ended up as she did. Paquette was from a good family, but her mother was not a clever woman. Paquette was not educated, though she did grow up very beautiful. Unfortunately, this beauty worked against her and, when Paquette and her mother were very poor one winter, Paquette became a prostitute.
The women are unsympathetic towards Paquette and blame her for her beauty. This suggests that women in the medieval period are misogynistically held responsible for men’s attraction to them if they are beautiful. Men’s attentions could be dangerous to women because lust was considered sinful and women were considered more sinful than men. Accordingly, women were often accused of leading men on sexually. As a prostitute, Paquette was considered especially sinful, although she only became one out of necessity.
Themes
After her mother dies, Paquette is alone in the world and ostracized by society. She is scorned in the street and the police often beat her. This all changes when Paquette gives birth to a daughter whom she loves more than anything in the world. She continues to live as a prostitute but she uses all her money to buy cloth to make clothes for the baby. Among these gifts, Paquette makes her daughter a beautiful pair of pink shoes. She is obsessed with her baby’s pretty little feet and she constantly thanks God for her child.
Paquette is persecuted because of her sexuality. Lust was considered sinful in the medieval period and women were misogynistically believed to be more sinful and prone to lust than men. Therefore, although men freely use Paquette’s services, she is held responsible for their desire and is treated as a criminal and an outcast because of this.
Themes
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One day, a band of gypsies comes to the town and sets themselves up as fortune tellers. Although people have heard rumors that the gypsies steal and kill children, everyone in the town goes to see them to have their fortunes told. Paquette takes her daughter along and is amazed by the prosperous future that the gypsies predict. When she gets home, she puts her baby to sleep and rushes out to tell her neighbor what she learned.
Although people fear gypsies, because they believe them to have unnatural powers, they also make use of the services the gypsies offer, like fortune-telling. This suggests that medieval people hypocritically ostracize the gypsies based on their appearance, poverty, and social class while taking advantage of the skills they find useful.
Themes
When Paquette returns, however, the baby is gone. Although she searches desperately all over Rheims, Paquette finds no trace of her daughter—all that is left is one little pink shoe. That night, when Paquette returns from her search, her neighbors tell her that they saw two gypsy women sneak into her house and that they heard a baby crying. Paquette rushes upstairs but, instead of her daughter, she finds a large deformed child in her place.
Paquette is a tragic victim of fate and has lost the child she loved most in the world through no fault of her own. This suggests that people often cannot predict or prevent misfortune.
Themes
Paquette then knows that the gypsies stole her child. A group of people from the village rush to the gypsy camp to try to find the baby. The gypsies are gone when they arrive, however, and all they find are a few ribbons and some drops of blood. They assume that the gypsies have killed and eaten the child.
People rationally assume that the baby is dead because of the evidence they find at the camp. However, they jump to this conclusion because they already believe the superstitious rumor that gypsies eat babies. This suggests that the medieval worldview was based in superstition but that this superstition was often an understandable response to mysterious events.
Themes
When Paquette hears this, her hair turns white and she falls to her knees and cries over the little shoe—all that she has left of her baby. Not long after this, she disappears from Rheims and rumor has it that she has drowned herself in the river. Gervaise asks what happened to the deformed child and Mahiette replies that the bishop blessed the baby and had him sent to Paris for adoption. Mahiette does not know what became of the baby after that.
The baby shoe symbolizes Paquette’s love for her child because it is all she has left of her. Paquette is a tragic victim of fate and has lost her child through no fault of her own. Similarly, Quasimodo (the deformed child) is left alone just because he happens to look different from other babies—something he can’t control.
Themes
The three women have been so busy with their story that they have walked straight past the rat-hole. Eustache asks if he can eat the cake now and Mahiette suddenly remembers, much to Eustache’s disappointment, that the cake is for the recluse. The group turns around and Eustache grudgingly sets the cake down on the shelf outside the rat-hole. The three women peer inside the cell and examine the haggard recluse who sits inside.
In the medieval period, recluses gave up all forms of physical comfort because worldly pleasures were associated with sin, while abstinence was associated with spiritual purity. People gave donations to recluses because they believed them to be pure and thought that their charity may be spiritually rewarded.
Themes
The recluse wears nothing but a ragged dress and sits as still as a statue on the floor of the cell. Her hands and lips are blue with cold and she stares blankly ahead of her, totally unaware of the outside world. Mahiette suddenly draws back and whispers to the others that this woman is Paquette la Chantefleurie. Oudarde and Gervaise are amazed by this. As they look, they realize that the recluse’s eyes are fixed on a tiny pink shoe in the corner of the cell.
Mahiette realizes that this is not a religious recluse, who has given up worldly things for spiritual reward, but rather a woman who is a tragic victim of fate and has gone mad with grief. Though lots of people believe her to be holy, Paquette is simply devastated—another example of the way in which many characters turn out to be different than than appearances suggest.
Themes
Oudarde, Gervaise, and Mahiette begin to weep for the fate of poor Paquette la Chantefleurie. The extremity of Paquette’s grief seems to have a religious power. After a moment, Oudarde leans through the bars and tries to get Paquette’s attention. Eustache, meanwhile, is excited by the bustle of the square and says something to his mother. The sound of his voice brings Paquette to life. She cries out that God is cruel to show her other people’s children, and she begins to shiver with cold.
Extremes of emotion were often thought to have spiritual implications in the medieval period. Extreme sacrifices such as Paquette’s (she has given up all worldly comforts because of her grief for her lost child) were considered holy, while extreme emotions, such as consuming lust, were considered demonic. Paquette is so consumed by grief that she forgets she is cold until the shock of seeing Eustache reminds her. Thus, it may be that Paquette really is holy according to the standards of her time—even though she didn’t intend to be a religious recluse.
Themes
Gervaise, Oudarde, and Mahiette try to offer Paquette cake and a hot drink, but Paquette refuses everything except bread and water. Though the women try to comfort her, Paquette begins to weep for her baby and beats her head against the wall so hard that they think she is dead. Mahiette calls to her through the bars, addressing her as Paquette la Chantefleurie. At the sound of her old name, Paquette leaps up and stands very stiff and straight. Gervaise, Oudarde, and Mahiette draw back, confused. Paquette throws herself at the bars and cries out that “the gypsy” calls her.
Here, Paquette reveals her obsession with Esmeralda, who is a gypsy. Paquette believes that gypsies killed her child, so she hates Esmeralda passionately. This hatred will turn out to be tragically ironic: although Esmeralda appears to be the thing Paquette hates most, she is actually Paquette’s own daughter—the thing she loves the most.
Themes
