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Book 8, Chapter 4
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 the “rat-hole,” Paquette la Chantefleurie laments the loss of her daughter and cries over the little pink shoe. The shoe, which once symbolized all the joy that her baby brought her, now torments her as a symbol of her loss. As she sits and weeps, Paquette overhears a boy in the square say that they will hang a gypsy that afternoon. Paquette la Chantefleurie leaps to the bars and sees Frollo hovering near her window. She calls to him and asks who will be hanged that day.
Paquette’s grief over the loss of her child has become an obsession. This supports the idea that generous and loving emotions can become warped if they are taken to extremes and can find no outlet. In this case, Paquette cannot fulfill her love for her child because she believes her child is dead, so this love has transformed into a bitter and fanatical hatred of gypsies.
Themes
Frollo, who seems distracted, replies that he does not know. Paquette says that she heard it is a gypsy and exclaims that she hates gypsies because they killed her child. She particularly hates Esmeralda, she says, and she has cursed her. Frollo says that she will be pleased, then, as it is Esmeralda who will die today.
Paquette’s extreme love for her child has been transformed, through her grief and bitterness, into an obsessive hatred of gypsies. Her specific hatred of Esmeralda will soon be revealed as a tragic irony, since Esmeralda is actually the daughter she loves so much.
Themes
