Previous
Similes
Book 4, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Biting His Own Tail:
For Claude Frollo, learning is much like love. In Book 4, Chapter 5, the narrator reveals the situational irony that underlies the archdeacon’s feverish study of alchemy:
The ancient symbol of the serpent biting its own tail is especially appropriate for science. Claude Frollo seemed to have experienced it. Several solemn persons declared that, having exhausted the fas of human knowledge, he had dared to penetrate into the nefas. He had, so it was said, tasted all the apples on the tree of knowledge one after the other and, either from hunger or from disgust, had ended by biting into the forbidden fruit.
Herein lies the puzzle to Claude Frollo’s shadowy sorcery: the novel suggests that the archdeacon’s fascination with alchemy stems from deeply scholastic origins. The archdeacon shuns science not out of the absence of knowledge but because of its excess. He has learned so much—“exhausted the fas of human knowledge”—that he can no longer find anything novel in the realm of traditional scholarship. He has attended “the lectures of the theologians at the Sorbonne, the assemblies of the arts men at the statue of Saint-Hilaire,” and “the congregations of the doctors of medicine at the stoup of Notre-Dame.” Having depleted the full store of good wisdom, Claude Frollo has no choice but to turn to the bad. The more zealously he pursues knowledge, the further he goes astray. Like Faust, Claude Frollo’s learning implants a spiritual weariness that precedes his turn to evil. The Hunchback of Notre Dame traces the jadedness that comes with so much intellectual power and shows the reader its perils.
Related Themes:
Book 6, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Quasimodo’s Fortunes:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame notes how Quasimodo’s reputation takes an ironic turn in Book 6, Chapter 4. Caught during his mission to abduct Esmeralda and punished for his responses during the trial, he marches to the pillory and becomes a spectacle all over again:
It was in fact he. It was a strange reversal. He was being pilloried on the self-same square where the day before he had been saluted, acclaimed and conclaimed pope and prince of fools, in procession with the Duke of Egypt, the King of Thunes and the Emperor of Galilee.
Quasimodo’s punishment ironically reverses his treatment earlier in the novel. Crowned the fool’s pope by the attendees at Palais Justice, he had received fittingly papal acclaim and treatment. The reveling spectators don cardboard crowns and parade him around the streets in a litter. However makeshift and laughable the title and its mock ceremony, Quasimodo’s papal appointment had given him the “first taste he had ever had of the delights of vanity.” It was the first time he had ever been celebrated by a crowd that otherwise detested him. Bent over at the pillory, his punishment in this scene erases all of the warm welcome he had previously received. The spectators taunt and curse at him. Fool’s pope no more, the hunchback returns to his place as the laughingstock of the town.
Related Themes:
Book 9, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Claude Frollo’s Love:
Archdeacon Claude Frollo—the supposed steward of spiritual and moral righteousness but also the novel’s most wildly deranged villain—is a character of many ironies. Book 9, Chapter 1 presents still another moment of situational irony as he cackles to himself about Esmeralda. Fleeing the city, he reflects on the twisted course of his love for her:
He laughed more hollowly still at the thought that, of all the human beings whose death he had desired, the gypsy, the one creature whom he did not hate, was the only one whose death he had accomplished.
Like so much else with the priest, this discovery uncovers the illogical irony to his pursuit of Esmeralda. Claude Frollo loves Esmeralda so much that he pulls off her death sentence. Passionately fascinated with her, he hunts down Esmeralda through the streets with Quasimodo. And when this mix of supplication and force falls short, he turns violent. His stabbing attempt incriminates Esmeralda, who gets sentenced to execution. In this mind-twisting way, Claude Frollo loves so much that he hates. He wants her to the point that he commits egregious acts of violence and cruelty.
Claude’s bungled attempts to win Esmeralda point to the frightening intensity of his desires and the still-greater irony of his sexual appetites. Up to this point, the priest—“doubly strict and exemplary morally”—had repressed his every sexual desire. He steers clear of women and reflexively brings down his cowl in their presence. For a character who shuns women and “dislike[s] them more than ever,” his passion for Esmeralda brings an ironic twist to his life of sexual austerity. Scornful of women and unpracticed in romance, Claude Frollo crushes the very life he had sought to treasure.
Related Themes:
