The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo

SUBMITTED TO MISS.ANJALI DHOLAKIYA

Acknowledgement
I OWE A GREAT MANY THANKS TO A GREAT MANY PEOPLE WHO HELPED AND SUPPORTED ME DURING THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK. . I WISH TO RECORD A DEEP SENSE OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE WOULD LIKE TO THANK MY PROJECT GUIDE, MISS.ANJALI DHOLAKIYA FOR HER ENCOURAGEMENT TO COURSE OF MY WORK. IT IS DUE TO THE ENDURING EFFORT AND GUIDANCE OF MY GUIDE THAT ULTIMATELY MADE IT SUCCESS. I ALSO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO EXPRESS MY DEEP REGARDS AND WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT PROF.CHANDAK WHO GAVE US GUIDANCE TO TAKE UP AND PURSUE THE PROJECT. I ACKNOWLEDGE MY INDEBTNESS TO VARIOUS AUTHORS FOR MAKING USE OF VALUABLE INFORMATION LIBERALLY. MY HEARTFELT THANKS TO ALL THOSE FOR PROVIDING ME WITH THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE PROJECT AND ALSO TO THE ENTIRE FACULTY OF KISHINCHAND CHELLARAM COLLEGE, WHO HAVE PROVIDED ME WITH THE KNOWLEDGE WHICH HAS CONTRIBUTED IMMENSELY IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS PROJECT.

INTRODUCTION
Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 22 May 1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France. Hugo was born on

February 26, 1802. His father, General Joseph Leopold Hugo, was the son of a carpenter who rose through the ranks of Napoleon's citizen army. However, Victor's mother decided not to subject her three sons to the difficulties of army life, and settled in Paris to raise them. Madame Hugo became the mistress of her husband's commanding officer, General Lahorie, who was a father figure to Hugo and his brothers until the General's execution in 1812. Victor was an excellent student who excelled in mathematics, physics, philosophy, French literature, Latin, and Greek. He won first place in a national poetry contest when he was 17. As a teenager, he fell in love with a neighbor's daughter, Adele Foucher. However, his mother discouraged the romance, believing that her son should marry into a finer family. When his mother died in 1821, Victor refused to accept financial help from his father. He lived in abject poverty for a year, but then won a pension of 1,000 francs a year from Louis XVIII for his first volume of verse. Barely out of his teens, Hugo became a hero to the common people as well as a favorite of heads of state. Throughout his lifetime, he played a major role in France's political evolution from dictatorship to democracy. In 1822, he married Adele Foucher, who became the mother of his children, Leopold-Victor, CharlesVictor, Francois-Victor, Adele, and Leopoldine. In 1830, Victor became one of the leaders of a group of Romantic rebels who were trying to loosen the hold of classical literature in France. His play Hernani, whose premiere was interrupted by fist-fights between Hugo's admirers and detractors, took a large step towards a more realistic theatre and made him a rich man. During the next 15 years he produced six plays, four volumes of verse, and the romantic historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, establishing his reputation as the greatest writer in France. In 1831, Adele Hugo became romantically involved with a well known critic and good friend of Victor's named Sainte-Beuve. Victor became involved with the actress Juliette Drouet, who became his mistress in 1833. Supported by a small pension from Hugo, Drouet became his unpaid secretary and traveling companion for the next fifty years. After losing one of his daughters in a drowning accident and experiencing the failure of his play Les Burgraves in 1843, Hugo decided to focus on the growing social problems in France. He was joined in his increasing interest in politics by a number of other Romantic writers, marking the beginning of the Realistic-Naturalistic era in French literature. Hugo was a moderate republican who was made a Peer of France in 1845. After the Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second Republic, he was elected a deputy to the Constitutional Assembly. Three years later, when Louis Napoleon abolished the Republic and reestablished the Empire, Hugo risked execution trying to rally the workers of Paris against the new Emperor. However, his efforts failed, and he had to escape to Brussels.

As a result, Hugo spent the next decade in exile with his family and Mme. Drouet on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. During these years, he wrote satires about Louis Napoleon, returned to his poetry and published several novels including Les Misrables, which he had begun years earlier. When Les Misrables was published in Brussels in 1862, it was an immediate popular success in spite of negative reaction by critics, who considered it overly sentimental, and the government, who banned it. After the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Empire in 1870, Hugo made a triumphant return to Paris. He remained there through the siege of the city and contributed portions of his royalties to purchase weapons. He lost two sons, one in 1871 and one in 1873. Although he was elected to the Senate in 1876, poor health caused him to return to Guernsey. Mme. Hugo died in 1868 and Mme. Drouet in 1882. Hugo died in 1885 at the age of eighty-three. Although he left instructions that his funeral be simple, over 3 million spectators followed his cortege to the Pantheon, where he was buried amid France's great men. Hugo's death came at the end of a century of war, civil conflict, brutally repressed insurrections such as the student rebellion in Les Misrables, and social injustice. Because of his belief in the triumph of

good over evil and his pleading for tolerance and non-violence, Victor Hugo was the herald of the new democratic spirit.

SUMMARY
During the 1482 Festival of Fools in Paris, Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, is elected the Pope of Fools for being the ugliest person in Paris. He is hoisted on a throne and paraded around Paris by the jeering mob. Pierre Gringoire, a struggling poet and philosopher, tries unsuccessfully to get the crowd to watch his play instead of the parade. Archdeacon Claude Frollo appears and stops the parade and orders Quasimodo back to Notre Dame with him. Looking for something to eat, Gringoire admires the graceful beauty of La Esmerelda, a gypsy street dancer, and decides to follow her home. After rounding a corner, she is suddenly attacked by Quasimodo and Frollo. Gringoire rushes to help her but is knocked out by Quasimodo as Frollo runs away. The King's Archers, led by Phoebus de Chateaupers arrive just in time and capture the hunchback. Later that night, a group of beggars and thieves are about to hang Gringoire when La Esmerelda comes forward and offers to save his life by "marrying" him for four years only. The next day, Quasimodo is put on trial and sentenced to two hours of torture in the Place de Grve. He suffers both the pain of being stretched and pulled apart as well as being publicly humiliated by the crowd of people, who hate him for his ugliness. He begs for water, but no one answers his pleas until La Esmerelda comes forth and brings him something to drink. Nearby, a recluse called Sister Gudule, screams at La Esmerelda for being a "gypsy child- thief" and blames her for her daughter's kidnapping fifteen years earlier. A few months later, La Esmerelda is dancing in front of Notre Dame and Phoebus calls her over to him. She has fallen in love with him and blushes when he asks her to meet him later that night. Frollo watches them from the top of Notre Dame and becomes insanely jealous of Phoebus. His obsessive lust for La Esmerelda has made him renounce God and study alchemy and black magic. In his secret cell at Notre Dame, he plans to trap La Esmerelda like a spider catching a fly with its web. Later that night he follows Phoebus to his tryst with La Esmerelda and stabs Phoebus repeatedly. He escapes and La Esmerelda is captured by the King's guard. After being tortured at her trial, La Esmerelda falsely confesses to killing Phoebus and being a witch. She is sentenced to hang in the Place de Grve. Frollo visits her in jail and declares his love. He begs her to love him and show him some pity but she calls him a "goblin-monk" and a murderer, refusing to have anything to do with him. Before her execution, La Esmerelda is publicly humiliated in front of Notre Dame. Looking across the square, she suddenly sees Phoebus and calls out his name. He actually survived the murder attempt but doesn't want anyone to know that he was injured. He turns away from La Esmerelda and enters the house of his bride-to-be. Just then, Quasimodo swings down on a rope from Notre Dame and carries her back to the cathedral, crying out "Sanctuary!" He had fallen in love with her when she brought him water and had been planning her escape all along. La Esmerelda is safe from execution just as long as she stays inside the cathedral. At first, she finds it hard to even look at Quasimodo, but they form an uneasy friendship. Even though he is deaf, he enjoys being around her when she sings. Meanwhile, a group of vagabonds resolves to save La Esmerelda after hearing that Parliament has ordered that she be removed from Notre

Dame. But when Quasimodo sees them attack the cathedral, he thinks they have come to kill La Esmerelda and he fends them off as best he can, killing a large number of them. Frollo has used the attack as a diversion to sneak La Esmerelda out of the cathedral. He offers her two choices: she can either say she loves him or be hanged. She demands to be executed and he leaves her with Sister Gudule. To their astonishment, they discover that they are mother and daughter. Gudule tries to protect La Esmerelda, but it is too late. Back at Notre Dame, Quasimodo goes to the top of the north tower to find her. Gazing off into the distance, he sees the figure of La Esmerelda in a white dress hanging from the scaffold. He bellows out in despair and grabs Frollo by the neck. Holding him up in the air, Quasimodo sighs with grief and then throws Frollo down to his death. Looking at La Esmerelda hanging off in the distance and Frollo's wrangled corpse down below, Quasimodo cries out: "There is everything I ever loved!" Quasimodo is never seen again. Years later when a gravedigger stumbles across La Esmerelda's remains, he finds the skeleton of a hunchback curled around her.

PLOT STRUCTURE
In the beginning, the novel is narrated in chronological order, with the story of Quasimodo unfolding in a straightforward manner. As the book progresses, the plot becomes complicated by subplots and flashbacks. The many subplots serve to make the plot rich, complex, and multilayered. The main plot revolves around the hunchback of Notre-Dame and the two people that he loves in life: Claude Frollo and La Esmeralda. The subplots revolve around Gringoire, Phoebus, Jehan, and Pacquette. Though the subplots cause many digressions in the narrative, they eventually contribute to and intertwine with the main plot.The main plot of the novel follows the classic pattern of development. The first chapters are largely introductory. Notre- Dame, the main setting of the novel, is presented in detail. Quasimodo, Claude Frollo, La Esmeralda, and Gringoire are introduced, and their development begins. The conflict is also defined, as Quasimodo becomes the protagonist fighting against his ugliness and seeking a purpose in life beyond the ringing of the bells. The rising action of the novel really begins with the attempted kidnapping of La Esmeralda. Since Claude Frollo has become obsessed with the gypsy entertainer, he tries to capture her for his own and forces Quasimodo to help him. When their kidnapping attempt is spoiled by Gringoire, Frollo flees the scene, leaving the hunchback to be arrested and flogged for the crime. After his public punishment, La Esmeralda emerges from the crowd to give him a drink of water. Quasimodo falls instantly in love with this beautiful woman, for no one, other than Frollo, has ever been kind to him before. The love of both Quasimodo and Frollo for La Esmeralda complicate the plot of the novel. When the evil priest learns that the gypsy girl loves Phoebus, he goes to the Court of Miracles and stabs the Captain, leaving him for dead. When the police arrive, La Esmeralda is charged with the crime and sentenced to death by hanging. When she is on the pillory, ready to be executed, Quasimodo snatches La Esmeralda away from death and takes her into Notre-Dame for sanctuary. Frollo is driven to madness by her presence in his church. One night he tries to force himself on her, but Quasimodo comes to her rescue. Frollo decides that if he cannot have La Esmeralda, no one will have her. As a result, he manipulates Gringoire into helping with a plan to rescue the gypsy girl from Notre-Dame. After the two men kidnap her from her tower cell, the evil priest tells La Esmeralda that she must love him or face execution. La Esmeralda chooses death. The climax of the story occurs when Quasimodo discovers that he has lost La Esmeralda. Since she has been taken from her sanctuary in the cathedral, he is determined to punish the guilty party. The falling action revolves around the events of the next few hours, as both La Esmeralda and Frollo meet their deaths. When Quasimodo sees his beloved gypsy being hanged on the pillory and hears Frollo let out a fiendish laugh, Quasimodo becomes a madman. He charges the priest, who has raised him and been his master, and pushes him off the balcony to his death below. Quasimodo then realizes he is totally alone in the world.

In the conclusion to the novel, Hugo ties up all the loose ends of the plot. Gringoire becomes a successful writer; Phoebus marries Fleur de Lys; and Quasimodo grieves himself to death. He dies clinging to the dead body of La Esmeralda.

CHARACTERIZATION
Quasimodo The hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo is an abandoned child left at Notre Dame and adopted by Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Hideously deformed, he has a giant humpback, a protrusion coming out of his chest, and a giant wart that covers one of his eyes. He is also deaf. His heart is pure, and this purity is linked to the cathedral itself. Indeed, his love for Notre Dame's bells and for the beautiful sound of their ringing represents his only form of communication. The whole of Paris ironically enjoys Quasimodo's singing while at the same time detesting him for ugliness. His name literally means "half-made." Archdeacon Claude Frollo A priest at Notre Dame, Frollo is also the novel's antagonist. However, he is not a typical evil character bent on causing pain and suffering; instead, he is very bright and compassionate. He dearly loves his brother, Jehan and does everything in his power to make Jehan happy after their parents die. He extends the same compassion to Quasimodo, who he tries to mold into a scholar just like his brother by teaching him how to read and write. Hugo explains Frollo's descent into black magic and madness through his failure to bring up both Jehan and Quasimodo. Jehan drinks and gambles all his money away, completely neglecting his studies, while Quasimodo's deafness makes it virtually impossible to teach him anything. The hunchback thus becomes both a symbol of failure for Frollo as well as a powerful tool of vengeance to wreak his frustrations out on the world. His obsessive lust for La Esmerelda causes her to be executed and Quasimodo to be tortured. No matter how hard he tries to make her love him, he only ends up causing her pain. La Esmerelda The lost daughter of Sister Gudule, La Esmerelda is a beautiful gypsy street dancer. Along with her goat, Djali, she charms everyone she meets with her stunning looks and magic tricks. She keeps an amulet and other trinkets around her neck to help her find her parents. Pierre Gringoire A struggling playwright and philosopher. La Esmerelda saves him from being hanged by a group of vagabonds and agrees to "marry" him for four years. He later joins the vagabonds and unwittingly helps Frollo hand La Esmerelda over to the authorities. Phoebus de Chateaupers The captain of the King's Archers, he saves La Esmerelda from Quasimodo. He does not love her, but tries to seduce her and a number of other women as well. Frollo stabs him and everyone leaves him for dead. He recovers but fails to speak up when La Esmerelda is sentenced to death for his murder. He ends up marrying Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier. His first name is Greek for "the sun."

Sister Gudule La Esmerelda's long lost mother. She is a miserable recluse living in the Tour Roland, who hates to hear the sound of children playing. She is convinced that gypsies ate her adoptive daughter, Agnes, fifteen years earlier. She hates La Esmerelda and is convinced that she is a child thief, but when she learns that she is actually her daughter, Gudule gives her life to save her. Jehan Frollo Claude Frollo's brother. Jehan is a horrible student who gambles and drinks all his money away. He decides to join the vagabonds and Quasimodo kills him as he attacks Notre Dame. Clopin Trouillefou Clopin disrupts Gringoire's play and later turns out to be not just a simple beggar, but "King" of the vagabonds. He tries to save La Esmerelda from being hanged but Quasimodo thinks that Clopin is trying to kill her. Louis XI The King of France in 1482. Louis XI is a heartless monarch who lives in the Bastille instead of the Louvre. He pardons Gringoire for attacking Notre Dame but orders La Esmerelda's execution. Djali La Esmerelda's goat. Djali can perform magic tricks and spell the name Phoebus out of a group of letters. At La Esmerelda's trial Djali is accused of being possessed by the devil. Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier One of Phoebus's admirers, she later becomes his wife. She also humiliates La Esmerelda by mocking her clothes. Master Florian Barbedienne The deaf judge who condemns Quasimodo to torture. Master Jacques Charmolue One of Claude Frollo's associates. Jacques prosecutes and then tortures La Esmerelda to get her to confess to killing Phoebus. He later has her executed.

LANGUAGE:
Language : English The Hunchback of Notre Dame ( French : Notre-Dame de Paris) is an 1831 French novel written by Victor Hugo. It is set in 1482 in Paris, in around the cathedral of Notre Dame de Pris.

AUTHORS PERCEPTIVE:
The book tells the story of a poor barefoot Gypsy girl (La Esmeralda) and a misshapen bell ringer ( Quasimodo) who was raised by the Archdeacon ( Claude Frollo). The book was written as a statement to preserve the Notre Dame cathedral and not to modernize it, as Hugo was thoroughly against this.

QUOTATION

On the connection between architecture and culture: "When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door." Quasimodo's reaction to Esmeralda's gift of a drink of water while he is being heckled on the pillory: "Then from that eye, hitherto so dry and burning, was seen to roll a big tear, which fell slowly down that deformed visage so long contracted by despair. Perhaps it was the first that the unfortunate creature had ever shed." Quasimodo, explaining why he won't enter Esmeralda's cell: "The owl goes not into the nest of the lark." After Esmeralda's execution: "Quasimodo then lifted his eye to look upon the Gypsy girl, whose body, suspended from the gibbet, he beheld quivering afar, under its white robes, in the last struggles of death; then again he dropped it upon the archdeacon, stretched a shapeless mass at the foot of the tower, and he said with a sob that heaved his deep breast to the bottom, 'Oh, all that I've ever loved!'"

Readers Perceptive :
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo is a great and marvelous classic book. Victor Hugo has great skill in developing characters, in this book no one is perfect just as human soul in the real world, lots of behavioral changes. It is full of emotion, love, betrayal, loyalty, death that will make you cry, smile, think and amazed at the end. Sad and tragic ending but beautiful

AUDIENCE PERCEPTIVE:
overly descriptive, good plot, many-sided characters The writing was amazing. Hugo really had a way of turning a phrase and expressing an idea. Sometimes I would just sit back and reflect on how well and creatively he put a thought together. He originally had entitled the book Notre Dame de Paris 1482 (or something similar), which would have been more appropriate. The book was about so much more than the hunchback. The book was dauntingly long. Long paragraphs with a lot of references to things that I know nothing about. The latter part was much easier to read. Appreciate it as a work of art. From my perceptive when reading the book, I can truly see the authors point in saying that the main charcter is the Cathedral. It is a work filled with rich history. I dont have the issues many have with detailed descriptions, so I know people will likely disagree with me when I say I love the way I can learn about the time, history and setting from this book through those detailed descriptions. Hugo may have been writing more volume for the sake of getting paid more, but I think he used words very well indeed. Hugo may have been writing more volume for the sake of getting paid more, but I think he used those words very well indeed. This is so much a redone work, that few would ever consider that it began life as a historical novel. Just like Les Miserables is historical so is this. It takes place in medieval times and it tells of a supposedly celibate priest who falls in love with a gypsy, as does everyone else in the novel, inclduding the ugly bellringing hunchback. She is the notorius lady of the title, Hugo's version of Mary Magdeline, a type he would return to in Les Miserables. She is a victim even though everyone...more Amazing book! Loved the author's view on things. I really felt like I was getting glimpses of a great mind by reading this book. You might want to read it with a highlighter for good quotes. I'm reading Les Miserable right now and again I really like Victor Hugo's writing. There are times where he really goes into depth about history, or something and

it is hard to read but if you can get past those parts you will thank yourself because he has some great writing. This is a beautiful novel of hope, prejudice, history, love, philosophy, and...architecture. In fact, the entire story centers not around the extraordinary main characters, but the cathedral itself (as is more evident in the original title, Notre Dame de Paris). As strange of a concept as it sounds, Hugo is able to pull it off with ease, creating the perfect atmosphere for such a novel.

VALIDITY OF THE TEXT

The book is somewhat tragic but is descriptive of how life often is for people and how we have to find beauty in the simple things with the people we have. I don't recommend it for everyone because not everyone understands the complexity of what Quasimodo represents even in our modern world, but for those who do understand the human spirit and its complexities then it stands above the rest in form, description, and beauty.

CONCLUSION:
This book is an epic, and yet surprisingly quick read.. The characters all seem, and this is despite the many fantastical elements hinted at, very real. Claude Frollo is deeply flawed and at the same time incredibly bright, a slave to his lust for Esmeralda and the inescapable rational truth that he will be crushed by his obsession. Esmeralda herself is an interesting creation, exotic beauty on the outside, ignorant but well meaning child in her actions. But for me, the story rests on two sets of shoulders. One being Quasimodo, the only really pure character in the book scarred by his own birth and the ignorance of his age. And two, Hugos own narrative voice that creates a Paris so vividly described and realistically inhabited that the events described, as incredibly horrific or at times magnificent, seem plausible, or even real. He was Quasimodo the bell ringer of the Notre Dame. For most of his life he has been forced to live in lonely isolation in the bell tower of the famous cathedral hidden away like a beast, banished from sight, shunned and despised by all. For though he was gental and kind, it was Quasimodos crime to have been born hideously deformed. But one day his heart would prove to be a thing of rare beauty. She was the dazzling Esmerelda. A dark-eyed gypsy girl who, the victim of a cowards jealous rage, is unjustly convicted of a crime she did not commit. Her sentence is deadth by hanging. Only one man had the courage to save her : Quasimodo

Bibliography
PRIMARY SOURCE NOVEL - THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME NAME OF THE AUTHOR VICTOR HUGO SECONDARY SOURCE WWW.GOOGLE.COM WWW.VICTORHUGO.COM