The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Uploaded by dcyber69 on Aug 25, 1999
In this novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Victor Hugo talks about the life of his characters in the city of Paris. This story takes place in the late-fourteenth century. With inequality all around it was hard for a person to gain respect without good looks or social status. In this paper I will mainly discuss the story of Quasimodoe Esmeralda, and their struggle in this story Quasimodoe's mother was a gypsy. She could not take care of him any longer so she left him in front of a church. Gypsies were not liked at this time, but the church was highly respected. Being it that Quasimodo's mom had left him on front steps of the church the king could do almost nothing. Quasimodoe could not leave the church due to the fact that he was deformed and ugly. Quasimodo grew very lonely and bored up in that bell tower all by him self. He was looking down one day and set eyes upon a young woman named Esmerelda. On the day of fools Quasimodo saw this young lady and decided to go down and take a closer look at this woman. It was a holiday, feast of fools, when he decided to go down. When the people saw him they were horrified. He got whipped and lectured by his master. Well, to make a long story short Esmerelda ends up dyeing, and Quaismodo runs away and is never seen or heard of again. They state that in the end they find two skeletons lying in each others arms. One the body of a lady (Esmerelda), and the other the body of a man who was deformed (Quaismodo). It also states that the woman was hung, but the man died because he had come there by himself and died there.
There are many examples of Historical Significance in this book. One of which is the power of the church. The church mostly controlled everything back then. My second example is the way that they talked. They sounded more sophisticated back then. It states on page 139, "Sunday in the year of my lord 1467." My third fact is the fact that they didn't like gypsies back then. They wanted to kill all of the gypyses. It states in the end that they end up killing Esmerelda. My fourth fact is the way that they dressed. My fifth fact is that it...