Friday, April 12, 2013

smART Notre Dame de Paris

Hunchback's All Around

Victor Hugo wrote about several characters that portray the idea of entrapment and otherness throughout the novel, Notre Dame de Paris. Quasimodo exemplified entrapment when Frollo and him attacked La Esmeralda. Frollo ran off leaving Quasimodo confused and set up for consequences and humiliation. Since he was deaf and ugly -otherness that caused people to hate him for no reason- he was trapped and forced to do what Frollo ordered because Quasimodo was oblivious to any information Frollo (his master) didn't teach him.

In a sense, Frollo dealt with entrapment because of the beauty of La Esmeralda and wouldn't have committed such crimes and black magic if he weren't so struck in awe by her appearance.

Quasimodo also depicted entrapment when he killed and harmed the vagabonds at the time La Esmeralda was in sanctuary. He committed these particular crimes only to protect the woman he loved, and dealt with emotional and physical entrapment.

Another situation displaying otherness and entrapment took place between La Esmeralda and the character, Gringoire. He was an unsuccessful philosopher and play-writer who was nearly sentenced to death, but was saved by La Esmeralda after she agreed to marry him for 4 years. Ironically, later on in the novel Pierre Gringoire joined the vagabonds and Frollo against La Esmeralda.

The character of Sister Gudule also displays a sense of otherness with the situation between her and La Esmeralda. Gudule despised gypsy's for the longest time because she was under the impression that her daughter was stolen and eaten by gypsy's. At the end of the novel when La Esmeralda was left with Gudule because Frollo thought nobody could hate La Esmeralda as much as her, the girls discovered that they were mother and daughter -creating a perfect twist to the novel.

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