Review - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

This might be one of the best and saddest books I’ve ever read. Going into this book, I had never seen or experienced any adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, whether it be the film, the play, or an abridged version. The main plot was a complete mystery to me—as such, I expected the novel to be about the wild and wacky adventures of Quasimodo in the cathedral. In reality, I experienced a powerful, poignant reflection on the nature of human sexuality and romance.

The main source of conflict in concerns the character of La Esmeralda and her relations with the male characters in the novel. Each one provides an example of how desire can be twisted: the captain, Phoebus, enjoys her beauty and attention but barely sees her as more than the other women he uses and discards; the priest, Claude Frollo, furiously lusts after her body and brings about his own ruin; the vagrant, Pierre Gringoire, values her mainly for the protection she brings him; the hunchback, Quasimodo, loves her deeply albeit mostly for her physical beauty. La Esmeralda, for her part, is madly in love with Phoebus, but mostly because of his handsomeness and his status as the captain who saved her. She innocently rejects the one person—Quasimodo—who loves her the deepest because he is hideous.

In twisting the strands of these characters together, Victor Hugo crafts a dark world where the most secret parts of human nature are laid bare for all to see, and pure love seems nothing more than an idealistic fabrication.

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