Quasimodo
Esmeralda
Claude Frollo
Djali
Pierre Gringoire
Jehan Frollo
Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers
The Recluse
This is certainly the character most perverted by Hollywood. For starters, Quasimodo is not a cute and lovable character. The people of Paris loathed and hated him. During the second mention of him in the book he is helping Dom Claude Frollo fulfill his dark desires by trying to kidnap Esmeralda. But let’s start at the beginning with an excerpt from the book:
We shall not try to describe for the reader that tetrahedron nose, that horseshoe mouth, that small left eye obscured by red bushy eyebrows; the right eye which disappeared completely under an enormous wart; those jagged teeth, with gaps here and there, like the battlements of a fortress; that horny lip, over which one of those teeth protruded like the tusk of an elephant; that forked chin, and, above all, the expression on the whole face, a mixture of malice, astonishment, and sadness. Book1 Chap5
Rather his whole person was a grimace. His enormous head bristled with red hair; between his shoulders was an enormous hump, counterbalanced by a protuberance in front; he had a framework of thighs and legs so strangely askew that they could only touch at the knees, and, seen from the front, resembled two sickles joined together at the handles. The feet were huge; the hands monstrous. Book1 Chap5
He is adopted by Dom Claude Frollo and raised by him in the cathedral.
Notre-Dame had been to him successfully, as he grew up, his egg, his nest, his house, his country, his universe. And it is certain that, between this creature and this edifice, there was a sort of mysterious and pre-existing harmony. When, while he was still quite young, he used to drag himself along, tortuously and tumblingly, within the gloom of its arches, he seemed, with his human face and his animal-like limbs, a native reptile of that damp, dark stone floor, on which the shadows of the Romanesque capitals projected so many fantastic shapes. book4 chap3
By 1482 he is grown up and works as the bellringer at Notre-Dame. Claude has begun to form a person from this beast by teaching him to speak. But a calamity unfolds, Quasimodo looses his hearing, and with it his only link to humanity.
It was with much difficulty and much patience that Claude Frollo had succeeded in teaching him to speak. But an evil fate seemed to stalk the poor orphan. Bellringer of Notre-Dame at fourteen, yet a new infirmity came to complete his apartness. The bells had broken his tympanum, so he had become deaf. The only door that had been open wide to the world had suddenly been closed forever. book4 chap3
Needless to say he becomes filled with hatred. The only thing he can hear are the largest bells at Notre Dame.
And its closing cut off the only ray of joy and light that had penetrated to the soul of Quasimodo. That soul was plunged into profound darkness. The wretch’s melancholy became incurable and as complete as his deformity. Besides, his deafness rendered him in some way dumb. For, in order that he might not be laughed at, from the moment he knew he was deaf, he resolutely determined to keep silent, which silence he scarcely ever broke except when he was alone. He voluntarily tied that tongue which Claude Frollo had taken so much trouble to untie. And hence it was that, when necessity constrained him to speak, his tongue moved swiftly and awkwardly, like a door whose hinges are rusty. Book4 Chap3
His bond with Claude Frollo is strengthened, because Claude and him create a sign language that only those two understand. The bond between them grows to resemble a dog and its master.
She is not tall, but her slender lightsomeness made her appear so. Her complexion was dark, but one guessed that by daylight it would have the beautiful golden tint of Andalusian and Roman women. Her feet, too, were Andalusian, for they seemed at once tight yet comfortable in her dainty shoes. She pirouetted on an old Persian carpet, spread carelessly under her feet. Each time she twirled, her radiant face and her large black eyes seemed to glow for you alone. In the circle all mouths were agape and all eyes staring.
She danced to a Basque tambourine which she tinkled above her head, thus displaying her lovely arms. She wore a golden bodice tightly laced about her delicate body, exposing her beautiful shoulders. Below her waist billowed a multicolored skirt, which, in the whirling dance, gave momentary glimpses of her finely shaped legs. With all this, and her black hair and sparkling eyes, she seemed like something more than human. book2 chap3
She is sixteen years old in the book. Think sexy, very sexy, this is why the archdeacon Claude Frollo goes absolutely crazy for her and will sell his soul just to get her in the sack. She is a gypsy, living with the Paris riffraff and married to Pierre Gringoire on a whim. Yet she has eyes for only one man, her Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers who rescued her from Quasimodo’s attempted abduction. She does not even share her bed with her pseudo husband Pierre. She is basically a lovesick teenager who is street smart but childish.
The following dialogue sums much of this up:
PIERRE: "Do you know what friendship is?"
ESMERALDA: "It is like being brother and sister - two souls meeting without mingling, like two fingers of the same hand."
PIERRE: "And love?" continued the poet.
ESMERALDA: "Oh love!" she said, her voice trembled, and her eyes beamed. "That is to be two, and yet one. A man and a woman joined as into an angel; that is heaven!"
(Later on...)
ESMERALDA: "I can love only a man who knows how to protect me." book2 chap7
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Claude makes his appearance in the book while yelling at a crowd of people watching Esmeralda,
"There is witchcraft here" and, "Sacrilege! Profanation!". book2 chap4
There is quite a history and future for this, the most complicated character in the book. Claude has dedicated his life to schooling and knowledge. It is due to this love of information that the uneducated Parisians call him a sorcerer.
Here is a quick history of Dom Claude Frollo: After a plague kills his parents when he was in school at age 19 he returns home to find his brother at the family house.
A little brother still in swaddling clothes was still alive, and crying, abandoned in his cradle. He was all of Claude’s family that remained. The young boy, deep in thought, took the baby under his arm and went away. Hitherto he had existed only in books; now he began to live. book4 chap2
So Claude started out as a good guy, however his life of learning was not entirely rounded, he was missing some vital lessons.
This infant brother, without father or mother, this infant which suddenly dropped from heaven into his arms, made a new person—a man—of him. He discovered that there was something else in the world besides his speculations at the Sorbonne and the poetry of Homer. He found that man needs affection, that life without a warming love is but a dry wheel, creaking and grating as it turns. Only he imagined, for he was still at the age when illusions are as yet replaced by illusions, that the affections of kith and kin are the only ones necessary, and that a little brother to love would be sufficient to fill up his whole existence. book4 chap2
He was then ordained a priest at age 20.
Claude wants his brother to grow up to be a great man, therefor, it is a huge disappointment when his brother ends up a homeless drunkard who spends his time with the whores.
The thought of his little brother became not only his recreation, but even the object of his studies. He resolved to devote himself entirely to the future of that child for whom he must answer before God, and never to have any other spouse, nor other child than the happiness and welfare of his brother. book4 chap2
Soon afterward he adopts Quasimodo who was abandoned (by The Recluse) in front of a statue at the cathedral. Claude raises Quasimodo like a son and teaches him to speak. Regretfully, upon reaching adulthood, Quasimodo looses his hearing and become very callused to humanity. Claude teaches Quasimodo a simple sign language. One that only the two of them know, thus strengthening the bond between them.
Then one day he finds himself lusting for a 16 year old gypsy girl named Esmeralda. He follows and spies on her. She fills all of his thoughts and he begins to lose his mind.
"I love you!" cried the priest.
Her tears suddenly stopped. She looked at him with a vacant look. He knelt at her knees and fixed upon her his fiery eyes.
"Do you hear? I love you!" he cried again,
"But with what kind of love?" she shuddered.
"The love of the damned!" book8 chap4
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"Djali!" cried the gypsy.
Then Gringoire saw a pretty white goat appear, a lively, nimble, glossy animal with gilt horns, gilt hoofs, and gilt color. book2 chap3
I consider the goat a character in the book. Djali is partially the downfall of Esmeralda because it's tricks resemble witchcraft (a hangable offense back then). Tricks such as impersonations, stating the day of the week, and rearranging letters to form words. Also when people see Djali they covet the animal. These feelings of jealousy do not bode well for the gypsy.
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The playwright Pierre Gringoire is the novel’s poetic pauper turned philosophizing gypsy.
Pierre is a poet living on the brink of poverty, behind in his rent, and unveiling a play of his in the Great Hall that will financially make or break him. However, this play is not particularly liked by the audience and is interrupted early on by Clopin Trouillefou (King of the Court of Miracles), who is pretending to be a beggar. But Clopin’s antics are only the beginning. Later Quasimodo and the Fool’s Pope parade as well as La Esmeralda’s dancing finish him off as they drown out his play and lead his audience away. Because his play fails miserably Pierre Gringoire is forced to live in the streets of Paris.
While homeless he wanders into the Court of Miracles, is captured, and sentenced to death. Just before his hanging he is saved by La Esmeralda using an old Gypsy law...if she will MARRY him he will not be killed.
...It is customary not to hang a man unless we ask if there is a woman in the crowd that wants him. Comrade, this is your last chance. You must either wed a wench or the rope. book2 chap6
The interesting part is that Esmeralda did not save him out of love, the novel does not even mention her ever meeting him. In fact after the marriage she never even sleeps in the same bed with him.
Pierre Gringoire describes himself to his new wife in Book 2 Chapter 7.
When I was six years old, therefore, I was an orphan, who had nothing but the pavements of Paris for soles of his shoes. I so not know how I spent the interval between six and sixteen. A fruit vender used to give me a plum here, and a baker used to give me a crust of bread there. At night the gendarmerie would pick me up and put me in prison, and there I would find a bundle of straw for my bed. All that didn’t stop me from growing tall and lean, as you see. In winter I warmed myself in the sun under the porch of the Hotel de Sens, and I thought it very ridiculous that bonfires for the Feast of Saint-Jean should be reserved for dog days. At sixteen I wanted to choose a profession. I tried everything. I become a solider, but I wasn’t brave enough. I became a monk, but I wasn’t holy enough; besides, I wasn’t a hardy drinker. In despair, I became an apprentice in the carpenter’s guild; but for that I wasn’t strong enough. I had wanted most to be a schoolmaster. True, I didn’t know how to read, but that’s no obstacle. I perceived, at the end of a certain time, that I was, for one reason or another, fit for nothing. So I decided to become a poet and rhymester. It’s a profession one can always make up, if one’s a vagabond; and it’s better than stealing, as I was advised to do by some young brigands of my acquaintance.
Pierre Gringoire is both the glue and the sanity in the novel. He interacts with virtually every character and is often the person who relays information from one party to another.
He serves as a waypoint for the readers in a sea of insanity.
We can picture ourselves in the book through this character. He is broke and fighting to make a place for himself in the world. Throughout the book he is always looking out for himself and rolling with the punches. Just like any "normal" person would.
One of my favorite quotes from the poet:
"Oh," said he, "how gladly I would drown myself if the water weren't so cold!" book2 chap1
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Suprisingly the first character mentioned in the novel is the archdeacon's less pious half, his brother Jehan Frollo.
"Why upon my soul, it's you, Johannes Frollo de Molendino!" shouted one of them, to a little blond rascal with a handsome mischievous face, who had perched himself in the foliage of one of the pillar's capitals. "You are rightly named Jehan of the Mill, for your two arms and legs like the sails of a windmill!" book1 chap1
Jehan is one of those students who are always taking classes but never graduate. A brain full of snippits of useless knowledge. He is more of a sponsored drunk and town rabble-rouser than an actual scholar. One who spends his time in the taverns, with friends, and with the whores. While his brother Claude fell short of raising him an intellectual, Jehan did learn to be cunning.
In the beginning of the book, at the Palace of Justice, he is found taunting the local merchants, appointed officials, and religious leaders. After some commentating before and during the mystery play, he slips into the shadows until the second half.
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"Halt! you villains! Let that wench go!" thundered a cavalryman, who suddenly appeared from a neighboring cross street. book2 chap4
Of course I could not leave out Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers, La Esmeralda’s "knight in shining armor". After he rescues her from the hideous Quasimodo’s clutches and spoils his plans of abduction does she turn to butter in his saddle. Her protector, her crush, her Phoebus. And as any young love, she quickly dashes off into the night without even saying her name, leaving Phoebus to exclaim to the gendarmes "I would rather have kept that wench!"
Other than an appearance at Quasimodo’s trial and some dreamily muttered phrases by Esmeralda there is little else mentioned of Phoebus in the first half of the book. However, all that glitters is not gold. Phoebus involvement is pivotal in the second half.
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Paquette la Chantefleurie, also known as Sister Gudule, a.k.a. the Recluse, a.k.a. the Sachette.
Sole occupant of the Rat Hole. A stone cell in the Tower of Roland with only one barred window where she voluntarily lives on display in the square. She has no bed, wears sackcloth, and eats handouts that people leave for her. She has been living there voluntarily, for 16 years, in order to mourn for her daughter who was stolen by gypsies. Not only did the gypsies take her child but they left Quasimodo in the child’s bed. Therefor, it was the recluse who left Quasimodo in front of the statue in the cathedral. Here is the author’s description of her:
This figure, which seemed fixed to the floor, appeared to have neither motion, thought, or breath. Covered only by thin sackcloth, in January, crouching upon a pavement of granite, without fire, in the darkness of a dungeon whose oblique window admitted only the northeast wind and never the sun, she seemed not to shiver, or even to feel. You would have thought she had turned to stone like the dungeon, or to ice like the season. Her hands were clasped, her eyes were staring. At first glance, you mistook her for a specter; at the second for a statue.
However, at intervals, her blue lips half opened with a sigh and trembled, but their movement was as lifeless and automatic as that of leaves which are scattered by the wind. And from those dull, stony eyes there proceeded a look, ineffable, profound, lugubrious, imperturbable, constantly seen from the outside—a look which seemed to concentrate all the gloomy thoughts of that distressed soul upon some mysterious object. book6 chap3
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~~~ Characters ~~~
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David Lammers