The Theme of Fate in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Whenever one looks in the nineteenth century, there is Victor Hugo, the French dramatist and novelist, and the revolutionary socialist. His father was a general in Napoleon’s army and, as a result, Hugo was never a strong supporter of the monarchy that began in 1815 after Napoleon’s defeat in Waterloo.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was written during the July 1830 Revolution, was affected by the historical and political trends of the early nineteenth century. Victor Hugo was born at the beginning of the Napoleonic Empire on February 26,1802. He began writing under the restoration monarchy but then became a strong supporter of the French Republic. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is his first novel. The original title of the novel is “Notre dame de Paris” in French. It’s a historical novel and everything about the plot is supposed to reflect the cathedral of Notre Dame. Fate is a very important theme in the novel and it is linked to the cathedral -- every character in there was tied to Notre Dame in some way, and Notre Dame sealed their fates. Notre Dame itself even had a tragic fate, it was falling apart and there was very little respect for its architecture. Noth

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Many characters in the novel do not believe in free will. Here we can understand that Esmeralda has a similiar fate with the fly. The priest tries to force himself on her, but the hunchback again comes to La Esmeralda’s rescue. Because Frollo is obsessed with La Esmeralda, he stabs Phoebus in her presence; through no fault of her own, she is blamed for the crime and sentenced to die.

The novel opens in medieval Paris on January 6, 1482, during the festival of Fools. When Quasimodo sees his beloved La Esmeralda being hung, he kills Frollo in a rage and then perishes in grief. For example, when Pierre Gringoire follows La Esmerelda he "resigns his free will" and accepts any direction that she chooses. La Esmeralda is snatched from her crib as a baby and brought up by gypsies. After stealing her from Notre-Dame, he puts her in Rolande’s tower, where La Esmeralda discovers that Pacquette is her mother. According to the editor of the first edition of Hunchback of Notredame in 1831, when Hugo was visiting or exploring Notre Dame, he found, carved by hand on the wall of one of the towers the word “Anatkh” which meant fatality in Greek. Because of a previous kindness that La Esmeralda displayed to Quasimodo, he rescues her from hanging and gives her sanctuary in the cathedral. Frollo, the priest, is driven mad by La Esmeralda’s presence in his church. Hugo suggests that we must all exercise our free will to retain our sense of morality and the responsibility for our actions. He believes that nothing can change fatality and as he warns his associate “one should never meddle with fatality”. Thanks to his novel, a massive restoration program of Notre Dame began by 1845.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 1009
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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