Description of Quasimodo. “Images of the main characters in Hugo’s novel “Notre Dame Cathedral”

Esmeralda

The beautiful Esmeralda personifies everything good, talented, natural and beautiful that she carries within herself. big soul people, but the opposite of the gloomy medieval asceticism forcibly instilled in the people by church fanatics. It’s not for nothing that she is so cheerful and musical, she loves songs, dance and life itself so much, this little street dancer. It is not for nothing that she is so chaste and at the same time so natural and straightforward in her love, so carefree and kind with everyone, even with Quasimodo, although he inspires her with insurmountable fear with his ugliness. Esmeralda is a true child of the people, her dancing gives joy ordinary people, she is idolized by the poor, schoolchildren, beggars and ragamuffins from the Court of Miracles. Esmeralda is all joy and harmony, her image just begs to be staged, and it is no coincidence that Hugo reworked his novel for the ballet “Esmeralda,” which still does not leave the European stage.

“...Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy or an angel, this Gringoire, this skeptical philosopher, this ironic poet, could not immediately determine, he was so fascinated by the dazzling vision.

She was short in stature, but seemed tall - her slim frame was so slender. She was dark-skinned, but it was not difficult to guess that during the day her skin had that wonderful golden hue that is characteristic of Andalusian and Roman women. The little foot was also the foot of an Andalusian - she walked so lightly in her narrow, graceful shoe. The girl danced, fluttered, twirled on an old Persian carpet carelessly thrown at her feet, and every time her radiant face appeared in front of you, the gaze of her large black eyes blinded you like lightning.

The eyes of the entire crowd were glued to her, all mouths agape. She danced to the rumble of a tambourine, which her round, virgin hands raised high above her head. Thin, fragile, with bare shoulders and occasional glimpses of her skirt slender legs, black-haired, quick as a wasp, in a golden bodice that tightly fitted her waist, in a colorful billowing dress, shining with her eyes, she truly seemed like an unearthly creature...”

Quasimodo

Another democratic hero of the novel, the foundling Quasimodo, rather personifies terrible force, hidden in the people, still dark, shackled by slavery and prejudice, but great and selfless in their selfless feeling, formidable and powerful in their rage. Which sometimes rises like the wrath of a rebel titan throwing off centuries-old chains.

Claude Frollo “baptized his adopted son and named him “Quasimodo” - either the memory of the day when he found him (for Catholics the first Sunday after Easter, Fomino Sunday; and in Latin it means “as if”, “almost.”), then whether wanting to use this name to express how unfortunate little creature imperfect, no matter how rough it is done. Indeed, Quasimodo, one-eyed, hunchbacked, was only almost a man."

The image of Quasimodo is artistic embodiment theories of the romantic grotesque. The incredible and monstrous prevail here over the real. First of all, this refers to the exaggeration of ugliness and all sorts of misfortunes that befall one person.

“...It is difficult to describe this tetrahedral nose, horseshoe-shaped mouth, tiny left eye, almost covered by a bristly red eyebrow, while the right one completely disappeared under a huge wart, broken crooked teeth, reminiscent of the battlements of a fortress wall, this cracked lip, over which it hung, as if an elephant's tusk, one of the teeth, this cleft chin... But it is even more difficult to describe the mixture of anger, amazement, sadness that was reflected on this man's face. Now try to imagine it all together!

The approval was unanimous. The crowd rushed to the chapel. From there the venerable pope of jesters was brought out in triumph. But now the amazement and delight of the crowd has reached highest limit. The grimace was his real face.

Or rather, he was all a grimace. A huge head covered with red stubble; a huge hump between the shoulder blades and another, balancing it, on the chest; his hips were so dislocated that his legs could meet at the knees, strangely resembling two sickles in front with connected handles; wide feet, monstrous hands. And, despite this ugliness, in his entire figure there was some kind of formidable expression of strength, agility and courage - an extraordinary exception to that general rule which requires that strength, like beauty, comes from harmony..."

Quasimodo "is all grimace." He was born “crooked, hunchbacked, lame”; then from bell ringing His eardrums burst and he became deaf. In addition, deafness made him seem mute (“When necessity forced him to speak, his tongue turned clumsily and heavily, like a door on rusty hinges”). The artist figuratively imagines his soul, chained in an ugly body, as “twisted and decayed” like the prisoners of Venetian prisons who lived to old age, “bent over three times in too narrow and too short stone boxes.”

At the same time, Quasimodo is the limit of not only ugliness, but also rejection: “From his very first steps among people, he felt and then clearly realized himself as a being rejected, spat upon, branded. Human speech for him was either a mockery or a curse.” Thus, the humanistic theme of outcasts, guilty without guilt, damned by an unjust human court, is developed already in Hugo’s first significant novel.

Hugo's grotesque is a "standard of comparison" and a fruitful "means of contrast." This contrast can be external or internal or both. Quasimodo's ugliness, first of all, contrasts sharply with Esmeralda's beauty. Next to him, she seems especially touching and charming, which is most effectively revealed in the scene at the pillory, when Esmeralda approaches the terrible, embittered and tormented by an unbearable thirst Quasimodo to give him something to drink (“Who would not be touched by the sight of beauty, freshness, innocence, charm and fragility, which came in a fit of mercy to the aid of the embodiment of misfortune, ugliness and malice! At the pillory, this spectacle was majestic."

Quasimodo's ugliness contrasts even more with his inner beauty, which is manifested in his selfless and devoted love for Esmeralda. The climax in revealing the true greatness of his soul is the scene of the kidnapping of Esmeralda, who was sentenced to hanging - the very scene that delighted the crowd surrounding them both: “... in these moments Quasimodo was truly beautiful. He was beautiful, this orphan, a foundling, ... he felt majestic and strong, he looked into the face of this society, which had expelled him, but in whose affairs he had so authoritatively interfered; he looked in the face of this human justice, from whom he had snatched the prey, of all these tigers, who only had to clang their teeth, these bailiffs, judges and executioners, all this royal power, which he, insignificant, broke with the help of almighty God."

The moral greatness, devotion and spiritual beauty of Quasimodo will once again appear in all its strength at the very end of the novel, when, having failed to protect Esmeralda from her main enemy - Archdeacon Claude Frollo, who nevertheless achieved the execution of the unfortunate gypsy, Quasimodo comes to die near her corpse, finding his beloved only in death.

It is significant that moral idea novel, associated mainly with Quasimodo, was perfectly understood and highly appreciated by F.M. Dostoevsky. Proposing to translate “Notre Dame Cathedral” into Russian, he wrote in 1862 in the magazine “Time” that the idea of this work is “restoration dead person, crushed unfairly by the oppression of circumstances... This thought is a justification for the humiliated and rejected pariahs of society... Who would not think, - Dostoevsky further wrote, - that Quasimodo is the personification of the oppressed and despised medieval French people, deaf and disfigured, gifted only with terrible physical strength , but in which love and the thirst for justice finally awakens, and with them the consciousness of one’s truth and one’s still untouched infinite powers... Victor Hugo is almost the main herald of this idea of “restoration” in the literature of our century. At least he was the first to express this idea with such artistic power in art."

Thus, Dostoevsky also emphasizes that the image of Quasimodo is a symbol associated with Hugo’s democratic pathos, with his assessment of the people as bearers of high moral principles.

Quasimodo is a name that has become a household name and even offensive. But not everyone knows that Quasimodo is from Hugo’s novel “The Cathedral” Notre Dame of Paris" And finding out the history of this character will be interesting to any person who strives to be an interesting and erudite interlocutor.

Who is Quasimodo?

Quasimodo is a hunchback who was picked up as an infant by a minister at Notre Dame Cathedral. Good deed The minister was rewarded with the devotion of the child, who remained to live in the cathedral and began to perform the duties of a bell-ringer.

But people mocked the ugly man, were afraid of him and even shied away. Even in the photographs brought to life by artists, Quasimodo looks frightening. This made Quasimodo withdrawn, angry and even cruel person. It seemed that he was capable of warm feelings, but at one moment he met the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda.

Plot of the novel

One evening, dancer Esmeralda is attacked by two unknown men. One of them manages to be detained, and he turns out to be the hunchback Quasimodo. As punishment, he is chained to a stake and beaten with a whip. The hunchback asks for a sip of water, but no one responds to his request, the crowd laughs at the ugly bell-ringer and mocks him. And only one person approaches Quasimodo with a glass of water. This person turns out to be the victim herself - Esmeralda. A generous act moves the embittered hunchback to tears.

The second criminal who remained uncaught is the minister of Notre Dame Cathedral Frollo. He is attracted to a beautiful gypsy, but she does not reciprocate because she is in love with the capital de Chateaupert. She is about to reveal her feelings to him, but Frollo, who is pursuing her, gets ahead of her, trying to kill the captain.

Esmeralda is accused of the assassination attempt on de Chateaupert on the sole grounds that she is a gypsy, and therefore a witch. The surviving captain makes no attempt to help Esmeralda, and Frollo comes up with an ominous plan: to appear to the prisoner and offer her to become his wife in exchange for freedom. Beautiful dancer categorically refuses the offer, and the clergyman decides that the death penalty for Esmeralda - The best way get rid of your own love experiences.

The Hunchback and the Dancer

Remembering the good deed of the beautiful gypsy, Quasimodo decides to save the girl. He kidnaps her straight from the execution and takes her to the cathedral, knowing that no criminal can be arrested inside the building. Quasimodo and Esmeralda live in the cathedral. The hunchback brings her clothes and food, and she, unable to leave the walls of the cathedral, accepts his care.

Frollo persuades people to rescue Esmeralda from the cathedral in order to complete the execution, but Quasimodo is no longer a callous hunchback, but a man passionately in love. Therefore, he guards the dancer and, noticing a crowd at the foot of the cathedral, fights back. He does not know that the people on whom he throws logs from a height and pours molten lead are not enemies, but the girl’s saviors.

Taking advantage of the hype, Frollo kidnaps the gypsy and proposes again. Having received another refusal, he rushes to the cell located nearby, where the recluse Gadula, who hates gypsies, lives, and invites the woman to kill the gypsy. But Gadula recognizes a small pendant-shoe on the dancer’s neck and understands that in front of her is her own daughter. But she is no longer able to save her - the arriving officers kill the girl right on the spot.

Death of Quasimodo

Quasimodo and Frollo watch Esmeralda's murder from the tower. The latter bursts into ominous laughter, and the distraught hunchback throws the servant off the tower.

Having found the body of the beautiful Esmeralda in the crypt where the corpses of those executed are thrown, he clutches it in his arms and dies.

Analysis of the novel

Hugo's work, where Quasimodo and Esmeralda are embroiled in strange and difficult relationships, had big success. The character of each hero is complex and contradictory: a gypsy who grew up on the street has a pure and beautiful soul, the priest Frollo is vengeful and embittered, and the hunchback bell-ringer is capable of sincere love.

At the center of the entire novel is not an animated hero, but a building - Notre Dame Cathedral. This is a monumental church with amazing architecture, columns, vaults, bells and chimeras. There is a possibility that Quasimodo is one of the chimeras on the building.

The novel is a panoramic look at life of that era. That is, the reader learns not only fate beautiful gypsy, with whom Quasimodo fell in love, but in digressions from the plot he also learns about Louis XI and the Flemish delegation.

If the novel had been written a century later, it could well have become a script for an exciting movie, since Hugo very vividly described the exciting scenes of Frollo’s death or the hunchback’s defense of the fortress from the gypsies.

Criticism of the novel

The main argument put forward literary critics, is the implausibility of the characters’ characters. Quasimodo - who is he? An embittered hunchback or a pure-hearted person capable of courageous actions for the sake of others? And Esmeralda, who grew up amid violence, could she have the honor and pride to refuse Frollo’s proposed hand and go to her death?

The biographer of Victor Hugo agreed with the opinion of critics, but added that, despite the implausibility of the characters in the novel, they were able to remain in the minds and souls of the readers of the novel for many years.

The novel “Notre Dame de Paris” is today a classic and a treasure French literature 19th century. The story of Esmeralda, the priest and the hunchback has been alive for almost 200 years and still remains interesting, intriguing, and touching. Films are made based on the novel, cartoons are created, and we can see a photo of Quasimodo according to the version different artists, guessing what the hunchback could be like if he really existed, and not on the pages of a novel.

QUASIMODO (French Quasimodo) - central character novel by V. Hugo “Notre Dame de Paris”. An image of amazing power, bright and powerful, simultaneously repulsive and attractive. Perhaps, of all the characters in the novel, it is K. who most closely corresponds to the aesthetic ideals of romanticism: he, like a gigantic giant, rises above a series of rather ordinary people, absorbed in their everyday activities. It is customary to draw parallels between K. and Esmeralda (physical deformity and beauty); K. and Claude Frollo (selflessness of true feeling and egoism); K. and Phoebus (the greatness of the spirit of a man from the bottom and the petty narcissism and deceit of an aristocrat). In terms of its impact, the image of K. can only be compared here with the image of the cathedral itself, which on the pages of the novel exists on equal terms with the living characters. And the author repeatedly emphasizes the relationship between K., who grew up at the temple, and Notre Dame itself. “Strong ties connected the bell-ringer with the cathedral. The protruding corners of his body seemed to be created in order to fit into the concave corners of the building.” K.'s life story is extremely simple from the point of view of the series of events. It is known that sixteen years ago he was thrown into the very cradle from which little Agnes (Esmeralda) was kidnapped, who was then about four years old. Already in childhood, the baby was distinguished by amazing ugliness and caused only disgust in everyone. “A double misfortune befell Quasimodo,” writes Hugo, “ugliness and dark origin.” The baby was baptized, thus expelling the “devil,” and sent to Paris, to Notre Dame Cathedral. There they were ready to throw him into the fire as a wicked man, but the young priest Claude Frollo stood up for the unfortunate child, adopted him and gave him the name Quasimodo (Catholics call this the first Sunday after Easter, and it was on this day that the boy was discovered). Since then, he lived in the cathedral, eventually becoming its bell ringer. People did not like K. for his ugliness, they insulted and laughed at him, not wanting to see the noblest, selfless soul behind his ugly appearance. Bells became his passion, replacing with their sound the joy of communicating with loved ones. And it was they who led to a new misfortune: from the constant ringing of the bells, Quasimodo became deaf. The reader's first encounter with this an unusual hero occurs at the moment when he is elected the pope of jesters for his ugly appearance. “... A tetrahedral nose, a horseshoe-shaped mouth, a tiny left eye, almost covered by a bristly red eyebrow, while the right one completely disappeared under a huge wart... A huge head... a huge hump between the shoulder blades, and another, balancing it, on the chest” - this is far away Not full list signs of Quasimodo's deformity. On the same day, only late in the evening, Quasimodo tried, at the request of his mentor, to kidnap Esmeralda, for which he was put on trial. The judge was as deaf as K., and, fearing that his deafness would be revealed, he decided to punish the bell-ringer more severely, without even knowing why he was punishing him. As a result, K. found himself in the pillory. The assembled crowd mocked him as best they could, and no one wanted to let him drink except Esmeralda. Two destinies are intertwined, the fate of a beauty and the fate of a rootless freak. When Esmeralda, saved from the gallows, asks K. why he saved her, she hears an answer that fully reflects his gigantic nature: “For this drop of water, for this drop of pity, I can only pay with my whole life.” He gives the rescued Esmeralda both his cell and his food, and noticing how she reacts to his ugly appearance, he tries to catch her eye less often. K. sleeps on the stone floor at the entrance to the cell, protecting Esmeralda’s peace, and allows himself to admire her only when she is sleeping. Seeing how Esmeralda is suffering, K. is ready to bring Phoebus to her. Jealousy, like any other manifestation of egoism and selfishness, is alien to K. Moreover, K.’s image changes as the novel progresses, becoming more and more attractive. If at first it was mentioned about his viciousness and savagery, then in the future there is no basis for such characteristics. K. even begins to write poetry, trying with their help to open Esmeralda’s pelvis to what she does not want to see: “Don’t look at the face, girl, but look into the heart. The heart of a beautiful young man is often ugly, and there are hearts where love does not live.” In the name of saving Esmeralda, K. is ready to destroy everything and everyone, even the cathedral. His hand has not yet risen only to Claude Frollo, to the root cause of troubles. K. considered it possible to speak out against his patron after he saw him laughing triumphantly at the moment of Esmeralda’s execution. And then he “with his mighty hands pushed the archdeacon into the abyss.” Hugo doesn't describe last moments hero's life. But tragic end predetermined already at the moment when he utters the phrase: “This is everything I loved!” - looking from the height of the cathedral at the lifeless white figurine of Esmeralda in a noose and the black silhouette of Claude Frollo spread out on the stone square.

Esmeralda is truly a genius pure beauty world literature. It's not just her appearance that is perfect - from her small, impeccably shaped legs to her dark, huge eyes and lush black hair. Hugo repeatedly emphasizes that when E. appears, everything...

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Gypsy Esmeralda gives pleasure to the crowd with her art and her entire appearance. She is far from pious and does not give up earthly pleasures. This image most clearly reflects the revival of interest in man, which becomes main feature worldview in new era. Esmeralda is inextricably linked with the people. Hugo uses romantic contrast, highlighting the girl’s beauty with images of the lower classes of society, in the depiction of which he uses the grotesque. Esmeralda is a gypsy (though only by upbringing) and French (by origin).

Her unique beauty drove Frollo crazy, and he destroyed her because he could not understand and could not appropriate her. Esmeralda embodies Hugo's ideal. This is his subjective, romantic vision of freedom and beauty, which always go hand in hand. The beautiful dancer bears the features of the new Renaissance culture (nationality, unity of spiritual and physical, humanity), which is replacing medieval asceticism, and this cannot be changed (the first scene of the novel has a symbolic content, which shows the inevitable loss of the church of its former authority). The opposite image in the novel - the image of the gloomy scoundrel, Archdeacon Claude Frollo (created after the cardinal-executioner from Marion Delorme), reveals Hugo's many years of struggle against the church.

The royal power and its support - the Catholic Church - are depicted in the novel as forces hostile to the people. The judiciously cruel Louis XI is very close to the gallery of crowned criminals from Hugo's dramas. Claude Frollo's feelings are distorted: love, parental favor, thirst for knowledge are blocked by selfishness and hatred. He also expresses one of the characteristics of the people of the Renaissance, but first of all he is a man of the Middle Ages, an ascetic who treats all the pleasures of life with contempt. He protected himself from folk life the walls of the cathedral and his laboratory, and therefore his soul is in the grip of dark and evil passions. Claude Frollo would like to suppress all earthly feelings, which he considers shameful, and devote himself to studying the complete summary of human knowledge.

But despite the objection of human feelings, he himself fell in love with Esmeralda. This love is destructive. Without the strength to overcome it, Claude Frollo takes the path of crime, dooming Esmeralda to torment and death. Retribution comes to the archdeacon from his servant, the cathedral bell ringer, Quasimodo. To create this image, Hugo makes especially extensive use of the grotesque. Quasimodo is an extraordinary freak. His face and figure are both funny and scary at the same time. Grotesque Quasimodo, ugly, mentally disabled, incredibly strong physically, all his life he knew only insults and cruelty.

And he responded with cruelty to cruelty. Even Frollo, who supposedly raised the orphan, cannot look at the unfortunate man with anything other than disgust. Quasimodo looks like chimeras - fantastic animals whose images adorn the cathedral. Quasimodo is the soul of the cathedral. The ugly monster also fell in love with the beautiful Esmeralda, but not for her beauty, but for her kindness. And his soul, which awakens from the sleep into which Claude Frollo plunged him, turns out to be beautiful. A beast in appearance, Quasimodo is an angel at heart. Quasimodo's love for Esmeralda is a high love for the Renaissance Madonna. This is how Dante loved Beatrice, this is how Petrarch treated Laura. Before meeting Esmeralda, Quasimodo did not know that love, beauty and goodness exist in the world. The kind deed of the girl from the Court of Miracles became a “sincere event” for Quasimodo and turned his life around. Quasimodo embodies the author's understanding of the nature and fate of the people, downtrodden and powerless, unreasonable and slavishly obedient. But not always. Before meeting Esmeralda, Quasimodo's life passed as if in a state of sleep. He saw in front of him only the huge structure of the cathedral, he served it and was part of it. Now he has seen something else and is ready to give his life for this something else.

Quasimodo's protest is an unconscious, cruel, and even terrible protest. But it’s hard to blame him, you can only sympathize with him. Thus, Hugo, through the means of romantic art, expresses his own attitude towards revolutionary events, towards a people who have awakened and can no longer be different. The image of Claude Frollo is complemented by a section that has the expressive title “The Dislike of the People.” From the outside, with brilliance, but in reality, the heartless and devastated high society is embodied in the image of Captain Phoebus de Chateaupert, who, like the archdeacon, is incapable of selfless feelings.

Spiritual greatness and high humanism are inherent only to disadvantaged people from the bottom of society; they are the real heroes of the novel. Street dancer Esmeralda symbolizes moral beauty common man, the deaf and ugly bell-ringer Quasimodo is the eternity of the social fate of the oppressed. At the center of the novel is Notre Dame Cathedral, a symbol of the spiritual life of the French people. The cathedral was built by the hands of hundreds of nameless craftsmen; the description of the cathedral becomes the occasion for an inspired prose poem about French national life. The cathedral provides shelter for the folk heroes of the novel; their fate is closely connected with it; around the cathedral there are living people who do not stop fighting. The cathedral, eternal and immovable, is the main character of the novel. This is not just a huge structure on the Ile de la Cité, which unites university Paris and bourgeois Paris, it is a living creature that observes the life of Claude Frollo, Esmeralda, Quasimodo.

The Council embodies the eternal law, the eternal law of necessity, the death of one and the birth of another. At the same time, the cathedral is a symbol of the enslavement of the people, a symbol of feudal oppression, dark superstitions and prejudices that hold the souls of people captive. It is not without reason that in the darkness of the cathedral, under its arch, merging with strange stone chimeras, deafened by the roar of bells, Quasimodo, the “soul of the cathedral,” whose grotesque image personifies the Middle Ages, lives alone.

In contrast, the magical image of Esmeralda embodies the joy and beauty of earthly life, the harmony of body and soul, i.e. ideals of the Renaissance. The dancer Esmeralda lives among the Parisian crowd and gives the common people her art, fun and kindness. Victor Hugo did not idealize the Middle Ages; he truthfully showed the dark sides of feudal society. At the same time, his work is deeply poetic, filled with ardent patriotic love for France, for its history, for its art, in which, as Hugo believed, the freedom-loving spirit and talent of the French people lives. The concentration of opposing traits and the intensification of passions create a powerful pictorial effect and make Hugo’s work one of the brightest in the history of world literature.

Quasimodo is the personification of physical deformity. This is a hunchbacked dwarf, crooked, lame and deaf. He was adopted as a child by Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Rejected by people, Quasimodo experiences a brutal hatred of people. At first he also hates the gypsy dancer Esmeralda because she is very beautiful. On Frollo's orders, Quasimodo tries to kidnap her, but the attempt is unsuccessful and he is publicly punished. Tied to the pillory, tormented by the executioner, thirsty, Quasimodo prays in vain to those around him for someone to give him something to drink. The crowd responds to him only with laughter and mockery. Only Esmeralda, an outcast like himself, who lives in the slums, rootless and homeless, took pity on the unfortunate man. She, despite the mood of the crowd and not afraid of Quasimodo's ugliness, came up and gave him a drink. And a miracle happened: Quasimodo’s hatred for Esmeralda was replaced by love and the desire to help her in everything and protect her. When Esmeralda, in turn, is condemned to execution, Quasimodo takes her away from the executioners, hides her in the cathedral, and defends her alone

from a crowd of armed men who came to recapture Esmeralda. But he turns out to be powerless against Claude Frollo, whom he brutally deals with after the execution of Esmeralda. Quasimodo searches for Esmeralda's body in the crypt where the bodies of those executed are dumped, and dies holding her in his arms. The ugly Quasimodo is the personification of the Middle Ages, while the beautiful and kind Esmeralda is the embodiment of the ideals of the Renaissance.