Notre Dame de Paris

Author: Victor Hugo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: This is a legendary story set in 15th-century France: The beautiful Gypsy girl Esmeralda earns her living by performing in Paris. She falls in love with the handsome and gallant Captain Phoebus, but Phoebus is merely a frivolous man who plays the field. The Vice-Dean of Paris's Sainte-Chapelle, Claude, secretly laments Esmeralda's beauty and orders his adopted son, Quasimodo, to abduct her, though the attempt fails. Enraged, Claude incites Quasimodo to assassinate Phoebus, who is dating Esmeralda. As a result, Esmeralda is sentenced to death as a murderer. On the day of her execution, she is rescued by the grotesquely ugly but kind-hearted bell ringer, Quasimodo, who takes her refuge in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Quasimodo does everything in his power to save Esmeralda. After discovering that Claude had killed her, he furiously throws him off the rooftop, killing him, and then comes to the cemetery to take his own life beside Esmeralda's corpse. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame reveals the stark contrast between human goodness and outward appearance, exposes the hypocrisy of religion, and declares the bankruptcy of asceticism.