Notre-Dame de Paris

Author: Hugo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: This book is one of Hugo's important representative works. It artfully recreates the historical reality of the reign of King Louis XI over four hundred years ago, depicting how the court and the church colluded to oppress the people and how the people bravely fought against these two forces. He skillfully combines fact and imagination, narrative and description, giving both the innocent and kind bell ringer and Gypsy girl, as well as the evil and cunning priest and captain, a tragic end. The author organically links the moving and dramatic story with vivid scenes, making the novel highly readable. The publication of the novel also brought Hugo widespread fame.
In 1482, Paris, Notre-Dame Cathedral was home to a master and a servant: the hypocritical Archdeacon Claude and the deformed bell ringer Quasimodo. The actually evil Claude became obsessed with the street dancer Esmeralda, a Gypsy girl, and sent Quasimodo to abduct her at night. The young and handsome Captain Phoebus rescued her. The girl fell in love with Phoebus, and the jealous Archdeacon stabbed the officer during their tryst, framing Esmeralda. She was sentenced to death, but was rescued by Quasimodo, who secretly loved her, and was sheltered in Notre-Dame Cathedral. However, Claude incited the church to label her a witch, and the court, ignoring Notre-Dame's status as a sanctuary, decided to arrest her. The tough guys of Paris came to rescue the girl, but Quasimodo, mistaking them for soldiers coming to capture Esmeralda, fought desperately. King Louis XI sent troops to attack Notre-Dame, and in the ensuing battle, Claude kidnapped the girl and forced her to satisfy his beastly desires. When she refused, he handed her over to the soldiers and watched from the top of Notre-Dame's bell tower as she was hanged. Filled with righteous fury, Quasimodo pushed the hypocritical Archdeacon to his death and then went to the cemetery to find Esmeralda's body, dying beside her.
Several years later, a man and a woman's skeletons were discovered in a cave—they were Quasimodo and the Gypsy girl, tightly embracing each other!
Set against the backdrop of late 15th-century Paris, this book follows the encounters and activities of the grotesquely ugly bell ringer Quasimodo and the beautiful and kind Esmeralda, showcasing a series of contrasts and struggles between goodness and evil, justice and brutality, and integrity and hypocrisy.