The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Book 4, Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Frollo is prone to extreme emotions and interests, which often become fixated on one thing. This serves him well in his career; people respect his dedication to knowledge and fear his singularity of purpose. Frollo’s singular approach to things is very rigid, however, and does not allow for twists and turns of fate, which people have little control over. This is demonstrated through Jehan, who is not fated to grow into a scholar, despite Frollo’s best efforts to make him one.

Frollo wants to control Jehan and to be the master of Jehan’s fate. However, as Jehan grows up, Frollo finds that he cannot control him, and this suggests that destiny is often outside of people’s control.

Frollo is an extremely passionate and intense man, but his passions are limited by his vow of celibacy (which he takes on entering the priesthood) and he cannot expand his worldly experience through marriage or sexual relationships with women. His fervent studies suggest that passions and extreme emotions do not simply dissipate when they are repressed but must be channeled elsewhere. Already, Hugo is hinting that Frollo might be better off if he didn’t repress his strong feelings—after all, they’re the thing that led him to show such kindness and compassion to both Jehan and Quasimodo. Meanwhile, medieval society is extremely superstitious and lacks rational and scientific knowledge about the world. Frollo wishes to push beyond the limits of knowledge in this society, through his scientific experiments. Since most people cannot explain what he is doing, they feel that there must be a supernatural—rather than a rational—explanation for his behavior.

Experimental science was relatively new in the medieval period and was mostly focused around alchemy (the ability to change certain metals into others). Nicholas Flamel was a famous alchemist who was believed to have discovered the philosopher’s stone: an alchemic process that could turn metal into gold. This ability was associated with eternal life because gold was believed to be a divine substance; people could not naturally explain its existence underground, so it was widely believed to have been put there by God. If one could learn to make gold, it was thought, one could understand the divine and become immortal, like God. This quest for eternal life was considered sinful, however, because Christianity taught that humans should not aspire to be like God. This message is clear in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, in which Adam and Eve are tempted into eating from the tree of knowledge by a demon, who tells them that knowledge will make them as powerful as God. Therefore alchemy, science, and the quest for knowledge were all associated with the devil and sin in the medieval period.

A “grimoire” is a spell book. Hugo’s comparison of the façade of Notre Dame with a book supports his thesis that buildings are sources of knowledge that can reveal information about history and humanity. Nicholas Flamel was a famous alchemist (an early natural scientist) who was credited with discovering the secret of eternal life through his experiments with the philosopher’s stone. Alchemy was considered sinful in the medieval period because the quest for knowledge was associated with aspiring to be like God, something which was strictly forbidden in Christian doctrine. Therefore, knowledge was associated with sin and the knowledge Frollo gleans from the façade of Notre Dame is associated with witchcraft and the black arts—even though the building itself is a church.

Hugo suggests that Gothic architecture is multi-faceted: that it is worthy of academic study and aesthetic appreciation. In the 19th century, when Hugo was writing, most scholars believed that the medieval period was a barbarous time which produced nothing intellectual and that Gothic architecture was an ugly product of this barbarism. Hugo contradicts this position in his novel, in part by describing Frollo’s intense intellectual efforts. Medieval society is very superstitious and uses the supernatural to explain natural occurrences (like Frollo’s science experiments) which they cannot understand, but Hugo indicates that their superstitons weren’t foolish; rather, they were a reasonable way to try and understand a confusing world.

Frollo is a hypocrite: he attacks those who do the same as him so that no one will suspect his own behavior. Although Frollo is not a sorcerer, alchemy (a brand of experimental science which was concerned with transforming base metals into precious metals, like gold) was associated with sin and diabolic practices in the medieval period. Frollo wants to turn metal into gold so that he can achieve divine knowledge (gold was believed to be a divine substance, so to create gold was to become like God) and he knows that, according to Christian doctrine, it is sinful for humans to aspire to be like God. Therefore, Frollo hypocritically disguises his sinful practices with his holy exterior as a zealous priest and persecutor of witches.

Frollo was passionate and loving as a young man. However, as his ages, Frollo finds no new outlets for his passion—as a priest he cannot marry or have sex, and he struggles to connect with other people in general. His passions do not disappear, however, but rather grow stronger the more they are repressed. They are increasingly channeled into things which he finds frustrating and fruitless—his quest for knowledge—rather than loving and nurturing, such as his relationship with Jehan.

Despite his interest in rationalism and science, Frollo grows superstitious about gypsies and comes believes in witchcraft—presumably because, by believing in witchcraft, he can deny his feelings for Esmeralda, which Hugo will soon describe. As he grows older, Frollo channels his intense passion into persecuting witches—a destructive use of his energy compared with his youthful, generous passion, which inspired him to adopt both Jehan and Quasimodo.