The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Book 6, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Public punishment and execution were popular and were considered entertaining in the medieval period. This shows that medieval society was not empathetic and did not care about the people who suffered under these brutal and unjust punishments. Hugo thus suggests again that a cruel justice system breeds cruel people.

Esmeralda is judged purely because she is a gypsy, not because the women have any evidence that gypsies eat children—these ideas are based on superstition and gossip. This moment foreshadows how Esmeralda will later be persecuted on the basis of superficial characteristics that she can’t even control.

The women are unsympathetic towards Paquette and blame her for her beauty. This suggests that women in the medieval period are misogynistically held responsible for men’s attraction to them if they are beautiful. Men’s attentions could be dangerous to women because lust was considered sinful and women were considered more sinful than men. Accordingly, women were often accused of leading men on sexually. As a prostitute, Paquette was considered especially sinful, although she only became one out of necessity.

Paquette is persecuted because of her sexuality. Lust was considered sinful in the medieval period and women were misogynistically believed to be more sinful and prone to lust than men. Therefore, although men freely use Paquette’s services, she is held responsible for their desire and is treated as a criminal and an outcast because of this.

Although people fear gypsies, because they believe them to have unnatural powers, they also make use of the services the gypsies offer, like fortune-telling. This suggests that medieval people hypocritically ostracize the gypsies based on their appearance, poverty, and social class while taking advantage of the skills they find useful.

Paquette is a tragic victim of fate and has lost the child she loved most in the world through no fault of her own. This suggests that people often cannot predict or prevent misfortune.

People rationally assume that the baby is dead because of the evidence they find at the camp. However, they jump to this conclusion because they already believe the superstitious rumor that gypsies eat babies. This suggests that the medieval worldview was based in superstition but that this superstition was often an understandable response to mysterious events.

The baby shoe symbolizes Paquette’s love for her child because it is all she has left of her. Paquette is a tragic victim of fate and has lost her child through no fault of her own. Similarly, Quasimodo (the deformed child) is left alone just because he happens to look different from other babies—something he can’t control.

In the medieval period, recluses gave up all forms of physical comfort because worldly pleasures were associated with sin, while abstinence was associated with spiritual purity. People gave donations to recluses because they believed them to be pure and thought that their charity may be spiritually rewarded.

Mahiette realizes that this is not a religious recluse, who has given up worldly things for spiritual reward, but rather a woman who is a tragic victim of fate and has gone mad with grief. Though lots of people believe her to be holy, Paquette is simply devastated—another example of the way in which many characters turn out to be different than than appearances suggest.

Extremes of emotion were often thought to have spiritual implications in the medieval period. Extreme sacrifices such as Paquette’s (she has given up all worldly comforts because of her grief for her lost child) were considered holy, while extreme emotions, such as consuming lust, were considered demonic. Paquette is so consumed by grief that she forgets she is cold until the shock of seeing Eustache reminds her. Thus, it may be that Paquette really is holy according to the standards of her time—even though she didn’t intend to be a religious recluse.

Here, Paquette reveals her obsession with Esmeralda, who is a gypsy. Paquette believes that gypsies killed her child, so she hates Esmeralda passionately. This hatred will turn out to be tragically ironic: although Esmeralda appears to be the thing Paquette hates most, she is actually Paquette’s own daughter—the thing she loves the most.