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Book 7, Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gothic Architecture, History, and Art
Lust, Sin, and Misogyny
Appearances, Alienation, and Hypocrisy
Fate and Predestination
The Supernatural, Rationalism, and Knowledge
Justice, Punishment, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
The people of Paris start to notice that the bells of Notre Dame do not ring as often or as musically as they did before. Although Quasimodo is still in the tower, a change has come over him. It is possible that this change started after his beating at the pillory, but it is also possible that Quasimodo has fallen in love with someone other than his bells.
Quasimodo represents the soul of the medieval period through his connection to Notre Dame. The novel deals with the inevitable end of the medieval period as culture changed and new ideas replaced medieval ones. Accordingly, Quasimodo’s gradual neglect of Notre Dame represents the movement away from medieval values, as symbolized by Gothic architecture.
Themes
On the morning of the festival of the Annunciation, Quasimodo rises to the ring the bells as usual. As he sets them going, some of his excitement for their music comes back to him and he runs and leaps alongside them. However, when he glances down into the square, he sees Esmeralda laying out her carpet, ready to perform, and he abruptly forgets about the bells. All the bells fall silent, one by one, much to the confusion of the Parisians.
As culture changes and the medieval period comes to an end, society loses its connection to Gothic architecture and to the church bells, which are the spirit of the church and central to the organization of daily life in the medieval period. Quasimodo’s loss of interest in the bells symbolically suggests this cultural change and suggests that, as culture moved into the Renaissance, people fell out of love with the Gothic grotesque and fell more in love with pure beauty—like Esmeralda’s.
Themes
