Notre Dame de Paris is a work written by French writer Victor Hugo in 1831 on the theme of love, with the characteristics of Romantic literature, which can be called the pinnacle of Romanticism in the 19th century. Its birth established Hugo's position as the patriarch of Romantic literature. I remember someone said: writers are immortalized by immortal works, and works are immortalized by immortal characters. Hugo and Notre Dame de Paris is so. Good works are like truths that can be released to the four corners of the world and exist in the past and present; they are also like heroes that will be admired by posterity and remain in the world forever. This is good for all time.
Some people say that love is the eternal theme of literature, without love, literature is less than half the glory. In the same way, if there is no love, Notre Dame de Paris will be as flavorless as clear soup with noodles. Love is a lifeline, and the subject of love is a material with supernatural flying power. It runs throughout this literary masterpiece, which is one of the reasons it has been able to attract millions of readers for nearly two hundred years.
The novel is set in Paris under the reign of Louis XI in the 15th century, and the author begins by painting a picture of the hustle and bustle of a frenzied crowd celebrating the Feast of the Scandalous King in front of Notre Dame de Paris. It is against this backdrop that the book's love story unfolds.
Esmeralda, the gypsy, Claude, the deputy bishop, Quasimodo, the bell-ringer, and Forbes, the captain of the royal guard, are some of the main characters of this love story. Let's start with the storyline.
The heroine, Esmeralda, is a kind and innocent young girl who grew up among streaming gypsy wandering entertainers and wandered Paris because she was stolen from her childhood by the Egyptians. She often dances in the square opposite the bell tower of Notre Dame in Paris, and by chance is seen by the vice-principal Crowder and captivates him. Unable to resist this temptation, Crowder asked Quasimodo, the bell-ringer, to rob Esmeralda at night. Unluckily, he is bumped into by Vorbis, the captain of the Royal Guard, who is on patrol. Vorbis heroically saves the day and sends Quasimodo to court to be sanctioned. When Quasimodo is tied to the rack of shame and subjected to scorn and abuse, and his mouth is as dry as fire, Esmeralda gives him water, regardless of the fact that she is not a friend of Quasimodo. Quasimodo was touched by her kindness. Esmeralda falls in love with Forbes, who is also attracted to her beauty, because of Forbes' heroic rescue. Crowder, who could not get Esmeralda after all his efforts, conspired to send her to the gallows. Quasimodo can't stand it anymore and pushes Crowder off the bell tower. He too ends up carrying Esmeralda's body to the grave.
That's the general plot. Now let's see what's involved.
First, let's talk about Forbes. Vorbis was the captain of the royal guard, of noble birth and handsome, but he was a man of no longitude and low fun. Drinking, talking dirty and playing with women are all his hobbies. When he meets Esmeralda, he is also impressed by her beauty. But he is a total playboy, and all he loves is Esmeralda's beauty, not love at all. Phobos is an abominable character, and his abomination is that he only covets Esmeralda's beauty, but does not love Esmeralda's life at all. When Esmeralda is sentenced to death for the murder of Forbes, Forbes has escaped from the hospital, but he does not testify against the real murderer in order not to expose his scandalous behavior. Esmeralda is about to die, and he is indifferent and at peace with himself, still in love with his hungry cousin's fiancée, Lily. In fact, he is not really love his cousin, the reason why he wants to marry his cousin, mainly because she has a generous dowry, and his hungry cousin also has a few good looks. This kind of person will never understand love, he is just the hypocrite of love.
This kind of love hypocrite still exists in today's society, although they are usually very good at talking about love, swearing, sweet words. At the critical moment, love becomes worthless to them because they never know what real love is.
Some people say that Esmeralda was too stupid, how could she fall in love with this kind of hypocrite, just because he was "head with a feathered crown, hand with a long sword", a hero to save the beauty, handsome? We are all outsiders, the so-called spectators, but how could Esmeralda know? She was so pure, full of beautiful visions of love, "I can only love a man who protects me", what is wrong with this view? To say it is wrong, it can only be the fault of Phoebus, he is so cunning, hypocritical, pure Esmeralda is very difficult to understand. Hegel said: love appears most beautiful in a woman, because a woman concentrates all her spiritual and formal life in and promotes into love. She finds support only in love, and if she meets with misfortune in love, she is like a flame blown away by a gust of wind. It is because Esmeralda has concentrated her whole life in her love for Phoebus that she does not care about her life, and when she was being pursued she might have been able to get away under her mother's protection, but when she saw Phoebus, she called out to him without any regard for anything, and it is amazing that she did not realize that it was he who had come to pursue her, and that this cry of hers would have cost her her life. The love that Esmeralda gave to Forbes was a divine love, a sublime love, but this love was given to the wrong person and brought misfortune to herself.
Then again, there is Claude, the vice-priest. He was a man who summed up the beauty of erudition, wisdom, and knowledge. He followed the will of his parents and as a child went to the seminary of Dolce as a monk, growing up amidst the Mass and the Canon, at which time he studied hard, comprehended quickly, and became a learned man. At the same time he was a kind man, a man of rich and deep feelings. His feelings for his brother John, his adopted son Quasimodo, and his pupil Grandgoire were those of a true human being, the love of a brother and sister, the love of a father and son, the love of a teacher and a pupil, and there was not the slightest hint of hunger for falsehood or hypocrisy. But Claude grew up in a harsh monastic ascetic life, this abnormal life hindered the normal development of his human nature, so that his normal human feelings changed into a perverted behavior of hatred and jealousy of women. When he saw Esmeralda, he had a desire that could not be suppressed. But his long life of abstinence makes him not know how to express his love. He only slandered Esmeralda to prevent other men from approaching her. This prompted Esmeralda to hate him, and thus failed to win her heart.
But Claude's love was genuine. He would give up his future and his years of faith in God for Esmeralda. The big psychological self-confession during the prison visit is a passionate love poem, so sincere are the feelings expressed. Some people say it was just his carnal desire, not love at all. But love can not be without carnal desire, love is the unity of spirit and flesh. Crowder's carnal desire is based on a deep-rooted hunger for love. For her sake, he preferred to give up the future and God, this sacrifice is not enough?
I think his fault lies in the fact that his love is extremely selfish, and his view of love is: "If I can't have it no one else can!" That's why he first instructed his adopted son Quasimodo to rob Esmeralda in the dead of night, and when that failed, he assassinated his love rival, Phobos, and framed Esmeralda for the crime. When Esme is rescued by Quasimodo to take legal refuge within Notre Dame de Paris, he again uses power and intrigue to make Esmeralda lose the sanctuary of Notre Dame de Paris for her, and finally, in the midst of a manhunt, uses the threat of death to force Esmeralda to accept his love. Esmeralda, again so hungry for innocence and strength, preferred the gallows to Claude's love.
One-sided love without regard for others is sometimes sinful, though in a way it is also touching.
Lastly let's look at poor Quasimodo. Quasimodo grew up an outcast due to his deformed looks, and it was Vice Bishop Claude who adopted him. As he grew up in the church, he also never enjoyed the warmth of a family. When he grew up, he continued to stay in the church as a bell ringer. So there are only two people he loves, one is the vice bishop Claude, and the other is the church's big lifeless bell. However, the appearance of the beautiful and kind-hearted Esmeralda breaks his peaceful life and awakens his deepest desire for beautiful love. However, the awakening of this longing did not bring him any joy, but rather made him feel more y the spiritual pain caused by his physical defect.
In the face of Esmeralda's beauty, he was so inferior and miserable that he longed to be close to Esmeralda, but was afraid that his ugliness would make Esmeralda feel uncomfortable and afraid. He didn't have any extravagant hope for Esmeralda, he only needed to know that she was by her side. But even that was taken away from him by his adoptive father, and in his despair Quasimodo killed his adoptive father, Vice-Archbishop Claude, and finally himself - he embraced Esmeralda's body and walked into the other world.
Casimodo's ugly appearance - hunchbacked, crippled, one-eyed, deaf, and rejected by man and God - was the root cause of his tragedy. The Creator was unfair to him. But God gave him a good heart, which only made him suffer more. But in real life such people are after all a minority, but there are still a lot of people with this or that shortcomings, they are choosing their loved ones, perhaps because of the looks of the other party rejected, then perhaps also like Quasimodo as low self-esteem pain. So if they could be a little more confident, or tone down their standards for choosing a love object a little, maybe they would live a little happier.
This is my "Talking About Love" - love is an eternal theme, happiness is the **** same goal.
In the end, it's the same thing: writers are immortalized by their works, and works are immortalized by their immortal characters. Hugo and Notre Dame de Paris will be immortalized and live forever, as will Notre Dame de Paris!