Beauty Close Reading Analysis Chart

Passage #2 From Novel (Hugo 205-211)	Analysis of Close Reading
"However, Paquette's child had more that was pretty about it besides its feet. I saw her when she was only four months old; she was a love! She had eyes larger than her mouth, and the most charming black hair, which already curled. She would have been a magnificent brunette at the age of sixteen! Her mother became more crazy over her every day. She kissed her, caressed her, tickled her, washed her, decked her out, devoured her! She lost her head over her, she thanked God for her. Her pretty, little rosy feet above all were an endless source of wonderment, they were a delirium of joy! She was always pressing her lips to them, and she could never recover from her amazement at their smallness. She put them into the tiny shoes, took them out, admired them, marvelled at them, looked at the light through them, was curious to see them try to walk on her bed, and would gladly have passed her life on her knees, putting on and taking off the shoes from those feet, as though they had been those of an Infant Jesus."   ‘The tale is fair and good,’ said Gervaise in a low tone; ‘but where do gypsies come into all that?’   ‘Here,’ replied Mahiette. ‘One day there arrived in Reims a very queer sort of people. They were beggars and vagabonds who were roaming over the country, led by their duke and their counts. They were browned by exposure to the sun, they had closely curling hair, and silver rings in their ears. The women were still uglier than the men. They had blacker faces, which were always uncovered, a miserable frock on their bodies, an old cloth woven of cords bound upon their shoulder, and their hair hanging like the tail of a horse. The children who scrambled between their legs would have frightened as many monkeys. A band of excommunicates . . . [Chantefleurie] was very much frightened by the Egyptians, and wept. But her mother kissed her more warmly and went away enchanted with the good fortune which the soothsayers had foretold for her Agnes. She was to be a beauty, virtuous, a queen. So she returned to her attic in the Rue Folle-Peine, very proud of bearing with her a queen. The next day she took advantage of a moment when the child was asleep on her bed, (for they always slept together), gently left the door a little way open, and ran to tell a neighbor in the Rue de la Séchesserie, that the day would come when her daughter Agnes would be served at table by the King of England and the Archduke of Ethiopia, and a hundred other marvels. On her return . . . The child was no longer there, the place was empty. Nothing remained of the child, but one of her pretty little shoes. She flew out of the room, dashed down the stairs, and began to beat her head against the wall, crying: 'My child! Who has my child? Who has taken my child? . . . During her absence, a neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in their arms, then descend again, after closing the door. After their departure, something like the cries of a child were heard in Paquette's room. The mother, burst into shrieks of laughter, ascended the stairs as though on wings, and entered.--A frightful thing to tell, Oudarde! Instead of her pretty little Agnes, so rosy and so fresh, who was a gift of the good God, a sort of hideous little monster, lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling and squalling over the floor. She hid her eyes in horror. 'Oh!' said she, 'have the witches transformed my daughter into this horrible animal?' . . . It was the monstrous child of some gypsy woman, who had given herself to the devil . . . La Chantefleurie flung herself upon the little shoe, all that remained to her of all that she loved. She remained so long motionless over it, mute, and without breath, that they thought she was dead” (205-211).	In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo is able to show the shallow nature of his characters and how their pasts can come to repeat themselves through the use of a frame narrative and dialogue.       The style of this particular passage is that of a frame narrative. “The tale is fair and good” (208) suggests that there is relevant information within the story that will be important later on in the novel. In this particular story, description, dialogue, setting etc. are all used because they relate very similarly to those same characteristics of the novel. Therefore, this story, told by one of the characters, is used to inconspicuously insert foreshadowing and irony into the story. If the author had merely described the story himself; it wouldn’t have been so memorable and would have failed to create a notable foreshadow/ironic effect. This technique emphasizes how a story is presented can have a major affect on how it is perceived.       In addition, through the use of a frame narrative, the author reveals to the audience the true nature of his characters. The quote, “Instead of her pretty little Agnes, so rosy and so fresh, who was a gift of the good God, a sort of hideous little monster, lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling and squalling over the floor. She hid her eyes in horror” (210 reveals how even though beauty is short-lived, the characters will do almost anything to obtain it and stop at nothing to shun the opposite. It is understandable that the woman is upset by the loss of her daughter but instead of caring for a child who is under such a similar circumstance, all she can do is turn away in revulsion. The use of a frame narrative creates a sense of irony and therefore reveals the shallow nature of the characters.       The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is considered a piece from the Romantic era; a time depicted as a literary, artistic and intellectual movement that created new ideas by studying those of the past. That is specifically one of the reasons this passage is written in the form of a frame narrative. Based on the quote, “‘the tale is fair and good,’ said Gervaise in a low tone; ‘but where do gypsies come into all that?’ ‘Here,’ replied Mahiette. ‘One day there arrived in Reims a very queer sort of people. They were beggars and vagabonds who were roaming over the country, led by their duke and their counts’” (208) the passage is written in this form to emphasize how the actions of the past affect our future and that they can repeat themselves.       Therefore, through the use of a frame narrative and dialogue, Hugo is able to show the shallow nature of his characters and how their pasts can come to repeat themselves.