Poetry Analysis and Connection to "The Hunchback"

      I chose the poem “A Frog’s Fate” by Christina Georgina Rosetti because it discusses the theme of fate that is present through The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. In both pieces, the characters are fated for an ill future. Quasimodo is fated to be an ‘unfortunate creature” (Hugo) due to his deformed appearance, Frollo believes he is fated to love La Esmeralda which causes him to be “tortured by the specter of his own damnation” (Hugo), and the frog is fated to be hit by the wagon as it “Ran him down, his joys his cares”(Rosetti 14). The quote “The Waggoner strode whistling on. Unconscious of the carnage done” (Rosetti 23-24) also relates to the preface of The Hunchback where the author found the word “fate” engraved on the wall in Notre-Dame. The author hadn’t known who had written it or what sort of situation had occurred there but it shows how the author was just as oblivious to the effects of fate as the driver of the wagon was in “A Frog’s Fate”. The characters of boy pieces do not believe in free will and therefore do not fight against their situations. This can especially be observed in the scene where Frollo is watching a spider catch a fly in its web. The fly is fated to by caught and he therefore must “let fate take its course!” (Hugo).

      In addition, I also chose the poem “Brittle Beauty” (also known as “The Frailty and Hurtfulness of Beauty”) by Henry Howard because it describes the illusive nature of beauty and asks the ultimate question: what is beauty? Howard describes beauty as “Slipper in sliding, as in an eele’s tail” (7). This transitory essence that beauty gives off relates to how Sister Gudule feels about her fate. Her beautiful baby girl was stolen and replaced by an “abominable monster” (Hugo). That moment of beauty she once had slipped away and was replaced by ugliness. The poem also describes how beauty is “False and untrue, enticed oft to treason” (Howard 9). This relates to the characters of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame because Frollo is described as an extremely educated, powerful aristocrat on the outside but is cold and lustful on the inside. On the other hand, Quasimodo is depicted as a “deformed ape” (Hugo) but has one of the kindest souls in the entire novel based on his actions of saving others and his unfailing loyalty to even those who have treated him the worst. Both the poem and the novel describe how beauty is not always what it seems.