Victor Hugo wrote a fantastical and colorful story about passion and the human spirit in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The dramatic emotions of the characters play out on the stage of 15th century Paris, France. Quasimodo, a repugnant physical defect of nature, lived separated from all human contact except that of the solemnly detached priest, Claude Frollo. For his part, Frollo strove to gain knowledge until he met the charming and wonderful gypsy dancer, Esmeralda. She existed solely to worship an arrogant captain of the king's archers, named Phoebus de Chateaupers, for saving her from kidnapping. Drawn to Esmeralda's dancing in the depths of his being, Frollo outwardly denounced her as a sacrilegious witch, but his body raged at her with lust, explaining his repeated attempts to prevent her from dancing near the cathedral or to carry her away. Esmeralda, furiously in love with Phoebus, almost sacrificed her virtue to win his heart, before Frollo seriously wounded him. Tortured into confessing to witchcraft and sentenced to death by a tribunal with ecclesiastical officials, the gypsy enchantress gained refuge in Notre Dame Cathedral, saved from the hangman's noose by Quasimodo. At this point, Frollo attempted to ask for Esmeralda's sincere and merciful forgiveness for his passion, failing miserably because his efforts appeared weak and lascivious. Frollo and Esmeralda died, however, after the assault on the cathedral and a gruesome battle, dying sacrifices on the altar of human emotions. How emotion can exist in a studious and solemn man, having acquired book knowledge for only about twenty years, seems impossible. But the desire for Esmeralda came after Frollo had “discovered that a man needs affection… in the middle of the paper… his temptation had achieved this; so its cruel effect must have been fate. While awaiting death, one character noted the impact of fate when he observed that “'God has it all written in His book'” (182). One aspect of Victor Hugo's work, his revelations of themes, philosophies, and morals through humorous characters, seems reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott's use of a comparable pretext. Through the philosopher/poet Gringoire, Hugo presents a morality that “'the temptations of the flesh are pernicious and malignant'” (276). There is certainly some truth in this assumption about a central idea of ​​the novel, the animosity aroused by mortal sensitivity, that during man's eternal search for affection, even when he possesses it, he craves even more. WORKS CITED Hugo, Victor. Notre Dame of Paris. Paris, France. (publisher unknown). 1831.