□ Wang Jun
The reason why a great literary work exudes lasting charm is mainly that it successfully shapes a vivid image of life with beautiful words. The famous eighteenth-century French writer Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" is such a literary work.
In this novel, each character constitutes its own specific social identity due to the prescriptiveness of social reality, and this "self" constitutes the living environment of other characters. Each character is in the soil of existing realistic regulations, reflecting a unique individual humanity, deducing a tragic or joyful fate that is different from others. In the novel, different characters present the multi-faceted and complex nature of distinctly individualized people, and the "light source" of the "multi-faceted and complex" of these different people is "revealed" from a naïve girl with a humble identity who is almost the embodiment of truth, goodness and beauty- Esmeralda.
Among the many characters surrounding Esmeralda, the most profound, three-dimensional, and realistic portrayal of the work is Claude, the vice-bishop of Notre Dame.
Claude, a devout Christian, was promoted to the most famous archbishop of Notre Dame de Paris for his excellence. In order to fulfill the divine mission entrusted by God, he immersed himself in the study of Christian doctrine, the study of the mysteries of nature in the universe, almost like a stopping water. When he appears in the novel, he is middle-aged, pretentious, and condescending, and although he looks isolated and tall, he is full of compassion for secular society. He looked down on society with a "saintly" mind, draped in a hollow and dark shell that did not eat human fireworks.
All this from Claude, his extraordinary practice, his cold heart that seemed insurmountable to the world, because of the appearance of Esmeralda, began to be unsettled. His heart was struggling in contradiction, tearing, and aching. He could not resist the beauty of Esmeralda, the charm of falling into the world. Esmeralda awakened the roots of connection to the world that lay deep within his soul. After all, he was flesh and blood, and the blood flowing on his body was hot, and Esmeralda exposed him to human nature that could only be suppressed and could not be eliminated. No matter how much he looks like a spotless messenger of saints, his nature is still a living person who has cut off worldly feelings, he still has the normal needs of people, there is a man's lust and pursuit, but the religious beliefs that he has determined to unswervingly from a young age have become his barrier to worldly life. When he could not resist the beauty of Esmeralda and finally rushed out of this barrier, he was torn and stabbed by this barrier, making him struggle and pain, but he was still pushed into the abyss of incapable of "redemption" by the mortal power in his heart. Because he cannot get Esmeralda's love, he becomes darker and more vicious than the bad guys in the world, he stalks and eavesdrops on Esmeralda's private life, he can't stand Esmeralda falling in love with other men, and he does not hesitate to kill his enemies. When he saw the innocent Esmeralda being placed in the trial court on the verge of death, although he was ashamed of himself, he did not have the courage to clear the wrongs of the framed Esmeralda. He secretly wants to make a lustful deal with Esmeralda, but when he is categorically rejected, he is completely burned by jealousy, and he is willing to destroy the "special thing" of this world, and will never tolerate this woman belonging to others.
At this point, this Claude, in front of Esmeralda, has completely shed the false cloak of the "sage", and the secular human and ugly side dominates himself, slides into the animal nature, and finally becomes the devil who killed Esmeralda.
Other characters in the novel who revolve around Esmeralda's activities, such as Phoebes, captain of the Paris City Guard, Quasimodo the Church Bell Ringer, the King of France, the poet and dramatist Gangowa, the Beggars Gang, the Ladies of the Nobles, etc., are much more simple and clear than Claude. Esmeralda and Phoebes, the captain of the guard of the city of Paris, are true love against falsehood and blasphemy. With Quasimodo, the aesthetic is caused by the inferiority and pain of a good soul under the ugly appearance. With the poet Gangova, what is revealed is the self-proclaimed high-mindedness of the literati, but also timid and fearful, doing nothing, pitiful and despicable. In the beggar gang, it shows the class friendship and selfless dedication of the people at the bottom of the society. In the king's case, the weakness and ignorance of the autocratic rulers, their cowardice and brutality, and their repression of the lower classes were exposed. In the aristocratic women, it shows the indifference to the painful life of the bottom, and the luxurious, boring and empty life.
Hugo, with his superb romanticism and even with its illusory overtones, by creating such an idealized image of Esmeralda, reflects the reflection of the possibility that in a dark social environment, in a world where the church and the royal power are shrouded in everything, the good things are either compromised, complicit, or ruthlessly destroyed, and there is no possibility of independent existence.