In Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,” the hunchback is Quasimodo. He is the deaf and physically deformed bell-ringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral in fifteenth-century Paris. Claude Frollo, the cathedral’s archdeacon, adopts Quasimodo as a baby and raises him within the cathedral.
Quasimodo’s appearance causes the people of Paris to mock and isolate him, but Hugo gives him considerable emotional depth. Years of ringing the cathedral bells leave him almost completely deaf, while his life inside Notre-Dame makes the building both his refuge and his world. His compassion becomes especially clear in his devotion to Esmeralda.
The English title emphasizes Quasimodo, although Hugo’s original French title was “Notre-Dame de Paris,” meaning “Our Lady of Paris.” The novel is also a passionate defense of Gothic architecture at a time when medieval buildings were neglected or altered. Phoebus, Frollo, and Esmeralda are major characters, but none is the titular hunchback.