Claude Frollo

Claude Frollo
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame character
Claude Frollo holding infant Quasimodo on the steps of Notre Dame in 1480. Art by Luc-Olivier Merson.
Created by Victor Hugo
Information
Occupation Archdeacon of Notre Dame cathedral
Affiliation Members of the church
Title Dom
Family Jehan Frollo (younger brother)
Significant other(s) Esmeralda
Children Quasimodo (adopted son)
Religion Catholic
Nationality French

Monseigneur Claude Frollo ([klod fʁɔlo]) is the main antagonist from Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (known in French as Notre-Dame de Paris). He is the Archdeacon of Notre Dame.

In the novel

Dom Claude Frollo is a pious, highly knowledgeable man who was orphaned along with his younger brother Jehan when their parents died of the plague. His studies led him to become the Archdeacon of Josas, which is his position during the events of the novel. He also has a small fief which brings him a little money, most of which goes to fund his brother's alcoholism.

During a holiday at Notre Dame called Quasimodo Sunday, he rescues a deformed hunchback child whom he finds abandoned on the cathedral's foundlings bed. He adopts the boy, names him "Quasimodo" after the holiday, raises him like a son, and teaches him a sort of sign language when Quasimodo is deafened by the cathedral’s bells. Frollo is a respected scholar and studies several languages, law, medicine, science and theology. However, he becomes infatuated with alchemy, which leads townspeople to spread the rumor that he is a sorcerer. He also believes strongly in fate. All this, along with his extreme and irrational fear of women, contribute further to his isolation from society.

Frollo also has strong passions, even though he is a celibate due to his station within the church. These passions erupt in him through his contact with the beautiful Romani girl Esmeralda, and eventually they prove his undoing. He considers her to be a temptation sent by the Devil to test his faith, and curses her as a demon. He finds he cannot resist her, however, and determines to give in to temptation. Esmeralda, however, is repulsed by his advances. Frollo orders Quasimodo to abduct her, and then abandons him when the hunchback is suddenly captured by Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers and his guards. Frollo even ignores Quasimodo when he sees him being publicly humiliated for the crime. When Frollo discovers that Esmeralda is in love with Phoebus, he spies on the meeting between them which Esmeralda has arranged – with Phoebus' consent, as Phoebus only wants one night of passion. As Phoebus and Esmeralda are about to make love, Frollo, in a jealous rage, stabs Phoebus, and kisses Esmeralda when she faints before fleeing.

Frollo does not attempt to intercede when Esmeralda is turned over to the magistrate on charges of witchcraft and attempted murder, but he stabs himself during her torture and shows her the wound as a proof of his love for her. She is unmoved, however, as she is still in love with Phoebus. Shortly before the day she is to be executed, Frollo leaves Paris in a feverish madness, not realizing that Quasimodo – who is also in love with her – has rescued her from the gallows. When he returns to the news that Esmeralda is still alive, he becomes as jealous of Quasimodo as he was of Phoebus. Frollo later attempts to rape her at her sanctuary in the cathedral, but Quasimodo – who doesn't realize who Esmeralda's attacker is at first – comes to the girl's defense and beats him up. Angered and humiliated, Frollo decides to rid himself of Esmeralda by handing her over to the authorities.

Frollo's time comes when a group of scoundrels, enraged by news that the French monarchy has ordered Esmeralda to be taken from the cathedral and hanged within three days, arms themselves to assault Notre Dame Cathedral. While Quasimodo is busy fighting off the scoundrels, Pierre Gringoire, Esmeralda's husband – whom she only married to save his life – and a hooded figure sneak into the Cathedral and convince Esmeralda to sneak out with them. The man's face is hidden behind a hood, leaving Esmeralda to guess his identity. They flee to a boat on the River Seine, then separate when they head to shore, with Gringoire taking her goat, Djali, and leaving Esmeralda with the unknown man. The hooded figure drags Esmeralda to a nearby gallows and identifies himself as Frollo by removing his hood.

Frollo issues Esmeralda his final ultimatum: either she must accept his lust, or he shall hand her over to the authorities. She rejects him, so he leaves her to an anchoress to hold her for the royal soldiers coming to hang her and goes back to Notre Dame Cathedral. He then walks up to one of the cathedral's towers to watch the girl being hanged, unaware that Quasimodo has spotted him and followed him upstairs. He watches calmly while Esmeralda is taken to the gallows.

When Quasimodo sees him laughing at Esmeralda's hanging, he becomes enraged and pushes Frollo off the balustrade. A gargoyle stops his fall, and he cries out to Quasimodo for help, but Quasimodo remains silent. Then Frollo falls down off the cathedral, colliding with the roof of a house. He slides down the roof, hits the pavement of the town square and dies.[1]

Adaptations

Victor Hugo's novel has been adapted to film on numerous occasions. In the 1923 and 1939 films, Claude Frollo is not the villain, but instead a good-hearted character; the villain of the film is actually his younger brother, Jehan. Such a change was made to not portray an archdeacon in a negative and controversial light due to policy of the Hays Production Code.[2] In Disney's 1996 animated film, Claude is a judge and the villain as in the novel, the Archdeacon (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) is a separate character entirely, and the character of Jehan is omitted.

Among the actors who played Claude Frollo over the years in each adaptation of the novel are:

ActorVersion
Claude Garry1911 film
Walter Law1917 film titled The Darling of Paris
Annesley Healy1922 film titled Esmeralda
Nigel DeBrulier1923 film
Walter Hampden[3][4][5]1939 film
Alain Cuny1956 film
James Maxwell (voice)1966 animated television series
Kenneth Haigh1977 television series
Derek Jacobi1982 television film
Ron Haddrick (voice)1986 animated film
Vlasta Vrána (voice)1996 animated television series titled The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo
Tony Jay (voice)1996 animated Disney film
Richard Harris1997 film
Daniel Lavoie1997–2002 musical
Richard Berry (as Serge Frollo)1999 parody film titled Quasimodo d'El Paris
Patrick Page2014–2015 musical

Disney version

Judge Claude Frollo
Disney character
First appearance The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Created by Kathy Zielinski
Dominique Monféry
Voiced by Tony Jay
Occupation Judge
Minister of Justice

In Disney's 1996 animated film version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Judge Claude Frollo was voiced by Tony Jay, whom directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale chose for the role based on his brief appearance in their previous film, Beauty and the Beast (1991). Kathy Zielinski served as the supervising animator for Frollo. The character's features were inspired by those of the actor Hans Conreid, specifically his appearance in the 1953 film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,[6] and Ralph Fiennes' performance as Amon Göth from Schindler's List.[7] Screenwriter Tab Murphy made Frollo Paris' Minister of Justice rather than an archdeacon so as not to offend religious viewers.[8]

Frollo is portrayed in the film as a ruthless, self-righteous religious fanatic who seeks to annihilate Paris' Romani population, considering them "heathen" who "live outside the natural order". The Disney film also portrayed him as an older man rather than a 36-year-old as in the novel, and his capacity for compassion present in the novel was omitted, instead showing a selfish interpretation towards his adoption of Quasimodo. Trousdale described the film's Frollo as "a horrible, horrible person", while Jay compared him to Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.[6] Frollo is widely considered the most complex, darkest, and evil villain Disney has ever created[9] due to the film's dark themes (genocide, lust, infanticide, religious hypocrisy, damnation, murder, sin, and pyromania) being directly associated with him. The biggest difference between Frollo and other Disney villains is while other villains are aware they are evil (some evening taking pride in it), Frollo actually believes he is good, sinless and is fulfilling the will of God.

Appearance in the film

In the beginning of the film, Frollo and his men capture a group of Romani people attempting to sneak into Paris on a boat. He inadvertently kills a woman in the group after chasing her as she tries to illegally enter Paris with a baby in tow. Upon seeing the baby's deformity, Frollo tries to drown the child in a nearby well, but Notre Dame's Archdeacon stops him and demands that he raise the child as penance for his crime. Fearing divine retribution, Frollo reluctantly agrees to raise the child in Notre Dame as his son, in hopes that the hunchback will someday prove useful to him. He names the child "Quasimodo", which means "half-formed", and forbids him to leave the cathedral, teaching him that the outside world is wicked and sinful and that people will shun him for his deformity. He also lies to Quasimodo about his mother, claiming that she abandoned him when he was a baby and that someone would have drowned him if Frollo hadn't taken him in.

Twenty years later, in the Palace of Justice, Frollo appoints a new Captain of the Guard, Phoebus, stating his intent to eradicate the city's Romani population by discovering their sanctuary, the "Court of Miracles". While attending the annual Festival of Fools, Frollo discovers Esmeralda, who dances in front of him and kisses him on the nose. At the same time, he discovers that Quasimodo left the bell tower and joined the Festival, where he was crowned the King of Fools. Frollo refuses to help Quasimodo when he is being humiliated in public by the crowd; in fact, he refuses Phoebus' request to stop the spectacle, and it infuriates him when Esmeralda defiantly decides to assist Quasimodo. Esmeralda ridicules Frollo, who immediately orders her arrested, just before she claims sanctuary within Notre Dame. Frollo then imprisons Esmeralda inside the cathedral, telling her that if she sets one foot outside, she will be arrested, and he posts his guards at Notre Dame's doors.

Later that night in the chamber of the Palace of Justice, Frollo lusts after Esmeralda, and begs the Virgin Mary to save him from her "spell". Frollo asks God to have mercy on both him and Esmeralda, and resolves that "she will be mine, or she will burn". When one of Frollo's guards informs him that she escaped, Frollo and his men go on a citywide search for her, even going as far as capturing and bribing Romani people, and burning people's houses while trying to extract information about Esmeralda's whereabouts. Frollo orders Phoebus to execute a miller and his family for not cooperating in telling him of Esmeralda's location. Phoebus refuses to carry out his order, and so Frollo burns the windmill with the family inside before Phoebus rescues them. Frollo sentences Phoebus to death for insubordination. While fleeing, Phoebus is struck by an arrow and falls into the River Seine, but Esmeralda rescues him just in time and takes him to Notre Dame for refuge.

Frollo returns to Notre Dame and discovers that Quasimodo helped Esmeralda escape. He lies to Quasimodo, saying that he knows about the Court of Miracles and that he intends to attack at dawn. Quasimodo accompanies Phoebus to the Court to warn Esmeralda, and Frollo and his men follow them and arrest the Romani people. Frollo realizes that Phoebus is alive and has him and the Romani people locked up, and imprisons Quasimodo in the bell tower. Frollo sentences Esmeralda to death, but offers to spare her life if she becomes his lover. When a disgusted Esmeralda spits in his face, Frollo orders Esmeralda burned at the stake.

Quasimodo rescues her and brings her to the cathedral. Frollo orders his soldiers to seize the cathedral. Phoebus releases the Romani people and rallies the citizens of Paris against Frollo and his men, who try to break into the cathedral. Quasimodo pours molten lead onto the streets to ensure no one enters, but Frollo manages to get inside. Frollo attempts to kill Quasimodo, resulting in a violent struggle in which Quasimodo overpowers Frollo and throws him to the floor. Frollo pursues Quasimodo and Esmeralda to the ledge of the cathedral, and taunts Quasimodo with the truth about his mother. Frollo subsequently uses his cape to knock Quasimodo off of the balcony, but Quasimodo manages to hold on and ends up pulling Frollo along with him. Frollo climbs onto a gargoyle and raises his sword to strike, but the gargoyle crumbles underneath him, causing him to lose his balance and hang on to the statue for dear life. He then sees the gargoyle's face transform into that of the Devil himself. Frightened, Frollo loses his grip and falls to his death in the molten lead below.

Other appearances

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hugo, Victor (1831). "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (1993 ed.). Ware, Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 978-1853260681 – via Google Books.
  2. ↑ Pfieffer, Lee. "The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)". Britannica Online.
  3. ↑ http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/2910/The-Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame/articles.html
  4. ↑ http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/29877%7C0/The-Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame.html
  5. ↑ http://homepages.sover.net/~ozus/hunchbackofnotredame.htm
  6. 1 2 Watson, Grant (June 4, 2014). ""Let her be mine and mine alone" - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)". FictionMachine. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20141208140202/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,293046_3,00.html
  8. ↑ Mancini, Marc (April 12, 2016). "10 Facts About Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame". Mental Floss. New York City: Dennis Publishing. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  9. ↑ https://maddylovesherclassicfilms.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/the-hunchback-of-notre-dame-1996-the-darkest-most-complex-disney-film/
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