| Belle – Notre Dame De Paris Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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maybe this will be helpful. This poem/song contains many biblical allusions which help convey certain images and character concepts. This work can be broken down into four parts: Quasimodo's part, Frollo's part, Phoebus' part, and a part with the three of them together. To begin, Quasimodo can interpreted as loving Esmeralda for her pure soul. He describes her as a bird stretching its wings towards the sky, while he can see Hell opening up at his feet. This means she is an angel, something pure, and he is the one at fault for loving her. The more he tries to reach for her, the more he will fall into Hell. He begs Lucifer (one of the many names of Satan) to let him run his fingers through her hair. Frollo can almost be called the opposite of Quasimodo. He blames Esmeralda for making him want her, something which he shouldn't feel because he is a priest. He places himself at the top, nearest heaven and God, with Esmeralda beckoning him to come down to her in Hell. He also compares Esmeralda to Eve by stating that she carries the original sin within her, thus comparing himself to Adam. He then continues by saying that the only way to save himself is to kill her: this good-for-nothing girl suddenly finds herself carrying the cross, like Jesus did before sacrificing himself to save the people. Regardless, Frollo still begs Notre-Dame to let him 'open the gate to Esmeralda's garden', another allusion to her Eve portrayal, as well as meaning that he wants her physically. Phoebus also blames Esmeralda for his love for her. Her subtly calls her a witch who cast a spell on him. He references to the biblical towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. The towns had become perverse and evil, and in his wrath, God decided to destroy both of them to get rid of all the rotten souls that lived in them. A few people were still good however, so angels were sent to rescue the pure people. As a final test of how pure you were, if you were to turn around and look at the towns being destroyed, looking back meaning regret that you had to leave, you would turn into a salt statue. We can tell from this that Phoebus knows that even if he is saved when Esmeralda is destroyed, he will still look back and destroy himself. Then he immediately goes on saying that he is not a believing man, so he tells his fiancée that he will have Esmeralda. In the last part, all three of them wonder who will be the one to throw the first stone at her. This is a reference to how people who did something deemed as bad in front of God were supposed to be punished in the Bible. To accuse someone of a sin is called 'throwing the first stone'. To make the accusation stand, at least three witnesses were needed, which we have. Once the initial accusation was made by all three people, the accused would then be first hit with stones by the witnesses, and the entire community would then finish the punishment. This states that she will die, and the first one to accuse her, or the one who sends her to her death, does not merit to be alive, and he will also perish. Frollo leaves her to her fate, thus throwing the first stone, and he does indeed die in the end, shortly after Esmeralda. The only one who truly loves Esmeralda is Quasimodo, who cherishes her soul more than her body and blames himself for wanting something pure, while the other two men blame Esmeralda for their lust. Both of them also state that she will die which adds to the last part, where we are also told she will die anyway, and they contemplate about whether or not they will be destroyed as a result of her death. It can be assumed that they know they will all be ruined, as they no longer look to Notre-Dame or Fleur-de-Lys (Phoebus' fiancée), but instead, they all beg to Lucifer to let them run their fingers through her hair. |
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