Quasimodo
Quasimodo is the
protagonist of the
1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (
Notre Dame de Paris in
French) by French author
Victor Hugo. Born with extreme physical deformities, including his infamous hump, Quasimodo was found abandoned on the doorsteps of
Notre Dame on a
Quasimodo Sunday (after which he was named) by the
archdeacon Claude Frollo, who adopted the baby and brought him up to be the bell-ringer of the cathedral.
Looked upon by the general populace of
Paris as a monster, Quasimodo later fell in love with the beautiful
gypsy girl Esmeralda and attempted to rescue her when she was entangled in a
murder. His heroic and selfless act against the many dark plots behind Esmeralda's fate created one of Hugo's most acclaimed masterpieces.
Quasimodo's name is a
pun on the author's behalf.
Frollo found him on the cathedrals doorsteps on
Quasimodo Sunday, and named him after the holiday, inadvertedly calling him "half-formed".
Many
film adaptations of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame have been made, which take various degrees of liberty with the novel. In the
1996 Disney animation, for example, Quasimodo is neither one-eyed nor deaf, and is capable of fluent speech. This Disney film also changes the ending to a much happier one than is featured in Hugo's novel, in which both Quasimodo and Esmerelda die. Among the actors who have played him over the years are:
*
Lon Chaney, Sr., in the
1923 silent film The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
*
Charles Laughton, in the
1939 film
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
*
Anthony Quinn, in the
1956 film
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
*
Anthony Hopkins, in the
1982 film
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
*
Tom Hulce,
voice actor for Quasimodo in the 1996 Disney animation
The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its sequel.
*
Garou, played the part of Quasimodo on-stage French version of
Notre-Dame de Paris in the late
1990s.
*
Quasimodo Sunday, the first Sunday after
Easter, after which Quasimodo was named.
