Notre Dame de Paris and the actual meaning of Victor Hugo's ΑΝΑΓΚΗ: Claude Frollo's self-deception, ΑΝΑΓΚΗ vs. FATUM and the foreign "Other"
"A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it."
—Victor Hugo, Cromwell (Preface) 1827
ΑΝΑΓΚΗ (Greek) can be best translated as "necessity". But a simple translation cannot explain the cultural and religious meaning with which this Greek word is heavily loaded. We will get to this later.
A fact which is often misunderstood is that Victor Hugo’s and Frollo’s perspective and understanding of ΑΝΑΓΚΗ is the same.
Victor Hugo: "La fatalité d’Hernani n’est pas la mienne. Le poëte n’est pas le personnage. Je serais donc alors tous mes personnages ?"
(translation: “The 'Fatalité' of Hernani is not mine. The poet is not the character. So am I then all my characters?", Letter to monsieur Durandeau, 1861)
Let's compare Frollo and Hugo first, because this is extremely important.
The author’s political and historical perspective on ΑΝΑΓΚΗ:
"Victor Hugo explained its meaning in March 1866, in the preface to Toilers of the Sea:
“A triple Ananke weighs upon us: the Ananke of dogmas, the Ananke of laws, the Ananke of things.”
In Notre-Dame de Paris, he denounced the first; in Les Misérables, the second; in this book, he indicates the third. To these three fatalities that envelop humankind is added the inner fatality, the supreme Ananke, the human heart. Here we see the link that unites Victor Hugo’s three great novels. He returned to this theme in a letter to the journalist Durandeau:
“Whenever necessity encroaches upon freedom and oppresses it, it is called ‘fate.’ The poet denounces this abuse of the unknown. This is what I do in Notre-Dame de Paris, in Les Misérables, in Toilers of the Sea.” (July 11, 1867)
Hugo speaks about a triple Ananke with which oppressors or oppressive systems legitimize the oppression of freedom. It is "the abuse of the unknown." (Link to the full article below)
This seems to be a philosophical and political project of Victor Hugo: to debunk the abuse of ΑΝΑΓΚΗ through his works and to push people to fight for freedom. We must remember that he was an activist for the marginalized, for the workers and slaves of the world.
Notre-Dame de Paris is still a social critique, not a moral story. Hugo’s view of ΑΝΑΓΚΗ is seen through this lens.
The fact that ΑΝΑΓΚΗ was allegedly engraved on a wall in the cathedral is probably invented by Hugo, which speaks volumes about his views: ΑΝΑΓΚΗ is something (everything which threatens free will/ freedom) created by humans.
His character Claude Frollo is a high-ranking clergy member, someone with power and ideological knowledge. As an oppressor and an instrument of the state, he abuses the concept (through the invented ΑΝΑΓΚΗ narrative) to legitimize the first.
But Frollo also fights against the ΑΝΑΓΚΗ (of Dogma, laws, societal expectations, his heart which he cannot control etc.) and he looses that fight in contrast to Jean Valjean (Les Miserables) for example, whom Victor Hugo mentions in one sentance with our priest:
"Le poëte dénonce cet abus de l'inconnu. C'est ce que j'ai fait dans Notre-Dame de Paris, dans Les Misérables, dans Les Travailleurs de la Mer.
Au nom de qui cette dénonciation? Au nom de la liberté.
Ananké ! Voilà ce que combattent Claude Frollo, Jean Valjean et Gilliatt."
Translation: "The poet denounces this abuse of the unknown.
That is what I did in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, in Les Misérables, in Toilers of the Sea.
In whose name is this denunciation? In the name of freedom.
Ananke! That is what Claude Frollo, Jean Valjean, and Gilliatt fight against."
Claude’s understanding of ΑΝΑΓΚΗ:
What does Frollo’s ΑΝΑΓΚΗ mean to him?
"And he [Claude Frollo] flung away the hammer in a rage. Then he sank down so deeply on the arm-chair and the table, that Jehan lost him from view behind the great pile of manuscripts. For the space of several minutes, all that he saw was his fist convulsively clenched on a book. Suddenly, Dom Claude sprang up, seized a compass and engraved in silence upon the wall in capital letters, this Greek word ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
“My brother is mad,” said Jehan to himself; “it would have been far more simple to write Fatum, every one is not obliged to know Greek.”
The archdeacon returned and seated himself in his armchair, and placed his head on both his hands, as a sick man does, whose head is heavy and burning."
FROM: BOOK 7. CHAPTER IV. ΑΝΑΓΚΗ, NDdP (Victor Hugo)
Jehan asks the crucial question: Why not the Latin FATUM?
After all, it is the language most people who could read and write at that time would understand.
Because Latin belongs to Frollo, as a priest, the Latin language and culture are something familiar to him: Latin, from his POV as a priest, is a part of him.
Also, the word Fatum is tied to the Christian God Jesus Christ, because it is seen within the framework of Providentia Dei (divine providence), which surpasses Fatum and works through it.
Dom Frollo, however, suffers a crisis of faith as a priest torn between duty and passion. He must use the word connected with the pagan goddess Ananke (even stronger than Zeus) in Greek.
He carries his entire inner conflict (between duty and passion) in other languages: he turns to Jewish Kabbalah, reading its mystical texts in Hebrew, and at the end of Notre-Dame de Paris even desperately to the Indian philosopher Menu, whose philosophy depicts women as the highest honorable beings (Frollo intellectually agrees, but immediately feels ashamed because he does not live this theory in practice, and is not "in control," bringing us back to his societal position, expectations which condemn his feelings and power structures).
Thus, Frollo, as one of the very few scholars in Paris who understood "the language of pagan gods, from Dionysus to Apollo," writes "ΑΝΑΓΚΗ" (Fate, compulsion) on the wall of his dark cell, while Esmeralda dances Italian sarabands below in the sun.
ΑΝΑΓΚΗ represents compulsion, a force against which one can do nothing. It is associated with Greek pagan culture and therefore foreign to him, like Esmeralda or his passions, which he refuses to acknowledge as part of himself:
"Then I perceived the snare of the demon, and I no longer doubted that you [Esmeralda] had come from hell and that you had come thence for my perdition. I believed it. I believe it still [...] Yes, dating from that day, there was within me a man whom I did not know."
FROM: BOOK 8. CHAPTER IV. LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA -Abandon all hope
Fatum would force him to acknowledge his free will through Jesus Christ and take full responsibility for his passions and actions.
"Perhaps I might have renounced it; perhaps my hideous thought would have withered in my brain, without bearing fruit. I thought that it would always depend upon me to follow up or discontinue this prosecution. But every evil thought is inexorable, and insists on becoming a deed; but where I believed myself to be all powerful, fate was more powerful than I. Alas! ’tis fate which has seized you and delivered you to the terrible wheels of the machine which I had constructed doubly."
FROM: BOOK 8. CHAPTER IV. LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA -Abandon all hope
ΑΝΑΓΚΗ allows him to portray himself as a victim of higher powers—even though he knows it is nonsense.
Instead of accepting that he is both victim and predator and confronting his inner struggle, he convinces himself he cannot act because a higher power (ΑΝΑΓΚΗ) is influencing him.
But Frollo is not a fool; he is not superstitious.
He knows it is nonsense, which is why he blushes when Jehan mentions the Greek word on his wall:
"The scholar raised his eyes boldly. “Monsieur my brother, doth it please you that I shall explain in good French vernacular that Greek word which is written yonder on the wall?”
A slight flush spread over the cheeks of the priest with their high bones, like the puff of smoke which announces on the outside the secret commotions of a volcano. The student hardly noticed it.
“Well, Jehan,” stammered the elder brother with an effort, “What is the meaning of yonder word?”
Dom Claude turned pale again, and the scholar pursued carelessly.
“And that word below it, graved by the same hand, Ἀνάγνεία, signifies ‘impurity.’ You see that people do know their Greek.”
And the archdeacon remained silent. This Greek lesson had rendered him thoughtful."
FROM: BOOK 7. CHAPTER IV. ΑΝΑΓΚΗ, NDdP (Victor Hugo)
FATUM = fate (connected to Christian culture and God)
In the English translation, Jehan renders
Fatum as fate = general destiny.
In the German translation it is Vorsehung= Providence (like providencia- the "Roman Ananke")
In the French translation, it is FATALITÉ = negative, even deadly fate.
In this scene Jehan exposes him without meaning to: he is like a mirror to him.
His little brother literally tells him (unknowingly): You -as a priest- are betraying your God for a pagan one. Your thoughts are impure:
It can only lead to fatalité.
Frollo blushes, becomes pale and ultimately remains silent: From a Christian point of view it is the truth. And for a moment he sees the consequence of this.
reflect on the fate of a fly eaten by the spider in the next scene. He paints this as something which cannot be prevented (deadly fate, Fatalité).
And again he fails to accept that he has free will.
The "Spider and the Fly" metaphor perfectly captures his duality: he is both predator (Spider) and passive victim (Fly) of his OWN created web.
It's not about good and evil here. Hugo wasn't interested in this.
Our Archdeacon is a fanatic, a hypocrite, and a murderer (Esmeralda: "Assassin!") AND a loving brother, father, and intellectual genius.
He is a curious and romantic soul internally, a gloomy, cruel Archdeacon externally—both at once.
"Thou art the Spider, Claude! Claude, thou art the Fly also."
That is the full complexity of this character. The tragedy is that this sensitive, brilliant man deceives himself and others, calling it ΑΝΑΓΚΗ.
It is human and understandable, but not excusable. We can show empathy with him, as Hugo intended (not only towards Esmeralda and Quasimodo, but towards out priest also), but he cannot be portrayed solely as a victim of circumstance.
He was both predator and victim, too weak to resist the temptation of ΑΝΑΓΚΗ as Victor Hugo understands it (the ΑΝΑΓΚΗ of systematic dogma, law, things and the inner heart against which humans need to fight).
Frollo could not face the fact that he had free will, even if he knew he had. He didn’t want to fight.
He swings from recognizing that he himself is at fault:
"...in making himself a priest, [he] made himself a demon," (BOOK 9. CHAPTER 1: Delirium)
"Thou art the spider, Claude!" (BOOK 7. CHAPTER IV. ΑΝΑΓΚΗ)
"Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother? What have I done with him, Lord? I received him, I reared him, I nourished him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I have slain him!"
(BOOK 11, CHAPTER 1 THE LITTLE SHOE)
to externalizing his guilt:
"He cast a haggard eye over the double, tortuous way which fate had caused their two destinies to pursue up to their point of intersection, where it had dashed them against each other without mercy,"
"Claude, thou art the fly also!"
"[...] because of this woman, because of her."
His relationship with Esmeralda and his role as Archdeacon +
Behind all his projections and attributions to the exotic "Other", including his ΑΝΑΓΚΗ, lies the systemic:
Frollo perceives himself as a tragic, loving savior, but in the end, he is merely the executioner of a system that allows him only a limited range of choices:
1. He can eliminate the “object woman” (Esmeralda), who renders him functionally incapable as a priest, in order to preserve himself and maintain the system.
Religious justification: temptress, witch, etc.
2. He can possess her in order to control and domesticate her (and thereby keep her away from the society she “threatens”, which would ALSO serve the medieval feudalist system), but in doing so, he risks his position and becomes a renegate. This act of possession can then be framed as "romantic", while constantly being pursued by the authorities, ultimately suffocating Esmeralda herself on the way. After all then they are man and woman: he “saves” her, she “saves” him, until he realizes that, due to his internalized thinking (moral system, his time, limited knowledge etc.), it cannot work—and he spirals again.
Anything else is excluded by the systemic conditions.
For Hugo, the enemy to be fought is the oppressive ΑΝΑΓΚΗ of dogmas and of the human heart. Frollo turns this into his own personal alibi-Ananke. He hides behind the foreign word in order to escape the responsibility that the familiar FATUM (providentia dei) would have demanded of him.
He refuses to acknowledge that he has free will and that he actively uses that will in the service of the political order (even if he “loves” Esmeralda, she is still someone whose mere existance is a treat. Half of Paris was "bewitched" by her. And if it werent for Frollo, anyone else with power would have eliminated her).
He calls his struggle “ΑΝΑΓΚΗ” (necessity), and he does so in a foreign language because he projects his passion onto the foreign—both the culture and Esmeralda.
He could have ignored her, but he blocked that path through his own choices throughout his entire biography.
His parents confined him to university from a young age so that he would become a priest, and after being left alone with his younger brother, he always acted within the prevailing system: sacrificing himself for "Jehan's sake", suppressing his feelings, and working his way up to become Archdeacon to provide Jehan with a “comfortable life.”
And in the end, this man—this destroyed, once innocent soul— ultimately failed.
(I tried to stay as neutral as possible, even if Frollo is my favourite. I wanted to potray him as the complex, flawed and human character he truly is without idealizing him into something he is not. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading. Until next time.)
Victor Hugo’s letter to the Journalist Durandeau 11th July 1867 (in French):
Correspondance de Victor Hugo/1867 - Wikisource https://share.google/LY7bqc0dqy7qxIiCy
Victor Hugo about his works ΑΝΑΓΚΗ (in French, article):
https://share.google/j1Cmk0bbeHrKr5bc5
https://www.gavroche.org/vhugo/cromwellpreface.shtml (Preface, Cromwell, Victor Hugo, 1827)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2610/2610-h/2610-h.htm (Notre Dame de Paris English translation from Gutenberg, Victor Hugo, 1831)
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19657/pg19657-images.html (Notre Dame de Paris french translation from Gutenberg, Victor Hugo, 1831)
Roman Godess Providentia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providentia
https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Ananke.html
FATUM: https://fiveable.me/key-terms/world-literature-i/fatum
Boethus: The Consolation of Philosophy, Fate and Providence 1 (Book IV, Prose 6):
https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/source/con-phil.asp
"This leads to the conclusion that all things subject to Fate are in turn subject to Providence; therefore, Fate itself is subject to Providence."
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