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Hugo points out that fun and grotesqueness is a kind of element of beauty in drama. Beauty has just one type. But ugliness has a kaleidoscope of changes. Fun and grotesqueness as a supporting role and a contrast of lofty beauty is the most abundant source of art which is given by the nature. The lofty beauty shows the real condition of soul after moralization by Christianity. But fun and grotesqueness shows the bestiality of human being. Drama is the combination of fun, grotesqueness and lofty beauty, soul and flesh, tragedy and comedy. The reason why Hugo emphasizes fun and grotesqueness mostly is that he believes the new type of modern art which is expressed by the fun and grotesqueness is the sign and development of art; meanwhile it is also the most important characteristic to differ Romanticism from Classicism.
Hugo not only takes fun and grotesqueness as the object of literary description according to the requirement of the real life, he also thinks that the characters of fun and grotesqueness can be described as the artistic image of beautiful heart through the comparison. In his the preface of Cromwell, he writes that one’s soul has the most pure love, no matter how ugly he is and how low his social status is, he will change his image through the sharp contrast between beauty and ugliness like tininess became greatness and deformity become beauty.
So in Hugo’s literary works, he uses this very strong and sharp contrast and combines beauty with kindness, ugliness with badness in the characters’ personalities. These two forms of contrasts are not rare at all times and in all over the world. But like Victor Hugo, in his creations, as a general rule, an idiomatic means of art or a kind of aesthetic principle, the contrast between beauty and ugliness can be said as the only one in the literary world.
1.3 The contrast of the social background
Notre-Dame de Paris was written in the changeable and furious years of France. After the Jacobin regime was overthrown in 1794, then the regime represented the interests of the big bourgeoisie was set up. The situations of people were deteriorating day by day. The equal activities of the Baboeuf organization were failed. The Royalist insurgencies were happened continuously. Napoleon shocked the whole Europe by quelling the domestic rebels and repelling the foreign feudal forces and vibrations, and then the Bourbon Dynasty was restoration.
When Louis XVIII was dead in 1842, Charles X was in power. It was the darkest period of the Bourbon Dynasty. The Royalist molecules joined the cabinet. The Catholic forces became more and more rampant. These made people’s struggles against the Bourbon Dynasty higher and higher. After the French revolution of July in 1830, the bankers who plundered the revolution ruled the country. The Financial bourgeoisie had a comprehensive victory and entered a consolidated period. But at that time, the proletariat began to board the stage of history. During this period, the French society was under the sharp turn. Different kinds of struggles were very fierce and sharp.
Because Hugo believed the monarchy in his boyhood and under the influence of his Catholic family teacher and his mother, his political stand, literature and art views were very conservative. In 1926, within the impact on the Holy Alliance through the domestic struggles against Charles X and the international waves of revolution for independence liberation, the great changes had taken place in the Hugo’s political and literary thoughts. Hugo fought against Classicism through the theoretical articles and creative practices. His works was full of the strong spirits of fighting against feudalism and church.
The publication of Notre-Dame de Paris in 1831 is a liquidation of Hugo as the royalist. It shows the hatred of the Bourbon Dynasty and Catholic Church. Therefore, this novel reflects the consciousness of anti-feudalism, anti-church and the praise of the masses.