How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
She should have borne the suffering of having her fingernails torn out rather than make such an admission. After all, if only she could see Phœbus one more time, for a single minute. A word, a look, would be enough to undeceive him and bring him back to her. Of this she was absolutely certain. (IX.IV.4)
Can you say "denial"? Esmeralda might have suffered on a lot of literal levels—like her imprisonment, torture, and death sentence, just to name a few—but let's not discount the fact that she's also going through some serious heartache. In fact, her yearning for Phœbus remains with her up until the end of her life. Come to think of it, isn't everyone in this novel just looking for a little bit of love? Why can't anyone get it?
Quote #8
"I love you. Nothing can be more true. No fire can be fiercer than that which consumes my heart. Ah! Maiden, night and day—yes, night and day—does this deserve no pity? It is a love, torture, night and day, I tell you." (XI.I.55)
All right, Claude, we get it. You're unhappy. Actually, let's talk about Frollo's liberal use of "torture" as a metaphor for his feelings, because he uses it a lot (remember his whole spiel to Esmeralda in Book VIII.IV.62?). Now, we're not saying that unrequited passion isn't its own torture. But the fact is, Frollo sees his emotional situation as comparable to Esmeralda's literal situation, in which she's about to die. Comparable? Not really. But at the very least, it does make us acknowledge that love hurts a whole lot.
Quote #9
"No, no, you must be dreaming. It cannot be. To lose her for fifteen years, and then to find her for a single minute! And they would take her from me again, now that she is grown up and handsome, and talks to me and loves me! They would now come to devour her before my face—mine, who am her mother! Oh, no! Such things are not possible. God Almighty would not permit such doings." (XI.I.107)
Oh, yes, God Almighty would. Part of the rules of tragedy, as outlined by this guy Aristotle, is that in order for a character to be tragic, he or she needs to fall from a high place. Paquette might not be that "high up" necessarily (Aristotle meant that tragic characters needed to be great people, like monarchs), but the rule is actually still at work here: if her entire existence is wrapped up in finding her daughter, then by finding her, she has been elevated as far up as she can go.