Gwynplaine and Dea
Well, well, well our dear pal of Ten-Year-Old-Nameless-Boy has a name and it’s Gwynplaine, I’m going to have so much fun typing that, copy & paste powers activate!
Anyway much like Quasimodo, Gwynplaine is rather deformed and monstrous. Unlike Quasimodo, his afflictions of a mutilated face were the result of the child-trader, Comprachicos, that were mentioned forever ago. His face is a permeant smile which he likens to a mask. The book hints that genetically he would be attractive and has an athletic body. And again unlike Quasimodo, Gwynplaine is a little be more ok-ish with his face because he has made a living off it and because of the blind baby girl.
The Blind baby girl’s name is also given and it’s Dea, which is a very pretty name and it means Goddess in latin. Dea is described as being very beautiful in a fair fragile way, almost ethereal. For the record I don’t know what Gwynplaine mean, Hugo seems to have made it up. Two possibilities could be is that it means “White Plains” in Welsh or it comes out of the Arthurian legends of a character named Guinglain meaning “Fair jewel”. But I have no idea.
Most of the core subject matter that is talked about OVER and OVER and OVER again through these twelve chapter is that Gwynplaine and Dea are in love. They grew up together being cared for by Ursus and Homo and they grew to worship each other. Gwynplaine has some feeling of remorse that he feels like he is tricking a blind girl into loving him but Dea really truly loves him. It actually rather sweet and Ursus is a nice little foil trying to convince them not to love each other because he is a misanthrope.
Anyway these chapter are backstory from Gwynplaine and Dea because we need the set-up but at the end I think the plot sort kicks in with them going off to London.
I actually enjoyed these chapters, the were needed and they expanded characters that were part of the story, though I’m seeing how things are fitting together but really did 50% of this book need to be set-up? Guess it a style thing of the 1860’s or Hugo. This section was the reason I didn’t quite quit these post and opt to take a part at a time, we’ll see if the plot actually does kick in and what the plot is.
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