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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This story features enslavement, some derogatory characterizations of heavier people, and outdated and offensive language in regard to little people, as well as the term “madness” to describe mental health conditions such as alcoholism. This language is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.
The revenge tale of “Hop-Frog” is structured in a setup-and-payoff format, reveling in the more sinful side of human nature that characterizes the Dark Romanticism subgenre. The narrative uses exposition to provide background on the injustices that Hop-Frog endures before the story begins: He’s abused, humiliated, and dehumanized. Enslaved by the king, his role as a jester (or “fool”) centers on his being “a dwarf and a cripple,” so the king regards him as “a triplet treasure” (Paragraph 5).
The men enjoy Hop-Frog’s company by making fun of him. The king and his seven ministers use Hop-Frog’s physical differences and stature to view him as less than a man and more of an animal that exists for their pleasure. The king’s affinity for viciousness fits into Dark Romanticism. The joy he derives from picking on Hop-Frog puts his morality in question and positions him as a Gothic villain.
The recurring animal metaphors create a motif: comparing the denigrated little persons (or “dwarfs”) to something less than human. Throughout the story, Hop-Frog is compared to a frog, a squirrel, and a monkey. The narrator even refers to Hop-Frog with animalistic language, calling his teeth “repulsive” (Paragraph 32) and “fang-like” (Paragraph 55)—again, something less than human. The king looks down on Hop-Frog, and the narrator’s judgmental tone echoes throughout the narrative, negatively characterizing the king as a “tyrant” (Paragraph 22) and sympathizing with Hop-Frog, using language like “poor fellow” (Paragraph 16). This setup frames the narrative to sympathize with the main character.
The use of alcohol in “Hop-Frog” intersects with the theme Embracing “Madness” and the authorial-contextual lens. Poe’s struggles with alcohol-induced “insanity” manifest in the story when Hop-Frog is forced to drink wine to entertain the king. Like the author, Hop-Frog’s reaction to wine is “madness.” These elements are present in another one of Poe’s short stories too: “The Cask of Amontillado” is another revenge story, but it’s told from the murderer’s point of view. Both stories feature a jester, “madness,” revenge through murder, and alcohol—specifically wine. Poe likely drew inspiration for these tales of darkness at least partly from his own experiences with alcoholism.
Hop-Frog embraces the “madness” that the wine induces and uses it to escape his captors (though by immoral means), and wine likewise leads to death in “The Cask of Amontillado.” In “Hop-Frog,” the story may symbolize Poe’s desire for revenge on those who pushed alcohol on him and ridiculed his drunken state. The cruelty behind the king’s joke further sets up the payoff in the story’s climax.
The effectiveness of Hop-Frog’s vengeance lies in exposing the king and his court for what they really are: cruel and vicious beasts who exemplify the theme Dehumanization Through Humiliation. The chains symbolize enslavement and dehumanization. Hop-Frog chains the men together using the same method as “those who capture Chimpanzees, or other large apes, in Borneo” (Paragraph 44). As he dresses the king and his ministers in their costumes, he leads them into a trap—capturing the men as they captured him and Trippetta. The plan relies on what the kingdom’s citizens perceive as barbaric. Because Hop-Frog disguises the men as “sufficiently beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous,” the costumes are perceived as true to “nature” (Paragraph 43).
Although most of the masquerade audience has never seen a real orangutan or other ape, they believe in the ape’s savage reputation. The people at the party are automatically afraid of what they have yet to experience, highlighting how their society automatically treats Hop-Frog and Trippetta as less-than-human entities from another country. With their identities concealed, the king and his ministers are literally the monsters that live among the kingdom, terrorizing those around them. Chained together as a unit, the king and the seven ministers are indistinguishable from one another, emphasizing that even though the king rules the land, he’s not better than those he rules.
The story concludes with a fire, symbolizing the punishment of the nobility and the success of Hop-Frog’s violent vengeance. The narrator even refers to the events as “fiery revenge” (Paragraph 60), further connecting the theme The Pursuit of Revenge to the symbolism of fire. The monarchy is associated with the divine right to rule. Monarchs used the divine right to justify staying in power, suggesting that God appointed them to rule at birth. Being born into a position of power gives the king an unjustified air of superiority over his subjects and those who serve him, specifically Hop-Frog. The fire puts the king in his place and punishes him for his arrogance and savagery. The torches that line the room emit “a sweet odor” (Paragraph 46), highlighting the positive outcome of Hop-Frog’s justice for him and Trippetta.
As Hop-Frog lowers the fire to the king’s face, he holds it above the monarch as if he’s “endeavoring to discover who they are” (Paragraph 54). Hop-Frog’s suspending the flame over the king’s head illustrates that this is a judgment day of sorts: The little person (or “dwarf”) has the power to subject the king and his ministers to a fiery death and afterlife. The fire engulfs the men, symbolizing the punishment of hellfire. As the flames rise, Hop-Frog climbs up out of their reach, showing that he evades punishment for his murderous revenge.
The last anyone hears of Hop-Frog is a short monologue detailing his experience with the king and his retirement as jester. Hop-Frog’s main gripe was the king’s assault on Trippetta and his ministers’ complicity in the monarch’s cruelty. By revealing the king as one of the men in the ape costumes, Hop-Frog forces the kingdom to face their ruler’s violence and his willingness to terrorize his subjects for sport. When he says, “I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester—and this is my last jest” (Paragraph 60), he acknowledges that “Hop-Frog the jester” is someone whom the king created. When he leaves, he’ll no longer be “Hop-Frog,” the “fool” at whom people in power laugh, but the man he was before he was kidnapped. By calling the murder his “last jest,” he implies that this savage humor is what the king prefers; he’s not the barbarian he’s been perceived to be. When he and Trippetta escape, he can return to his true nature.
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