“Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allan
Poe
Characters:
• The King and his Ministers
– Has the highest status, rules over Hop-Frog and
Trippetta.
– They are the antagonists of the short story.
– Described as ‘large, corpulent, oily’.
– The King is sadistic, though he disguises it for
joviality.
– This can be seen through Hop-Frog, whose “value
was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his
being also a dwarf and a cripple”.
– When Hop-Frog cries after being reminded of his
‘absent friends’, the King laughs and finds
entertainment in his suffering.
• King cont.
– However, the King does not see his treatment of HopFrog and Trippetta as cruel.
– Hop-Frog says “But just after your majesty had struck
the girl and thrown the wine in her face…there came
into my mind a capital diversion.”
– The King does not detect any hint of revenge or
sinister ideas from Hop-Frog’s statement, which
suggests that he does not think there is any reason
for Hop-Frog to want revenge.
• They were costumed as Orangutans during the
masquerade.
– This is because they were a new discovery during the
19th Century, and, as much wasn’t known about
them, people thought of them as beasts with brute
strength and little to no intelligence at all.
– Also, as they were in very convincing costumes, any
feelings of remorse or sympathy the audience might
have for them are erased, and replaced with a fear of
these “ferocious-looking creatures”.
• Hop-Frog
–
–
–
–
Lower status
Is oppressed by the King and his Ministers
Slaves from a foreign land.
He is described as a “triplicate treasure”: A fool, a
cripple and a dwarf all in one.
• The grating of his teeth is done right before he devises his
plan for revenge and right before actually putting it into
action.
– Poe creates sympathy for Hop-Frog in the reader by
writing about past events concerning Hop-Frog, as
well as telling his back story
– Repetition of the word “joke” in the opening paragraph
creates tension and emphasizes Hop-Frog’s
discomfort.
• Trippetta
– She is badly treated in the story, as she is
‘admired’ and ‘petted’, while the King and his
Council humiliates her by throwing wine in her
face.
– When she is first introduced, only her
aesthetic characteristics are described,
showing that the King and his Council only
think of her as a doll or showpiece, instead of
an actual human being.
• “Although of exquisite proportions, and a
marvellous dancer”
• “Grace and exquisite beauty…universally admired
and petted”
Main Theme(s):
• Revenge
– Drives the main plot and is Hop-Frog’s main reason
for carrying out his actions.
– Hop-Frog’s thirst for revenge mainly fuelled by the
King’s mistreatment of him and Trippetta.
– The “low, harsh, grating” of Hop-Frog’s teeth often
accompanies his thoughts of revenge [elaborated on
under the ‘Characters’ section below].
– Despite setting the country’s King and his Council on
fire during a massive masquerade, Hop-Frog and
Trippetta manage to escape with no persecution or
consequences whatsoever.
– “Together, they effected their escape to their own
country; for neither was seen again.”
Romanticism:
• Romanticism took place during the late
18th Century and the early 19th Century
and celebrated nature rather than
civilisation.
• A few of its characteristics are shown in
Hop-Frog:
Emotions over reason
• Hop-Frog acts on his emotions, rather than on
logic and reason.
– When he burns the King and his ministers, he doesn’t
think it through logically, and does what he can to
protect himself and Trippetta.
– After committing his act of revenge, Hop-Frog does
not face any repercussions (or rather, he successfully
avoids any repercussions) and escapes with
Trippetta.
• Their victory shows how, in this short story,
emotions are more important than reason.
Innocence over
education/sophistication
• Trippetta and Hop-Frog are ‘innocent’ and less
educated than the King and his ministers who
are educated and of a higher status.
• The portrayal of Trippetta and Hop-Frog as
dwarfs make them seem more like children,
which helps in the portrayal of their innocence.
• As the King and his ministers are seen as the
antagonists, this shows Poe’s preference
towards innocence rather than sophistication, as
well as his preference towards those of lower
status than those of higher status.
Use of Language:
• The King’s treatment of Hop-Frog worsens (he turns
from a ‘king’ to a ‘tyrant’ to a ‘monster’) This makes us
sympathize with him and pardons his act of revenge
• Uses negative language like ‘oily’ and ‘corpulent’ to
describe the King and his Ministers, which helps to
present them as the antagonists.
• Repetition of the word “joke” in opening paragraph
creates tension and emphasizes Hop-Frog’s discomfort
• Hop-Frog covers the King and his Council in tar and flax,
which are symbols of humiliation and punishment
throughout history.
• The iron chains that the King and his Council are trapped
in might also symbolise the entrapment of Hop-Frog and
Trippetta, showing that Hop-Frog and Trippetta have
escaped from their chains and are turning the tables on
the King and his Council.
• There is foreshadowing of the King and his
Council’s fate earlier on in the story, when HopFrog dresses up the King and his Council as
Orangutans.
– “Hop-Frog passed the residue of the chain, in two
diameters, at right angles, across the circle, after the
fashion adopted, at the present day, by those who
capture Chimpanzees, or other large apes, in
Borneo.”
– This hints at the ending, with Hop-Frog capturing the
King and his Council, dressed as ‘apes’, with the
chain.
Use of Contrast:
• The King has power over Hop-Frog and
Trippetta in the beginning of the short
story, but in the end, it is Hop-Frog who
holds the King’s life in his hands.
Tone:
• Has a fairytale-like quality to it.
• Plot is unrealistic and fantasy-like.
• Very dark, horror genre.
Viewpoint:
• First person point-of-view
– The narrator is a subject of the King’s royal
court, which makes the short story a little
unreliable.
– He does not outright acknowledge the King’s
cruelty and sadism, though he does use
words like “monster” and “tyrant” to describe
the King.
Relation to ‘Outsiders’:
• Both Hop-Frog and Trippetta are slaves
from a foreign land
– As they are ‘different’ (both in nationality and
in appearance), they are ostracised and
treated as inferior.
– They are also of lower class, and serves only
as entertainment for the higher classes.
• Hop-Frog is not just an outsider to the other
characters in the story (with the exception of
Trippetta), but also an outsider to the reader
him/herself.
– This is because he is neither purely good nor purely
evil (like how the King and his Council is portrayed).
The reader does sympathise with him (especially in
the beginning), but after he exacts revenge on the
King and his Council, the reader can no longer
identify with Hop-Frog.
– Hop-Frog reduces the King and his Council to a “fetid,
blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass”,
which gives the reader conflicting thoughts about the
moral stance of the protagonist.
– Despite being the protagonist, Hop-Frog shows a lack
of compassion or conscience, showing no regret or
guilt for murdering the King and his Council.
Others:
• As it was written 12 years before the US
Civil War, it contains anti-slavery
messages
Is Poe Hop-Frog?
– Hop-Frog has parallels to Edgar Allan Poe’s
life, where he was ‘kidnapped from home and
presented to the king’ (his mother died, his
father abandoned him and John Allan, his
wealthy foster father, took him in).
• Both Hop-Frog and Poe could not hold their
alcohol.
• Poe’s original father abused his mother. This
parallels the King’s treatment of Trippetta.
• “At last, without uttering a syllable, he pushed
her violently from him, and threw the contents of
the brimming goblet in her face.”
• Hop-Frog’s act of revenge portrays the
achievement Poe wishes he could have had
were he of an older age when his father abused
his mother.