Hop-Frog

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1849

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Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Literary Devices

Point of View

An unnamed narrator tells the story from a third-person limited point of view. The narrative reveals very little about the narrator except that this person resides in the same kingdom where the events of the story take place: “Our king, as a matter of course, retained his ‘fool’” (Paragraph 4).

Despite the narrator’s absence from the action, he inserts his opinion and bias throughout the story. Ironically, the narrator isn’t exempt from the same attitudes and discriminations of which the narrative accuses the king. The narrator believes that he lives in the “civilized world” (Paragraph 43) but that the little persons (or “dwarfs”) are from a “barbarous region” (Paragraph 8), and the narrator shows both distaste for the king and superiority over the little persons (or “dwarfs”). Because the narrator tells the story in past-tense, those opinions help demonstrate general attitudes toward the king after the events of the story.

Irony

The story starts with the narrator noting that the king “seemed to live only for joking” (Paragraph 1) and that “practical jokes suited his taste far better than verbal ones” (Paragraph 2). However, the king’s love of practical jokes causes his death. The jokes that the king enjoys are often cruel in nature: He laughs at Hop-Frog’s height, his unusual gait, and his reaction to drinking alcohol.

Hop-Frog uses this type of humor to get his revenge—first by baiting the king with a barbaric practical joke. The king’s goal is to scare the women at the party; Hop-Frog’s goal is to turn the king into a joke. The little person (or “dwarf”) turns the tables, executing the king’s type of practical joke: He chains the monarch and his men to the ceiling and murders them.

Exposition

Poe uses exposition at the beginning of the story to build up to the vengeful conclusion. For a revenge tale to pay off, it must emotionally convey the characters and their struggles—and why the protagonist desires revenge. Before depicting the characters in action, the narrative must offer background on them—in this case, the king, his ministers, and Hop-Frog—and put their relationships in context.

Before the main action of “Hop-Frog” begins, the narrative portrays Hop-Frog as a character deserving sympathy and the king and his court as villainous. This device makes a revenge tale more effective: The evil king and his ministers get what’s coming to them, and the hero escapes a perilous and humiliating situation.

Foreshadowing

When the narrator describes Hop-Frog, he contrasts the “distortion of his legs,” which hinder him, with the power of his arms, which enable him “to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or anything else to climb” (Paragraph 7).

Hop-Frog doesn’t appear to use his muscles for his benefit during his time as a jester (or “fool”) in the king’s court. His leg disability makes the king and his men underestimate Hop-Frog, but the mention of his natural dexterity foreshadows how he later uses his strength to exact revenge. This strength reemerges at the story’s climax as he leaps “with the ability of a monkey” and climbs “a few feet up the chain” (Paragraph 53) to burn the king and seven ministers as an act of revenge.

Related Titles

By Edgar Allan Poe

Study Guide

A Dream Within a Dream

Hop-Frog

Literary Devices

Point of View

Irony

Exposition

Foreshadowing

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