Long Live the King's Fool: Hop Frog's Revenge

Long Live the King's Fool: "Hop-Frog's" Revenge

The king's actions define him as a tyrant, and any man who attempts to rationalize the actions of a tyrant deem themselves lovers of evil. Abusive, cruel, brutal, and unjust all describe the king's behavior towards his jests, Hop-Frog and Tripetta, and it does not seem excessive for the two to kill the king. I do suppose that from different perspectives the murder could seem unjustifiable, but I believe entirely in the motives of Hop-Frog. His actions come from a place of vengeance, however the king brought the means for revenge upon himself through his cruelty.

The king finds pleasure in making fun of others, and he does not care if his fun causes pain. The name given to the jest by the king, Hop-Frog, is the first example of this for the title comes from the jest's physical deformity that disallows him from walking normally. The king captured Hop-Frog because he needed a "dwarf to laugh at," a sentiment that reveals the evil, callous kind of humor that the king enjoys (Poe 310). The king's cruelty towards his servants appears first in the story and ignites a growing hope inside readers that Hop-Frog will one day get revenge.

Hop-Frog and the king come from different thresholds of life—one a rich monarch and the other a poor disabled court fool. The circumstances under which the king lives cause for him a feeling of superiority that allows him to be brutal to Hop-Frog. The jest was captured and taken from a "barbarous region that no person ever heard of" far from the king's court (Poe 311). The description of Hop-Frog's homeland defines the chasm between the king and the jest which gives the king power over Hop-Frog to manipulate the jest in any way his "majesty" pleases (Poe 314). Being captured for a life of mockery from the king gives Hop-Frog's justifiable motives for murder. The abusive nature of the king towards Hop-Frog and Tripetta, caused by a feeling of superiority, also fuels