Bringing Quasimodo to Life

Class date: Friday, Jan. 8th

The whole crowd was in a tumult, there were “prodigious shouts of acclamation.” “Many of the women [covered] their faces” in horror, while “the men, on the other hand, delighted and applauded enthusiastically.”

These lines describe a Parisian crowd’s reaction to seeing Quasimodo… or, just as well, the scene in Friday’s literature class.

One of the values of great literature is the vivid images a superior author is able evoke. However, these are often the portions of the novel that you skim past quickly to get to the dialogue and action. (I know I did when I was a teenager!) So the question is how to bring students to pay attention to descriptive passages, be able to visualize them, and relish them.

Today’s solution: a portrait session. In last night’s reading we were introduced to the character of Quasimodo. In his opening scene he does not speak or do anything. He is simply put on display for all to see, and the crowd is awed by his sublime ugliness. And, after today's class, so were the students.

The excitement of the class at our drawing project was immediate—Bernard excitedly declared that he’d dreamed about doing this. So, proceeding enthusiastically, we found the paragraphs describing Quasimodo's face in exhaustive detail and made a list of the hunchback’s traits: a “horsehoe mouth”, an eye covered by a “giant wart”, jagged teeth, including one that sticks up like "an elephant's tusk", etc.... And, with each written detail, we added that particular feature to a portrait we drew together. The students could not believe how grotesque their portrait was becoming! Some felt sorry for him. One student couldn’t believe that he was intended to look like our drawing (to which Daly’s response was, "There are the facts!" as he pointed to the list of traits).

The students' horror, pity, and general visceral reaction was more powerful than I'd anticipated. My hope now is that when they get to the descriptions of Esmeralda and Claude Frollo, they'll think of Quasimodo’s description and be motivated to work on carefully reading and evoking the image that Hugo is describing in their mind’s eye. I'll keep you posted!

Bernard's portrait-

(The names of the students in my class have been altered.)