Sanctuary in a Far-Off Place

I was sitting on my bed one evening in Zhongshan, China. The end-of-summer heat had driven me to a restless wakefulness even though it was getting late, and I was exhausted from a long day of teaching. My sole companion was an abridged version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’d been picking at it for a few weeks, and I was only halfway through. I probably would not have cracked it open that night if I had been able to fall asleep with the rest of the world. (Even in its abridged format, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is not exactly what I’d call light reading.)

It was during one of those long, dark hours that I read this scene:

No one had yet noticed, in the gallery of the royal statues sculptured immediately above the arches of the great door, a strange spectator, who until then had been watching all that had been going on with such absolute passiveness, a neck so intently stretched, a face so deformed, that, but for his clothing, half red and half purple, he might have been mistaken for one of those stone monsters through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral have disgorged the rains for six hundred years. . . . All at once, just as the hangman’s assistants were about to carry out Charmolue’s phlegmatic order, he straddled the balustrade of the gallery, gripped the rope with his feet, his knees, and his hands, and slid down the facade like a raindrop rolling down a pane of glass. With the speed of a cat that has leaped from a rooftop, he darted toward the two executioners, knocked them down with two enormous fists, picked up the gypsy with one hand, as a child does a doll, and with one bound was inside the church, holding the girl above his head, and crying with a loud voice, “Sanctuary!” . . . 

“Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” repeated the crowd, and the clapping of ten thousand hands made Quasimodo’s one eye sparkle with pride and joy. . . . 

Quasimodo had stopped under the great door. His large feet seemed as solidly rooted to the floor of the church as the heavy Roman pillars. His great hairy head was sunk between his shoulders like that of a lion, which too has a mane, but no neck. He held the young girl, all palpitating, suspended in his calloused hands, like a piece of white drapery; but he carried her so carefully that he seemed afraid of bruising her or breaking her. It was as if he felt that she was something delicate, exquisite, and precious, made for hands other than his. . . . The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. . . . 

And then there was something touching about the protection offered by a creature so deformed to one so unfortunate—one condemned to death saved by Quasimodo. Here were the two extremes of physical and social wretchedness meeting and assisting each other. . . .
At last he made [an] . . . appearance atop the tower of the great bell. There he seemed to show proudly to the whole city her whom he had saved, and his thundering voice, that voice which was heard so rarely, and which he never heard, repeated three times with frenzy, even to the clouds, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” . . . 

“Noël! Noël!” screamed the crowd, and this immense acclamation was thundered to the opposite bank of the Seine. (344-46).

This chapter (Book VIII, Chapter 6) took me completely by surprise. It was beautiful, and I was swept up in the emotion of the scene. I even found myself crying “Santuary, Sanctuary!” with the crowd. But more than that, there was the description of Quasimodo and La Esmerelda. Hugo’s juxtaposition and intense (verging on erotic) description of two people who couldn’t be more different in appearance, but who were united in the extremity of their circumstances, was a profound image to me.

Now completely unable to sleep—the emotion of the book still pounding in my head—and curious, I decided to try to find the Disney interpretation this particular scene via YouTube. I had low expectations, only remembering bits and pieces from a childhood viewing of the film, but again, I was pleasantly surprised. The intense music and beautiful artwork of the film took the emotions of the book and expanded on them. I don’t know what it was—maybe it was the fact that it was late and I was therefore more susceptible to emotion, or the fact that the book had set me up for a feeling that the movie built on—but the combination of the book and movie pushed me into a state of speechlessness and awe. The hair on my arms stood up, and tears came to my eyes. To be honest, my reaction freaked me out a little.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have expected something like this to happen. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a Gothic novel. The Gothic genre is often characterized by its appeal to the sublime through a depiction of extremity of feeling, setting, the supernatural, or the spectacle. Add to that the terror of impending pain and death in the text (something Burke would insist on), and you have all the makings of a transcendent or sublime experience. This scene is entirely founded on spectacle—the penance of a witch was a public event intended to be witnessed and participated in by a large crowd (including the reader); Hugo describes the descent of Quasimodo and the rescue of La Esmerelda in nearly theatrical terms; and the juxtaposition of the two characters is intended to evoke a sense of profundity in the reader. Although Disney changed much of the original story, they kept Hugo’s spectacle intact. The music adds an element that pushes the viewer into a state of awe.

Sitting on my bed that night, I didn’t fully understand why I’d felt awe. Upon further reflection of the event and the way I felt, I now realize that I’d been manipulated by the classic tropes of Gothic literature and film. Even knowing this, I still hold that moment in high regard, and look back on it as a time when a confluence of media was able to touch me. Whether I was in Zhongshan or Paris that night, it didn’t matter. I’d felt what it was to declare “sanctuary” in front of a crowd of thousands, and it was sublime.