外研版（2019）英语选择性必修三《Unit 1 Face values》The Hunchback of Notre-Dame P9优质课教案

外研版（2019）英语选择性必修三《Unit 1 Face values》The Hunchback of Notre-Dame P9优质课教案

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (P9)

Unit 1 Developing ideas P8-2.mp3

Published in 1831, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame tells a tragic story of events in Paris. Esmeralda’s beauty means that many men fall in love with her. One such man sends the hunchback, Quasimodo, to kidnap Esmeralda. But Quasimodo fails and is captured and tortured in public. Esmeralda hears his call for water, and steps forwards out of mercy. She offers Quasimodo a drink of water, which saves him and also captures his heart. When Esmeralda is later sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit, Quasimodo rescues her from an angry crowd outside the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Esmeralda is safe from execution as long as she stays inside the cathedral...

Esmeralda and Quasimodo were still for several moments, as they considered their predicament in silence, she so graceful, he so repulsive. Every moment Esmeralda discovered some fresh defect in Quasimodo, as her glance travelled from his knock knees to his hunched back, from his hunched back to his single eye. How anyone could be formed in such a way was beyond her comprehension. Yet there was so much melancholy and so much gentleness spread over all this that she gradually adjusted to it.

He was the first to break the silence. “So you were telling me to return?”

She moved her head, and said, “Yes.”

He understood the motion of the head. “But!” he said, as though hesitating whether to finish, “I am – I am deaf.”

“Poor wretch!” exclaimed Esmeralda, with an expression of heartfelt compassion.

He began to smile sadly.

“You suppose that was all that I was missing, do you not? Yes, I am deaf, that is the way I am made. It is horrible, is it not, next to your exquisite beauty!”

There lay in the accents of the unfortunate man so significant an awareness of his sadness that she had not the strength to utter a syllable. In any case, he would not have heard her. He continued:

“Never have I viewed my ugliness as at the present moment. When I compare myself to you, I feel an immense pity for myself, poor unfortunate monster that I am! Be honest, to you I must resemble some savage creature. You, you are a ray of sunshine, a drop of dew, a birdsong, whilst I am something terrible, neither human nor beast. I don’t know what I am, as I am coarser, more downtrodden, and plainer than a pebble!”

Then he began to laugh, and that laugh was the most heartbreaking sound in the world. He continued:

“Yes, I am deaf, but you shall talk to me with your hands as my master talks to me, and then I shall quickly know your wishes from the movement of your lips, from your expression.”

“Well!” she smiled, “Explain to me why you rescued me.”

He watched her intently while she was speaking.

“I understand,” he replied. “You ask me why I rescued you. You have forgotten an unfortunate person who attempted to kidnap you one night, this same person to whom you showed kindness when he was being punished. A drop of water and a little pity – that is more than I can repay with my life. You have forgotten that unfortunate soul, but he remembers it.”

She listened to him with profound tenderness. A tear swam in the eye of Quasimodo, but did not fall. He seemed to make it a point of honour to keep it at bay.

( Adaptation from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo )