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文学阅读与欣赏 作业01(第1-3单元)A
The total marks for this assignment are 100 points. Time allowed for completing this assignment is 1 hour (60 minutes). PLEASE WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET.
题目
(1)、
Directions: Here’ s an extract from Bernard Shaw’ s play Pygmalion. Read it and answer questions below. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet.
(Note: A few parts of the following excerpt are shortened or simplified)
Act I
[This scene follows the beginning of this act , when Freddy returns back to the portico (柱廊)of St. paul’s where his mother and sister are waiting for him to find a cab to go back home. In torrents 0f heavy summer rain, he has to rush out again to try to find a cab since it is 11 p. m. While doing so he comes into collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket of flowers out of her hands. Some of her flowers dropped in the mud]
THE FLOWER GIRIL:Nah then, Freddy, look wh’y gowin, deah. (Nay then, Freddy look! Where are you going, dear. )
Freddy:Sorry [he rushes off]
THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] : There’s menners f’yet! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. (There’s manners for you. Two bunches of violets trod into the mud. )
[She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady’s right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of Loudon and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly t its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can offord to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs: but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist. ]
THE MOTHER: How do you know that my son’s name is Freddy, pray?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now better to spawl a pore gells flahrzn than ran away athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’them?
(Oh, is he your son, is he? If you’d done your duty as a mother should, he’d know better to spoil a poor girl’s flowers than ran away without paying. Will you pay me for them?)
THE DAUGHTER: Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!
THE MOTHER: Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?
THE DAUGHTER: No. I’ve nothing smaller than sixpence.
THE FLOWER GIRL: [hopefully] I can give change for a tanner (六便士) , kind lady.
THE MOTHER: [To Clara) give it to me. [Clara parts reluctantly) Now [To the girl]:This is for your flowers.
THE FLOWER GIRL: Thank you kindly, lady.
THE DAUGHTER: Make her give you the change, These things are only a penny a bunch.
THE MOTHER: Do hold your tongue, Clara. [to the girl] You can keep the change.
THE FLOWER GIRL: Oh, thank you, lady.
THE MOTHER: Now tell me how you know that young gentleman’s name.
THE FLOWER GIRL: I didn’t.
THE MOTHER: I heard you call him by it. Don’t try to deceive me.
THE FLOWER GIRL: [protesting] Who’s trying to deceive you? I called him Freddy or Charlie the same as you might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits down beside her basket).
THE DAUGHTER: Sixpenny thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that. [She retreats in disgust behind the pillar].
[An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter, and closes a dripping umbrella. He is in the same plight as Freddy, very wet about the ankles. He is in evening dress, with a light overcoat. He takes the place left vacant by the daughter’s retirement.]
THE GENTLEMAN: Phew!
THE MOTHER [to the gentleman) : Oh, sir, is there any sign of its stopping?
THE GENTLEMAN: I’m afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago [he goes to the plinth beside the flower girl; puts up his foot on it and stoops to turn down his trouser ends) .
THE MOTHER: Oh dear! [She retires sadly and joins her daughter).
THE FLOWER GIRL [taking advantage of the military gentleman’ s proximity to establish friendly relations with him]: If it’ s worse, it’s a sign it’s nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy a flower off a poor girl.
THE GENTLEMAN: I’m sorry. I haven’t any change.
THE FLOWER GIRL: I can give you change, Captain.
THE GENTLEMAN: For a sovereign (一镑金币)? I’ve nothing less.
THE FLOWER GIRL: Gain! Oh do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can change half-a-crown. Take this for tuppence. (two pence)
THE GENTLEMAN: Now don’t be troublesome; there’s a good girl. [Trying his pockets) I really haven’t any change. Stop; here’s three half-pence, if that’s any use to you [he retreats to the other pillar).
THE FLOWER GIRL [disappointed, but thinking three half-pence better than nothing ]:Thank you, sir.
THE BYSTANDER [to the girl]: You be careful; give him a flower for it. There’s a bloke(小子) here behind taking down every blessed word you’re saying. [All turn to the man who is taking notes].
THE FLOWER GIRL (springing up terrified): I ain’t done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I’ve a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. (街头的边石) (Hysterically) I’m a respectable girl so help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me. (General hubbub, mostly sympathetic to THE FLOWER GIRL. . . .
[THE FLOWER GIRL, distraught and mobbed , breaks through them to THE GENTLEMAN, crying wildly] Oh, sir, don’t let him charge me. You dunno (don’t know) what it means to me. They’ll take away my character (名誉) and drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen. They. . .
THE NOTE TAKER (coming forward on her right , the rest crowding after him):There, there, there, there! Who’s hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?
THE BYSTANDER: It’s all right: he’s a gentleman: look at his boots. (Explaining to THE NOTE TAKER) She thought you was a copper’s nark (警察的线民) , sir.
THE NOTE TAKER [with quick interest): What’s a copper’s nark?
THE BYSTANDER [inapt at definition]: It’s a- well, it’s a copper’s nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.
1.Suppose this is the very beginning of a play. Can you write at least two sentences to give the setting of the scene?
2.What are the phrases in capital letters to the left of the text (e.g. THE MOTHER)?
3.What are the phrases in the brackets?
4.What are the rest of the words in the text?
5.A scene in a play may serve different purposes: to create an atmosphere, to develop a character, or to advance an action, etc. What are the purposes of the scene in the first act of this play?
6.Do you think the mother and the daughter are of a rich family or from the upper class? Give your reasons.
7.Why do you think that the playwright makes arrangements for the poor flower girl to meet the note taker, who turns out later in the play to be a professor of phonetics, in such a way?
(2)、
Instructions:Read the excerpt from Charles Dickens’ famous Christmas story ‘A Christmas Carol’ in Unit 3: Activity 5, Task 2, then answer the following questions.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge’s nephew. "You don’t mean that, I am sure?"
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough."
"Come, then" returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough."
Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug".
"Don’t be cross, uncle," said the nephew.
"What else can I be" returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, ’every idiot who goes about with ’Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge’s nephew. "But you don’t keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year that men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold, or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.
"Let me hear another sound from you" said Scrooge, "and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew, "I wonder you don’t go into Parliament."
"Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
"But why?" cried Scrooge’s nephew. "Why?"
"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.
"Because I fell in love."
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"
"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
"And A Happy New Year!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the seasons on the clerk, who, coldly as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.
Questions:
1.How would you describe the relationship between Scrooge and his nephew?
2.What’s the relationship between Scrooge and the clerk?
3.Which one word from the text best describes Scrooge’s nephew when he first enters?
4.Which two adjectives (NOT nouns!) would you use to describe the weather that morning?
5.What did the clerk do after hearing Scrooge’s nephew talking about the meaning of Christmas?
6.What was Scrooge’s reaction to his nephew’s talking about the meaning of Christmas?
7. How do you understand “Don’t be cross” said by Scrooge’s nephew?
8.Why did Scrooge disapprove of Christmas?
9.What’s the attitude of Scrooge’s nephew towards Christmas?
10.How did Scrooge feel that his nephew’s falling in love?
11.Which phrase does the nephew use to describe the common fate of all people?
12.What did Scrooge threaten the clerk with if he made any more noise?
(3)、
Instructions:Re-write the story “The Lottery Ticket” following the instructions below:
1. Imagine that you are the Ivan or Marsha and retell the story from his or her point of view.
2. You should keep the basic content of the story.
3. Your writing should be approximately 200 words.
The Lottery Ticket
Anton Chekhov [1860-1904]
Ivan Dmitritch, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper.
"I forgot to look at the newspaper today," his wife said to him as she cleared the table. "Look and see whether the list of drawings is there."
"Yes, it is," said Ivan Dmitritch, "but hasn’t your ticket lapsed? "
"No; I took the interest on Tuesday."
"What is the number?"
"Series 9,499 and 26."
"All right … we will look …9,499 and 26."
Ivan Dmitritch had no faith in lottery luck, and would not, as a rule, have consented to look at the lists of winning numbers, but now, as he had nothing else to do and as the newspaper was before his eyes, he passed his finger downwards along the column of numbers. And immediately, as though in mockery of his scepticism, no further than the second line from the top, his eye was caught by the figure 9,499! Unable to believe his eyes, he hurriedly dropped the paper on his knees without looking to see the number of the ticket, and, just as though some one had given him a douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the pit of the stomach, tingling and terrible and sweet!
"Masha, 9,499 is there!" he said in a hollow voice.
His wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realised that he was not joking.
"9,499?" she asked, turning pale and dropping the folded table cloth on the table.
"Yes, yes …it really is there!"
"And the number of the ticket?"
"Oh, yes! There’s the number of the ticket too. But stay … wait! No, I say ! Anyway, the number of our series is there! Anyway, you understand …"
Looking at his wife, Ivan Dmitritch gave a broad, senseless smile, like a baby when a bright object is shown it. His wife smiled too; it was as pleasant to her as to him that he only mentioned the series, and did not try to find out the number of the winning ticket. To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!
Ivan Dmitritch thought of her relations. All those wretched brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles would come crawling about as soon as they heard of the winning ticket, would begin whining like beggars, and fawning upon them with oily, hypocritical smiles. Wretched, detestable people! If they were given anything, they would ask for more, while if they were refused, they would swear at them, slander them, and wish them every kind of misfortune.
Ivan Dmitritch remembered his own relations, and their faces, at which he had looked impartially in the past, struck him now as repulsive and hateful.
"They are such reptiles!" He thought.
And his wife’s face, too, struck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger surged up in his heart against her, and he thought malignantly:
"She knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won it she would give me a hundred rubles, and put the rest away under lock and key."
And he looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She glanced at him too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own daydreams, her own plans, her own reflections; she understood perfectly well what her husband’s dreams were. She knew who would be the first to try to grab her winnings.
"It’s very nice making daydreams at other people’s expense!" is what her eyes expressed. "No, don’t you dare!"
Her husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his breast, and in order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her at the fourth page on the newspaper and read out triumphantly:
"Series 9,499, number 46! Not 26!"
Hatred and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan Dmitritch and his wife that their rooms were dark and small and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating was not doing them good, but lying heavy on their stomachs, that the evenings were long and wearisome …
"What the devil’s the meaning of it?" said Ivan Dmitritch, beginning to be ill-humored. "Wherever one steps there are bits of paper under one’s feet, crumbs, husks. The rooms are never swept! One is simply forced to go out. Damnation take my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on the first aspen-tree!" |
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