The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
......
When he sailed into the little harbour the lights of the Terrace were out and he knew everyone was in bed. The breeze had risen steadily and was blowing strongly now. It was quiet in the harbour though and he sailed up onto the little patch of shingle below the rocks. There was no one to help him so he pulled the boat up as far as he could. Then he stepped out and made her fast to a rock.
He unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. Then he shouldered the mast and started to climb. It was then he knew the depth of his tiredness. He stopped for a moment and looked back and saw in the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing up well behind the skiff?s stern. He saw the white naked line of his backbone and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill and all the nakedness between.
He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road. A cat passed on the far side going about its business and the old man watched it. Then he just watched the road.
Finally he put the mast down and stood up. He picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.
Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall. In the dark he found a water bottle and took a drink. Then he lay down on the bed. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.
He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning. It was blowing so hard that the drifting-boats would not be going out and the boy had slept late and then come to the old man?s shack as he had come each morning. The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man?s hands and he started to cry. He went out very quietly to go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.
Many fishermen were around the skiff looking at what was lashed beside it and one was in the water, his trousers rolled up, measuring the skeleton with a length of line.
The boy did not go down. He had been there before and one of the fishermen was looking after the skiff for him.
“How is he?” one of the fishermen shouted.
“Sleeping,”the boy called. He did not care that they saw him crying. “Let no one disturb him.”
“He was eighteen feet from nose to tail,” the fisherman who was measuring him called.
“I believe it,” the boy said.
He went into the Terrace and asked for a can of coffee.
“Hot and with plenty of milk and sugar in it.”
“Anything more?”
“No. Afterwards I will see what he can eat.”
“What a fish it was,” the proprietor said. “There has never been such a fish. Those were two fine fish you took yesterday too.”
“Damn my fish,” the boy said and he started to cry again.
“Do you want a drink of any kind?” the proprietor asked.
“No,” the boy said. “Tell them not to bother Santiago. I?ll be back.”
“Tell him how sorry I am.”
“Thanks,” the boy said.
The boy carried the hot can of coffee up to the old man?s shack and sat by him until he woke. Once it looked as though he were waking. But he had gone back into heavy sleep and the boy had gone across the road to borrow some wood to heat the coffee.
Finally the old man woke.
“Don?t sit up,” the boy said. “Drink this.”
He poured some of the coffee in a glass.
The old man took it and drank it.
“They beat me, Manolin,” he said. “They truly beat me.”
“He didn?t beat you. Not the fish.”
“No. Truly. It was afterwards.”
“Pedrico is looking after the skiff and the gear. What do you want done with the head?”
“Let Pedrico chop it up to use in fish traps.”
“And the spear?”
“You keep it if you want it.”
“I want it,” the boy said. “Now we must make our plans about the other things.”
“Did they search for me?”
“Of course. With coast guard and with planes.”
“The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,” the old man said. He noticed how pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only to himself and to the sea. “I missed you,” he said. “What did you catch?”
“One the first day. One the second and two the third.”
“Very good.”
“Now we fish together again.”
“No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.”
“The hell with luck,” the boy said. “I?ll bring the luck with me.”
“What will your family say?”
“I do not care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.”
“We must get a good killing lance and always have it on board. You can make the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford. We can grind it in Guanabacoa. It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break. My knife broke.”
“I?ll get another knife and have the spring ground.”
How many days of heavy brisa have we?”
“Maybe three. Maybe more.”
“I will have everything in order,” the boy said. “You get your hands well old man.”
“I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.”
“Get that well too,” the boy said. “Lie down, old man, and I will bring you your clean shirt. And something to eat.”
“Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,” the old man said.
“You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything. How much did you suffer?”
“Plenty,” the old man said.
“I?ll bring the food and the papers,” the boy said. “Rest well, old man. I will bring stuff from the drugstore for your hands.”
“Don?t forget to tell Pedrico the head is his.”
“No. I will remember.”
As the boy went out the door and down the worn coral rock road he was crying again.
That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbour.
“What?s that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.
“Tiburon,” the waiter said. “Shark.” He was meaning to explain what had happened.
“I didn?t know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails.”
“I didn?t either,” her male companion said.
Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.
A Rose for Emily
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
I
When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years.
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily?s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor—he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily?s father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris? generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.
When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff?s office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.
They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily?s father.
They rose when she entered—a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.
She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold chain.
Her voice was dry and cold. “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves.”
“But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn?t you get a notice from the sheriff, signed by him?”
“I received a paper, yes,”Miss Emily said. “Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the—”
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But, Miss Emily—”
“See Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!” The Negro appeared. “Show these gentlemen out.”
II
So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.
That was two years after her father?s death and a short time after her sweetheart—the one we believed would marry her —had deserted her. After her father?s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity
to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man—a young man then—going in and out with a market basket.
“Just as if a man—any man—could keep a kitchen properly, “the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.
A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.
“But what will you have me do about it, madam?” he said.
“Why, send her word to stop it,” the woman said. “Isn?t there a law? ”
“I?m sure that won?t be necessary,” Judge Stevens said. “It?s probably just a snake or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I?ll speak to him about it.”
The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident deprecation. “We really must do something about it, Judge. I?d be the last one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we?ve got to do something.” That night the Board of Aldermen met—three graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation.
“It?s simple enough,” he said. “Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain time to do it in, and if she don?t. ..”
“Dammit, sir,” Judge Stevens said, “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”
So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily?s lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away.
……
III
(After her father?s death) She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows—sort of tragic and serene.
The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father?s death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee—a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.
At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all said, “Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.” But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige —without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said, “Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her.” She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had not even been represented at the funeral.
And as soon as the old people said, “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. “Do you suppose it?s really so?” they said to one another. “Of course it is. What else could . . .” This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: “Poor Emily.”
She carried her head high enough—even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say “Poor Emily,” and while the two female cousins were visiting her.
“I want some poison,” she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper?s face ought to look. “I want some poison,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I?d recom—”
“I want the best you have. I don?t care what kind.”
The druggist named several. “They?ll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is—”
“Arsenic,” Miss Emily said. “Is that a good one?”
“Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma?am. But what you want—”
“I want arsenic.”
The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag. “Why, of course,” the druggist said. “If that?s what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.”
Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn?t come back. When she opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones: “For rats.”
IV
So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, “She will marry him.” Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,” because Homer himself had remarked—he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks? Club—that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, “Poor Emily” behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove.
Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister—Miss Emily?s people were Episcopal— to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day the minister?s wife wrote to Miss Emily?s relations in Alabama.
So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler?s and ordered a man?s toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men?s clothing,
including a nightshirt, and we said, “They are married.”We were really glad. We were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.
So we were not surprised when Homer Barron—the streets had been finished some time since—was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily?s coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily?s allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.
And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets.
……
V
The negro met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men —some in their brushed Confederate uniforms—on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.
Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.
The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man?s toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded socks.
The man himself lay in the bed.
For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.
Araby
James Joyce (1882-1941)
North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers? School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.
……
When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan?s sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan?s steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.
Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.
……
At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go.
“And why can?t you?” I asked.
While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. At fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.
“It?s well for you,”she said.
“If I go,” I said, “I will bring you something.”
What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master?s face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child?s play, ugly monotonous child?s play.
On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly: “Yes, boy, I know.”
As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.
When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress.
When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old, garrulous woman, a pawnbroker?s widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn?t wait any longer, but it was after eight o?clock and she did not like to be out late, as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt said: “I?m afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.”
At nine o?clock I heard my uncle?s latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten.
“The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,” he said.
I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically:
“Can?t you give him the money and let him go? You?ve kept him late enough as it is.”
My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” He asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I know The Arab’s Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt.
I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name.
I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins.
Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation.
“O, I never said such a thing!”
“O, but you did!”
“O, but I didn?t!”
“Didn?t she say that?”
“Yes. I heard her.”
“O, there?s a... fib!”
Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured:
“No, thank you.”
The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder.
I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Chapter II
Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the in- significant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom?s eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour — and even then some- body generally had to go after him. Tom said: “Say, Jim, I?ll fetch the water if you?ll whitewash some.”
Jim shook his head and said:
“Can?t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an? git dis water an? not stop foolin? roun? wid anybody. She say she spec? Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an? so she tole me go …long an? …tend to my own business —she …lowed SHE?D …tend to de whitewashin?.”
“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That?s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket —I won?t be gone only a a minute. SHE won?t ever know.”
“Oh, I dasn?t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she?d take an? tar de head off?n me. …Deed she would.”“SHE! She never licks anybody —whacks …em over the head with her thimble —and who cares for that, I?d like to know.She talks awful, but talk don?t hurt —anyways it don?t if she don?t cry. Jim, I?ll give you a marvel. I?ll give you a white alley!”
Jim began to waver.
“White alley, Jim! And it?s a bully taw.”
“My! Dat?s a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I?s powerful …fraid ole missis —”“And besides, if you will I?ll show you my sore toe.”
Jim was only human — this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
But Tom?s energy di d not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work — the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it — bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of
trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.
He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently — the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben?s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump — proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding- dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to star- board and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance —for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:
“Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!” The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.
“Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!” His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.
“Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!” His right hand, mean- time, describing stately circles — for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.
“Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling- ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!” The left hand began to describe circles.
“Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! LIVELY now! Come — out with your spring-line —what?re you about there! Take a tur n round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now — let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH?T! S?H?T! SH?T!” (trying the gauge-cocks).
Tom went on whitewashing — paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: “Hi-YI! YOU?RE up a stump, ain?t you!”
No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom?s mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:
“Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?”
Tom wheeled suddenly and said:
“Why, it?s you, Ben! I warn?t noticing.”
“Say —I?m going in a-swimming, I am. Don?t you wish you could? But of course you?d druther WORK —wouldn?t you? Course you would!”
Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
“What do you call work?”
“Why, ain?t THAT work?”
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered care- lessly:
“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain?t. All I know,is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh come, now, you don?t mean to let on that you LIKE it?”
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well, I don?t see why I oughtn?t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily
back and forth — stepped back to note the effect — added a touch here and there — criticised the effect again — Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Pres- ently he said:
“Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little.”
Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:
“No — no —I reckon it wouldn?t hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly?s awful particular about this fence — right here on the street, you know —but if it was the back fence I wouldn?t mind and SHE wouldn?t. Yes, she?s awful particular about this fence; it?s got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain?t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it?s got to be done.”
“No — is that so? Oh come, now — lemme just try. Only just a little —I?d let YOU, if you was me, Tom.”
“Ben, I?d like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly —well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn?t let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn?t let Sid. Now don?t you see how I?m fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it —”
“Oh, shucks, I?ll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say —I?ll give you the core of my apple.”“Well, here — No, Ben, n ow don?t. I?m afeard —”
“I?ll give you ALL of it!”
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with — and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn?t unlock anything, a fragm ent of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door- knob, a dog-collar — but no dog — the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.
He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while — plenty of company — and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn?t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger- coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.
The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)
Chapter XXVI
Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.
“Stop!” she cried in French. “Look at yourself in the mirror: you have not taken one peep. ”
So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. “Jane!”called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs by Mr. Rochester.
“Lingerer!” he said, “my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!”
He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced me “fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the desire of his eyes, “ and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately hired servants, a footman, answered it.
“Is John getting the carriage ready?”
“Yes, sir. ”
“Is the luggage brought down?”
“They are bringing it down, sir. ”
“Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there: return and tell me. ”
The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned.
“Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice. ”
“And the carriage?”
“The horses are harnessing. ”
“We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the coachman in his seat. ”
“Yes, sir. ”
“Jane, are you ready?”
I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester?s face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did — so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.
I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester?s frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting.
At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of breath. “Am I cruel in my love?” he said. “Delay an instant: lean on me, Jane. ”
And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the porch.
We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.
Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers —a gentleman, evidently —was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.
“I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God?s Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful. ”
He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, “Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?”— when a distinct and near voice said —
“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment. ”
The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, “Proceed. ”
Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said —
“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood. ”
“The ceremony is quite broken off, “ subjoined the voice behind us. “I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists. ”
Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried
marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath!
Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he asked. “Perhaps it may be got over — explained away?”
“Hardly, “ was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly. ”
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly —
“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living. ”
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder — my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
“Who are you?” he asked of the intruder.
“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of — Street, London. ”
“And you would thrust on me a wife?”
“I would remind you of your lady?s existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not. ”
“Favour me with an account of her — with her name, her parentage, her place of abode. ”
“Certainly. ”Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice: —
“…I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A. D. — (a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of -, and of Ferndean Manor, in -shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at — church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church —a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard Mason. ?”
“That — if a genuine document — may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living. ”
“She was living three months ago, “ returned the lawyer.
“How do you know?”
“I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert. ”
“Produce him — or go to hell. ”
“I will produce him first —he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward. ”
Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor?s shoulder —yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed — olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm —he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the
breath from his body — but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, “Good God!” Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester — his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked —“What have YOU to say?”
An inaudible reply escaped Mason?s white lips.
“The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?”
“Sir —sir, ”interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a sacred place. “Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, “Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman?s wife is still living?”
“Courage, ” urged the lawyer, —“speak out. ”
“She is now living at Thornfield Hall, ”said Mason, in more articulate tones: “I saw her there last April. I am her brother. ”
“At Thornfield Hall!”ejaculated the clergyman. “Impossible! I am an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. ”
I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester?s lips, and he muttered —
“No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it —or of her under that name. ”He mused — for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it —
“Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day. ” The man obeyed.
Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: “Bigamy is an ugly word! —I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out- manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me, —perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:—what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago, —Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick! — never fear me! — I?d almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! — as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner — pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole?s patient, and MY WIFE! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This girl, “he continued, looking at me, “knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of you — follow!”
Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.
“Take it back to the coach-house, John, “ said Mr. Rochester coolly; “it will not be wanted to-day. ”
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Book III Chapter X The Substance of the Shadow
……
“The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the Barrier—I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards when I traversed it—it struck out of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face.
“There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers.
“From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a bed.
“The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions of a gentleman?s dress. On one of them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of a Noble, and the letter E.
“I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner caught my sight.
“I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the words, …My husband, my father, and my brother!? and then counted up to twelve, and said, …Hush!? For an instant, and no more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she would repeat the cry, …My husband, my father, and my brother!? and would count up to twelve, and say, …Hush!? There was no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment?s pause, in the utterance of these sounds.
“…How long,? I asked, …has this lasted??
“To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It was the elder who replied, …Since about this hour last night.?“…She has a husband, a father, and a brother??
“…A brother.?
“…I do not address her brother??
“He answered with great contempt, …No.?
“…She has some recent association with the number twelve??
“The younger brother impatiently rejoined, …With twelve o?clock??
“…See, gentlemen,?said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, …how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.?
“The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, …There is a case of medicines here;? and brought it from a closet, and put it on the table.
* * * *
“The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night. “On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant boy—a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.
“…I am a doctor, my poor fellow,? said I. …Let me examine it.?
“…I do not want it examined,? he answered; …let it be.?
“It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty- four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.
“…How has this been done, monsieur?? said I.
“…A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother?s sword—like a gentleman.?
“There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, or about his fate.
“The boy?s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me. “…Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. She—have you seen her, Doctor??
“The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence.
“I said, …I have seen her.?
“…She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty
and virtue of our sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his—that man?s who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.?
“It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.
“…We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beings—taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take it from us—I say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out!?
“I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy.
“…Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort him in our cottage—our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks, when that man?s brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him—for what are husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing??
“The boy?s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the gentleman?s, all negligent indifference; the peasants, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge.
“…You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed—if he could find food—he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.?
“Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.
“…Then, with that man?s permission and even with his aid, his brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his brother—and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if it is now—his brother took her away—for his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings home, our father?s heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond
必读英美文学经典作品20本 American Literature 1、The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Howthorne《红字》霍桑著 小说惯用象征手法，人物、情节和语言都颇具主观想象色彩，在描写中又常把人的心理活
动和直觉放在首位。因此，它不仅是美利坚合众国浪漫主义小说的代表作，同时也被称作 是美利坚合众国心理分析小说的开创篇。 2、The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 《哈克贝利.芬历险记》 简称《赫克》是美国文学中的珍品,也是美国文化中的珍品。十六年前【1984】 ,美国文坛为《赫克》出版一百周年举行了广泛的庆祝活动和学术讨论,也出版了一些研究马克吐温,特别是他的《赫克》的专著。专门为一位大作家的一本名著而举行如此广泛的纪念和专门的研究,这在世界文坛上也是少有的盛事。这是因为《赫克》的意义不一般. 美国著名作家海明威说, "一切现代美国文学来自一本书, 即马克吐温的《赫克尔贝里芬历险记》……这是我们所有书中最好的。一切美国文学都来自这本书,在它之前,或在它之后,都不曾有
过能与之媲美的作品。 3、The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 《贵妇画像》 亨利.詹姆斯著】 美国小说家亨利·詹姆斯的《贵妇画像》自问世以来一直受到文学评论界的关注，专家学者已从各个不同角度对女主人伊莎贝尔·阿切尔作了深入细致的研究。本文试图从一个全新的视角，即跨文化交际角度，剖析伊莎贝尔在婚姻方面所作的选择。文章指出她是该小说中跨文化交际的最大失败者，并对其失败原因作了分析。希望在跨文化交际日益频繁的今天我们都能从伊莎贝尔的生活经历中得到某种启发。
“英美文学作品赏析”课程简介 一、课程简介 “英美文学作品赏析”(“Appreciation of British and American Literary Works”)是依据教育部颁布的《大学英语课程教学要求》中的较高要求，为非英语专业大学生开设的“语言文化”类课程。课程以阅读名家名作精彩片段为主，以欣赏相关作品音频、视频片段为辅，通过阅读、讲授、讨论、表演、诵读、赏析等生动活泼的形式，使学生了解英美两国文学简史，理解经典作品的主要艺术特色。本课程从考勤、学习过程、期末开卷考试三方面评估学生的学习情况。通过听、读、说、写、译的综合训练，致力于培养学生运用英语学科基础知识、运用文学常识鉴赏评析作品的能力。在轻松愉快的氛围中，提高学生的团队合作、创造性思维、跨文化交际能力，增强学生对英美文学、文化的兴趣与感悟力，促进学生语言基本功和人文修养的提高。 二、课程内容 课程共48学时，主要内容为：
三、课程考核 本课程的考查方式为：过程管理评估+期末考试评估 过程管理部分的考核构成学生平时成绩，占期末总成绩的40%；期末考试卷面成绩占期末总成绩的60%，即： 学生学期成绩=平时成绩40%+期末考试成绩60% 平时成绩=出勤40%+课堂表现20%+作业40% （作业包括翻译、课堂陈述、课堂表演、写作等灵活多样的形式） 期末考试方式：开卷考试（内容：英美文学常识，作品选段理解，作品选段分析等）四、选课指南 “英美文学作品赏析”是一门文化素养课。课程信息量大、文化内涵丰富，意图拓宽学生知识面，加深其英美国家文化底蕴，提高其人文修养。课程组在教学中力图做到精选作家、作品选段，精心选择相应的音频、视频选段，自制优美的PPP课件，精心组织教学活动，力争通过诵读、观赏、跟读、翻译、表演、陈述等丰富多彩的活动调动同学们的积极性，使其积极参与课堂活动。不少同学反映该课程对他们的英语学习和知识扩展有很大帮助，对英美作家的心路历程和写作历程感受颇深，自己“受益匪浅”。摘录同学评价如下： *“我学习到了很多，更收获到了自己心里憧憬已久的东西，感觉很是幸福。” “该课给了我接触文学，了解文学的机会。在现在这个物欲横流的社会，……我们需要一
Term Paper Hey, buddy, you are supposed to write an essay of 1000 words. You should not exceed 2000 words. (1000-2000 wds) Your writing will be scored for content, organization, grammar and format. And you will have to submit it in Word on 7th-17th June at the latest. Choose a book or author that we have covered in the course, and define your topic: ?Make sure that it is related only to American literature. ? A discussion of Characters; ? A study of the Context (social, political, or economic) in which a work was written; ?An interpretation of the Message or Theme; ?An analysis of a specific Image occurring in several works; ?All text should be in 12-point Times New Roman font; ?Everything should be double-spaced; ?Use 5 paces at the beginning of every paragraph; ?Skip a line between the title and text; ?Type your Name, Class, and also your Student ID No. on a separate line; ?Center the title and type it in bold; 胡彭，6
Part One：English Poetry 1.William Shakespeare Sonnet 18 ?Why does the poet compare `thee` to a summer?s day? And who could `thee` be? Because summer?s day and thee both represent beauty . thee could be beauty, love. ?What picture have you got of English summer, and could you explain why? Warm, beautiful, sunshine. Because summer is the best season of a year ,the most beautiful season. It is like our May. ?How does the poet answer the question he puts forth in the first line? Thee is more beautiful than summer. ?What makes the poet think that “thou” can be more fair than summer and immortal? Because humanism is more eternal than summer and immortal. ?What figures of speech are used in this poem? Simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron and so on . ?What is the theme of the poem? Love conquers all, Beauty lives on. 2. Thomas Nashe Spring ?Read the poem carefully, pay attention to those image- bearing words, and see how many images the poet created in the poem and what sense impressions you can get from those images. There is “Blooms each thing, maids dance in a ring, the pretty birds do sing, the palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk' and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay, The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street these tunes bur ears do greet!” The “Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit，”impressions me most because of the harmony of the people?s relationship. ?Can you point out and explain the sound and their musical effect in the poem? In the Poem, each section has four lines, each line has ten syllables ( five tone step ) . In order to give the reader a spring breeze , streams , flowers , winding , Song Xin texture of sound and light flavor, Naixi greater uses English word S , z , f , V , R , L , and θconsonants means. In Naixi's poem, the use of phonological is also very harmonious, very smooth , very mellow. Section I of the poetry has Three pairs [ ing ] , section II of the poem has three pairs [ ei ] and the third quarter has three pairs [ i : ]. 3.John Donne A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ?What is a “valediction” any way? Is the speaker in the poem about to die? Why does the speaker forbid mourning? No, it is about the lover s?separation. As the poem metaphors, the poet believed he and his wife?s love is sacred, he didn?t hope they cry when separation comes, let their love be stained by the ordinary and mundane.
本科课程考查（论文）专用封面 作业（论文）题目： Hamlet On-line 所修课程名称： 英美文学 修课程时间： 2012 年 9 月至 2013 年 1 月 完成作业（论文）日期： 2012 年 12 月 评阅成绩： 评阅意见： 评阅教师签名： 年 月 日 __ __ ___ __ __ ___ __ __学院_ __ ___ __ __ 级_ __ __ ___ __ _专业 姓名_ __ ___ __ __ __ 学号____ ___ __ __ ____ …… … …… … … … … … … … （ 密 ） … … … … … … … … … … … … （ 封 ） … … … … … … … … … … … … （ 线 ） … … … … … … … … … … … …
Hamlet On-line Abstract:"Hamlet " of Shakespeare is a classical representative work.The most famous words is: To be or not to be this is a question.In the work, Shakespeare created Hamlet--a man with wisdom and courage .In order to revenge on his uncle for killing his father,he pretend to be a madman.He is a kindhearted man and a god-fearing person .He is inconsistent in his heart,and fall in love with a beautiful girl.In the end he killed his uncle ,but poisoning and dead in sad . In this article, I would like to introduce the gradual improvement of this work's background and influence of Hamlet ;The main ideas of Hamlet; Comments on the figures of Hamlet and in the conclusion I point out certain factors resulting in such a immortal hamlet and eulogize Shakespeare’s greatness in perceiving so charming a Denmark prince as a humanist. Key words: Hamlet ; analysis of the work; comments on the figures 1. The background and influence of Hamlet In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote a number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be; that is the question". Hamlet was based on the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by 16th-century scholar Fran?ois de Belleforest. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness –from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. 2. The Main Ideas of Hamlet The story is set on the eve of Elsinore. Denmark court in the Middle Ages. Hamlet, the prince of the Denmark, is the leading role. The king of Denmark dies, his brother Claudius becomes the
论《雾都孤儿》的幽默艺术 Tom Jones, a Dissipated but Kindhearted Man 放荡而又善良的汤姆琼斯 The Free Will and Rebellious Spirit in Paradise Lost 《失乐园》中的自由意志和反叛精神 On the Development of Shylock’s Character 论夏洛克的性格发展 Morality and Criticism in Tom Jones 评《汤姆?琼斯》中的道德观与批评观 On Imogen，the New Feminine Image in Cymbeline 论《辛白林》中伊慕琴的新女性形象 Burns’View on Love and Friendship 论彭斯的爱情友谊观 The Reflection of Art and Life in Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on a Nightingale 《希腊古瓮颂》与《夜莺颂》中艺术与生活的对照 The Womanism in "The Color Purple" On the Differences between Chinese and Westerners in Non-language Communication 谈中国人和英美人非语言交际的差异 On the Contribution of the American Blacks during American Civil War 美国黑人在美国历史上的贡献 On American Black English 浅谈美国黑人英语 On the Differences of the Marriage Concept between Chinese and American 浅谈中美婚姻观念的差异 A Contrastive Analysis of Table Manners and Culture between China and Western Countries On the Ideological Content in Bacon’s Essays 论培根散文的思想性 Women's Movement in 1960s in American 美国六十年代的妇女运动 Analysis the negative effects of violent television and movie on children 浅析影视暴力对青少年儿童的负面影响 The Influence of Chinese Cultural Circumstances on English Learning 汉语环境对英语学习的影响 A Comprehension of Male Centrad Literature through A Doll’s House 黑色的坚毅——小说《飘》主人公的性格分析Black Determination——An Analysis of the Personalities of the Main Character in Gone with the Wind 从浪漫走向世俗的新型女性——《理智与情感》中玛丽安的性格分析 人性的扭曲信任的危机--重读《奥》剧杂感Random Thoughts on Othello
英美文学相关论文优秀范文 浅谈英美文学中的爱情婚姻观 摘要英美文学中描绘爱情和婚姻的小说众多，为世人展示了不同时期、不同地域、 不同阶层的人们丰富多彩的爱情和婚姻观。这些不同的爱情婚姻观既是作品主人公性格的 集中体现，也是对人物所处的社会环境和历史背景的深刻剖析。论文以描写几对不同人物 之间波澜不惊的爱情故事闻名于世的经典爱情小说――《傲慢与偏见》为例，来分析作品 中倡导的独特的西方爱情婚姻观。 关键词：英美文学《傲慢与偏见》简?奥斯丁爱情婚姻观 梁山伯与祝英台凄美的爱情悲剧让我们唏嘘不已，崔莺莺和张生冲破重重障碍最终有 情人终成眷属让人为之欣慰，这是中国古典文学名著中的经典爱情故事。当我们把目光转 向英美文学，罗密欧与朱丽叶的忠贞爱情深刻地为我们诠释了爱情的真谛;于连?索雷尔 两段截然不同的爱情经历和其最终悲剧性的结局却告诉我们当爱情被虚荣占据后，结果唯 有悲剧。 英美文学名著中描写爱情的名家之作非常之多，众多的爱情经典让我们回味无穷，为 我们展示了各式各样、色彩纷呈的爱情婚姻观。正如有多少个读者，就会有多少个不同的 哈姆雷特一样，每个读者都会在这些名作中找到自己的影子，产生共鸣。以下就以《傲慢 与偏见》为例，来分析英美文学中各式各样、与众不同的爱情婚姻观。 一《傲慢与偏见》简介及主旨分析 英国知名女作家简?奥斯丁Jane Austen的代表作《傲慢与偏见》，以日常琐事为事 件出发点，运用非常考究的语言，通过对不同人物性格的详实刻画，以及当时处于社会压 迫与反抗不同地位的各个阶层间复杂关系的深刻剖析，以现实主义的手法形象、生动地描 述了18世纪末-19世纪初饱受封闭守旧思想禁锢下英国乡村的风土人情。 作品中，奥斯丁以其独特的观察力、诙谐幽默的语言，通过对班纳特家的五个女儿及 其密友在对待婚姻时的不同抉择，真实地描述了中小地主及资产阶级“绅士”和“淑女” 之间荒诞的婚姻与爱情，展现了女主人公们在爱情婚姻观方面不断学习、探索和前进的心 路历程，继而提出了自己主张“既不赞同为了金钱而结婚，也不认同将婚姻当做儿戏而草 率对待”这一鲜明的爱情婚姻立场。纵然时过境迁，我们依然能从中体会到不同凡响的艺 术效果。 二一段相互吸引至真至纯的爱情故事 简是班纳特家中的大女儿，属于那种漂亮大方、温柔可爱的大家闺秀式的女孩子，她 看待任何的人和事物都总会往好的一面去联想。她身上散发出的与众不同的独特气质深深 地吸引了年轻英俊且极度富有的宾利。但两人身份地位的悬殊预示着二者结合的不可能性，达西也曾因简的家庭背景差而极力反对宾利与其结婚。但随着剧情的发展，两人终因相互
1.A novel is a highly stylized prose account of fictional reality in the form of story with profundity for the purpose of changing the reader’s mind by the aid of the reader’s active involvement while providing entertainment and superior truth of life. 2.Character is an invented personality to resemble but never to equal a real person in life. Characters refer to people, animals, things, etc. in a literary work presented as people. 3.A plot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelist’s ideas. 4.The theme of a novel is its controlling idea or its central insight about human beings and life. 5.Epistolary novel is a novel which consists of the letters the characters write to each other. 6.Roman a Clef is a novel with a key, and the key is usually a famous figure or, in some cases, the author. 7.Nonfictional novel is a novel that depicts real events with techniques of fiction. 8.Anagnorisis refers to the recognition by the tragic hero of some truth about his or her identity or actions that accompanies the reversal of the situation in the plot, the peripeteia. 9.Catharsis refers to the the purging of the emotions of pity and fear that are aroused in the viewer of a tragedy. 10.Hamartia refers to the "tragic flaw" of the hero such as "sin," "error," "trespass,“and "missing the mark". 11.A ballad refers to a short simple narrative poem often relating a dramatic event (folk and literary). 12.A narrative poem is one that mainly tells a relatively complete story. 13.A sonnet is a lyric invariably of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. 1）Petrarchan Sonnet: Italian sonnet; Named after Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the Italian poet; Introduced into English poetry in the early 16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt; Structure: an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba and a sestet of various rhyme patterns such as cdecde, cdcdcd or cde edc.; Octave: projecting and developing a subject in the octave; sestet: executing a turn 2）Shakespearean Sonnet: Elizabethan sonnet; English sonnet; Developed first by Henry Howard (1517-1547) ; Structure: 3 quatrains and a terminal couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg; 1st quatrain: introducing an idea; 2nd quatrain: complicating it; 3rd quatrain: complicating it still further; final epigrammatic couplet: resolving the whole thing 3）Spenserian Sonnet: a variant on the English Sonnet; Named after the 16th Century poet Edmund Spenser; Structure: 3 quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee. 14.Rhyme refers to the repetition of the stressed vowel sound and all succeeding sounds. 15.Rhythm is communicated by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables 16.Image refers to the element in a poem that sparks off the senses, the representation of sense experience through language
A Analysis of the Women Characters in David Copperfield Class:09商务Name: 唐东No.0907030044 Abstract:David Copperfield was written by Charles Dickens,who is the greatest representative of English critical realism in the nineteenth century. One of Dickens's favorite novels,David Copperfield is known all over the world for the well-portrayed characters based on the writer's own life.In David Copperfield,dozens of women characters are portrayed ranging from rich women to poor servants.This paper analyzes some of the women characters in the novel,through which Dickens reveals his attitude toward marriage. . Key words:women characters love family marriage Ⅰ、The goddess The representative figure of The goddess are Peggotty,the loyal maidservant and David’aunt Miss Betsey Trotwood. Peggotty is Dav id’s first goddess,she is not beautiful and fat.But she is loyal.She treated David as her own son,and David regards her as his mother or maybe his father.She treats David full of sympathy and cherish.She see through Mr Murdstone’s conspiracy,and give David help and protect when he was in danger.In an other hands,Peggotty was lack of culture so she only tell David in emotional .Let David know there also love in the world althought his mother was died. ‘Master David ,my love. But don't forget，I'll take care of your mother. She needs her cross old Peggotty！I'll stay with her，although I hate these Murdstones. And remember，David, I love you as much as I love your mother，and more. And I'll Write to you.’ Miss Betsey Trotwood,David’s aunt is another goddess in his life.She meet David’s mother at the night which David born,but go away never look back.Maybe she is a little eccentric. ‘You were talking about the baby．I'm sure it'll be a girl．Now，as soon as she’ s born…’ ‘He，perhaps，’ said my mo ther bravely．‘Don’ t be stupid，of course it’
《英美文学作品赏析》教学大纲 课程编号：E032019 课程类型：专业选修课 课程名称：英美文学作品赏析英文名称：Reading American & British Literary Works 学分：2 适用专业：英语专业 第一部分大纲说明 一、课程的性质、目的和任务 《英美文学作品赏析》是针对英语专业高年级学生，并在其学习了《英国文学》和《美国文学》两门专业基础课之后，开设的一门旨在提高学生鉴赏英美文学经典作品能力的专业选修课。本课根据学生的兴趣、语言水平以及相关文化等因素，从全新的角度选择了英美不同时期作家的代表作，主要是小说作品，材料难度适中，涉猎广泛。本课程的教学目的是使学生通过阅读和理解英美重要作家的小说作品，掌握其体裁特点、思想内涵、文体风格、所属流派和写作技巧等方面的文学知识；学会分析小说作品的艺术特色，提高英语阅读欣赏水平和英语写作技巧，提高文学欣赏水平及文学批评能力；拓展文化视野，扩大接触异国文化的范围，提高对中外文化的异同的敏感性和鉴别能力。本课程的教学任务是帮助学生在巩固所学基础知识与技能的同时，提升学生对英美经典小说作品的鉴赏能力，提高学生的文学素养和文化底蕴，从而为其将来得心应手地参加实际工作打下良好的基础。 二、课程的基本要求 1. 知识要求： 1)了解—英美不同时期和阶段的重要作家和其小说代表作。 2)熟悉—各个所选作家的文学生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其小说代表作的思想内涵、主 题结构、文体风格、所属流派、人物刻画、语言风格、写作技巧等。 3)掌握—一定的欣赏小说作品的技巧和方法。 2．能力要求： 1)了解—通过阅读经典小说，巩固所学文学知识，扩大词汇量，增强语感，培养学生独立 阅读、欣赏文学作品的能力。 2)熟悉—通过浏览网上的文学资源库，观看文学名著影片，举办作品欣赏讨论会，尝试名 著改写，表演人物对话等实践性教学活动，培养学生阅读、分析以及理解小说作品的鉴 赏能力、思辨能力和文学批判能力。 3)掌握—通过一定的阅读强化训练，加强学生文学鉴赏的敏感性和语言综合应用能力，全 面提高学生的人文素质。 三、课程与相关课程的联系 本课程既是《英国文学》和《美国文学》的拓展课程，又与基础阶段的其他专业课程相辅相成。要求学生不仅具备扎实的语言基本功，一定的听、说、读、写能力，尤其是读的能力，还要了解英美
英美文学论文范文 一、“四段论”的英美文学教学方式 二、多元复合式的英美文学教学方法 (一)构建“互动式”的英美文学教学模式 (三)构建立体化的教学内容 三、多元复合式英美文学教学方法的意义 通过对英美文学课的学习，实际上是使学生获得对世界和人生的感悟与体验，培养学生对任何生命主体的亲近和敬畏。它不仅是一 门科学，更是一种对世界的态度。通过教师使用多元复合式的教学 方法，可以给学生提供广阔的自由发展空间，充分发挥学生的主动性、积极性和创造性。学生通过积极参与英美文学课的教学，养成 积极思考与表达的习惯，通过积极阅读英美文学作品原著，理解英 美文学与文化，提高文学批评鉴赏能力和英语水平，学生的分析能 力和思辨能力在这个过程中也就得到了相应的提高。 一、文学教育及其重要意义 二、英美文学教学改革途径 现在的英美文学课程课时偏少，教学内容不够丰富系统，教学方法单一，要想通过文学教育更好地培养学生的素质，就必须探索英 美文学教学改革的途径。 1、调整授课学时 2、增加“文学批评理论”教学 3、改革教学模式 以教师为中心的传统教学模式注重专业知识的单向传授，学生的积极性、主动性和动手能力不强。课堂教学应将教师的讲授与指导、课前小组准备与课堂专题讨论结合起来，有效地实现师生之间的互
动。教师通过布置开放性的研究任务，让学生带着问题，以协作学 习的方式完成自主探究学习。学生对图书馆和网络资源进行查阅检索，对所得资料进行分析比较、选择取舍、加工处理，这是一个努 力探索、积极进行意义建构的过程。教师是意义建构的帮助者，即 帮助学生学会独立思考和独立解决问题的能力。教师也可利用多媒 体设施与影视资源，增加学生的学习兴趣，或号召学生运用想象力，根据名著改编作品并进行舞台表演。 4、改革评价模式
作家与作品： 海明威：·《非洲的青山》·《太阳照常升起》·《战地钟声》·《永别了，武器》·《第五纵队·西班牙大地》·《曙光示真》·《不固定的圣节》·《过河入林》·《丧钟为谁而鸣》·《危险的夏天》·《老人与海》·《伊甸园》·《丧钟为谁而鸣》·《非洲的青山》·《死在午后》·《岛在湾流中》·《有钱人和没钱》． 菲茨杰拉德：《人间天堂》，《了不起的盖茨比》《夜色温柔》（1934）和《最后一个巨商》。·维吉尼亚?伍尔芙（1882—1941）英国著名小说家、批评家维吉尼亚?伍尔芙也是一位著名的意识流作家和意识流小说的奠基者。。1919年，伍尔芙发表了第一部意识流小说《墙上的斑点》。《达罗卫夫人》(1925)、《到灯塔去》（1927）是伍尔芙意识流小说的代表作。 纳撒尼尔·霍桑1804～1864）美国小说家，是美国19世纪影响最大的浪漫主义小说家和心理小说家。《范肖》(1828)《古宅青苔》(1843)、《雪影》(1851)＜红字＞《带有七个尖角阁的房子》《玉石雕像》． 杰克伦敦：杰克·伦敦是著名的美国小说家，他一生共创作了约50卷作品，其中最为著名的有《荒野的呼唤》、《海狼》、《白牙》、《马丁·伊登》和短篇小说《老头子同盟》、《北方的奥德赛》、《马普希的房子》等． 华兹华斯：早期诗歌《晚步》《素描集》，从《抒情歌谣集》开始一反18世纪的诗风，将一种崭新的风格带到诗歌创作中，开创了英国文学史上浪漫主义诗歌的新时代。《不朽的征兆》由《序曲》《漫游》两部分组成的哲理性长诗《隐者》等。1843年被封为英国“桂冠诗人”．威廉.布雷克To see a world in a grain of sand, 从一粒沙子看到一个世界， And a heaven in a wild flower, 从一朵野花看到一个天堂， Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 把握在你手心里的就是无限， And eternity in an hour. 永恒也就消融于一个时辰。 ＜老人与海＞：《老人与海》。如海明威自己所说"是这一辈子所能写的最好的一部作品了"。书未及读完，主人公桑提亚哥的形象就镌刻在我的头脑里。这是一部描写人与大自然搏斗的小说。老人在海上拼斗了两天两夜，最后仅仅赢得了一具空空的鱼架。作品的寓意是象征性的，老人虽败犹荣。正如老人所说："人生来不是为了被打败的，人能够被毁灭，但是不能够被打败。"我一直将这句话看做是海明威的自白，看做是海明威硬汉精神的一种标志。多少年来，这似乎成了一句至理名言。 海明威让我知道，人的经历是何等的重要，这是无价的财富。谁都无法轻视自己的经历。人生的意义就在于一种精神，敢于承受痛苦，蔑视死亡。人可以失败，但不可以被击败，外在的肉体可以接受折磨，但是内在的意志却是神圣不可侵犯的，这是《老人与海》一再强调的论点。真正的大师都是用最简单的语言来表达最深刻的道理，真正的好作品都是用生命的历练做题材，《老人与海》所刻画出来的正是海明威的一辈子最好的画像。 我想，一个作家的成名，不在于他写了多少，而是他有什么独特的创造。海明威以其富有传奇色彩的一生，以其塑造的一系列硬汉形象，奠定了他在世界文学中的地位。而且，人们极易在文学大师的群像中辨别出他的声音。 ＜了不起的盖茨比＞：对戴西的爱是盖茨比梦幻的“天堂”，这种堂。吉诃德式的浪漫幻想天真的让人感动，他对理想的执着追求和献身精神也确实是“了不起”的，显示了生存的某中不可贬斥的价值，正如小说叙述者卡罗威对他说的那样“他们是一帮混蛋，他们那一大帮子都放在一堆还比不上你。”但盖茨比也是可悲甚或可笑的，以为财富和金钱就是进入天堂的云梯，不知道其实所谓天堂只是一种幻想，星星是可望而不可及的。当他在月光下彻夜守侯，生怕戴西受到伤害，要为她担当一切的时候，他不知道在室内，戴西已经背弃了他，在一场阴谋策划中接受了丈夫的劝告，听任tom将车祸的责任栽到他头上。这是金钱社会制造的悲剧，富豪们的傲慢和自私彻底摧毁了盖茨比的梦想和信念。用卡罗威的话：“tom