美国文学选读 名词解释与作品分析

1. American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought

and American literature. It is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to ―purify‖ or simplify the religious rituals of the Church of England. They believed in the original sin and the harsh Day of Doom, some good people --- the chosen people or ―the Elect‖ --- may be saved. Their way of life was based on their somber religion and stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety. Puritans are more practical, tougher, and to be ready for any misfortune and tragic failure. They are optimistic. 2. Transcendentalism

The Transcendentalism movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God. Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.

超验主义（1830s—the Civil War）：(1830-1850) 既不讲究逻辑，也不讲究系统，它只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达，他们相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源，万物都是善的一部分

Transcendentalism: (1830-1850) Defined as the recognition in man of the capacity of acquiring knowledge transcending the reach of the five senses, or of knowing truth intuitively, or of reaching the divine without the need of an intercessor. It had some basic principles that were generally shared by its adherents. They believed that God is immanent in each person

and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance and rejection of traditional authority.

1. Stress the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition.

2. Place spirit (oversoul) first and matter second

3. Take nature as symbolic of spirit or God. Nature could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. People should come close to nature for instructions

4. Stress the importance of the individual (the ideal kind of individual is self-reliant and unselfish (individuality).

5. Exalt feeling (subjectivity, imagination, heart thinking) over reason (rationalism, head thinking), individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.

代表：Ralph Waldo Emerson：Nature, Self-reliance；Henry David Thoreau：Walden It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. They believed in the transcendence of the ―Oversoul‖, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.

3. Free Verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to

conventional rules of meter，instead, it uses the cadences(抑扬顿挫) of natural speech. It was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate. Walt Whitman?s Leaves of Grass (1819-1892) is a notable example.

4. American Naturalism is a literary movement that became popular in late 19th century

America and is often associated with literary realism.

Viewed as a combination of realism and romanticism, critics contend that the American form

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is heavily influenced by the concept of determinism – the theory that heredity and environment influence determine human behavior.

Although naturalism is often associated with realism, which also seeks to accurately represent human existence, the two movements are differentiated by the fact that naturalism is connected to the doctrine of biological, economic, and social determinism.

A handful of significant American authors, such as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser, utilized the form in making their novels like The Red Badge of Courage and Sister Carrie. The Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy.

The term \book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive Era.

The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used a lost generation to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Carlos Williams. The Harlem Renaissance

Originally called the New Negro Movement, The Harlem Renaissance was a literary and intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s. With racism still rampant and economic opportunities scare, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to African Americans in the early twentieth century.

Many of these beliefs were emphasized the necessity of black liberation, retaining black cultural pride, and not giving into white standards, especially the awareness of the black‘s identity.

Harlem became the biggest hot spot in America for any aspiring African American artist. Responding to the heady intellectual atmosphere of the time and place, writers and artists, many of whom lived in Harlem, began to produce a wide variety of fine and highly original works dealing with African-American life. These works attracted many black readers. HR was more than just a literary movement: it included racial consciousness, racial integration, the exploring of music particularly jazz, spirituals and blues, painting, and others. It was a huge leap for black liberation and culture.

The Beat Generation is a group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

Psychological Realism is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of character‘s thoughts and motivations. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from external

action. In Psychological Realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. In the literature of the United States, Henry James, Arthur Miller, and Edith Wharton are considered as major contributors to the practice of psychological realism.

10. Confessional Poetry is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak with openness and

frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and disappointment. Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke are the most important American poets.

11. Imagism is a literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th

century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.

12. The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I

and World War II. Particularly in North America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline.

The age takes its name from popular music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity. Among the prominent concerns of the period are the public embrace of technological developments typically seen as progress- cars, air travel and the telephone- as well as new modernist trends in social behavior, the arts, and culture.

Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term ?Jazz Age‘.

13. Black Humor is the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern

fiction and drama. It is used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example.

14. Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its

specific use in the book, the phrase \is common idiomatic usage meaning \no-win situation\or \double bind\of any type. The term was originally from Joseph Heller?s anti-war novel Catch-22.

15. Local color Local Color or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late

1860s and early 1870s in America. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tells it apart from the world outside. The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating environment for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author. 16. Yoknapatawpha saga:

Most of Faulkner‘s works are set in the American South, with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousness. Of his 19 novels, 15 of those are set in a sma1l region in Northern Mississippi, Yoknapatawpha County, which is actually an imaginary place based on Faulkner‘s childhood memory about the town of Oxford in his native Lafayette County. With

his rich imagination, Faulkner turned the land, the people and the history of the region into a literary creation and a mythical kingdom. The Yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally, with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s when the First World War broke out, and people of a stratified society, the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites, and the blacks. As a result, Yoknapatawpha County has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society. The Yoknapatawpha saga is Faulkner‘s real achievement.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered as Twain‘s greatest achievement. It tells a story about the U.S. before the Civil War, around 1850s, when the great Mississippi Valley was still being settled. The story takes place along the River, on both sides of which there was unpopulated wilderness and a dense forest. Along the river floats a small raft, with two people on it: one is an ignorant, uneducated Black slave named Jim and the other is a little uneducated outcast white boy called Huckleberry Finn. The book relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery system and more important, how Huck Finn helps him as best as he could, changed his mind, his prejudice, and came to accept Jim as a man and as a close friend as well. Wrote about both the experiences of westward expansion and of southern slavery.

Main theme: Huck's search for personal liberation, for the freedom based upon his maturity and his longing to be his own master.

A satire on southern culture before the Civil War around 1850.

Shows how these no-count whites thought they were better than black slaves. ·Satire on the genteel upper-class southerners---- an aristocratic life full of violence and stupidity. ·The violence on which southern culture rests is a pretence or illusion to disguise the cowardliness of the people and their refusal to act as individuals.

Analyze \

(1) They are always exposed to and victimized by violence in various forms, Nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero who, with all the dignity and courage he could muster, confronts situation.

(2) They are a group of wandering, amusing, but aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life.

(3) They are the men trapped both physically and mentally.

(4) God?s design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped. (5) They believe: life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for.

(6) In a tragic sense, the struggle of Hemingway?s heroes show: it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and mankind.

(7) Hemingway hero of athletic prowess and masculinity and unyielding heroism.

(8) To master the code with the honest, the discipline, and the restrains are Hemingway Code heroes. In the general situation of his novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos; man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. However, though life is but a losing battle, it is a struggle man can dominate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually.

Herman Melville梅尔维尔

Sea adventures are Melville‘s favorite subject; \s also noted for its symbolism, please analyzes it in detail.

1) About the sea adventure: it symbols the voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe; a spirit exploration into man‘s deep reality and psychology;

2) About the boat; it symbols the society, and the crew symbol all kinds of people with different social and ethnic ideas;

3) About the white whale: To the author, it symbols nature, it is complex, unfathomable and beautiful; To the captain Ahab, it is evilness, is a wall. So he will lead all his crew to cut through the wall to dig out all the unknown, mysterious things behind it. To the narrator, Ishmael, it is a mystery.

Symbolism in Moby Dick：It is regarded as the first American prose epic. 散文史诗？ It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth 寻找真理and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man‘s deep reality and psychology. Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable难以理解的, malignant恶性的, and beautiful as well.

The symbolism behind the scarlet letter A changes throughout this novel. Though initially this letter A symbolizes the sin of adultery, Hester Prynne alters its meaning through her hard work and charity. Some people begin to suggest that the A stands for \woman. Others begin to recognize that the scarlet letter has begun to achieve holiness, righteousness. It has \the cross on a nun‘s bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe\the scarlet letter again, it has become, for her and others, a symbol of grace. By embroidering the ―A‖ so finely and ornately, Hester takes control of her own punishment. She owns it. Though the letter causes Hester to live a lonely life of banishment, it seems almost immediately to become a symbol for something far nobler than ―adultery.‖ The letter showcases her talent and artistry – skills that allow her to make a living as a single parent in Puritan Boston. As such, it represents her strength and independence. Such qualities set her apart from every other woman around her. Wearing the letter cuts her off from society, but it also frees her in many ways. She is able to observe the cold and strict ways of Puritan society from the perspective of an outsider. The Prison Door

The prison door is described as having never known \It‘s made of iron and is a little worse for wear, if you catch our drift. Yet, the wild rosebush that

grows at the side of the portal is its saving grace. The rosebush represents kindness and forgiveness to the prisoners who must face either a prison sentence or a death sentence (1.2). The iron door seems to represent all that is strict and unrelenting in Puritan society, while the rosebush seems to represent the concept of \mercy,\place of darkness and sin, the beauty of a wild rose bush growing in such an unexpected place is a symbol of grace. We encounter this prison door and this rosebush in the very first pages of The Scarlet Letter, and both objects seem to tell us that, even in a place of such cold and rigid law, there is hope and there is love. Sin, Rejection, and Redemption Hester must wear a red badge of shame, identifying her an adulteress and making her an outcast in her community. On the pillory, she endures the glare of scornful eyes and thereafter lives on the outskirts of town with her child, Pearl. However, though Hester has committed a grave sin, she redeems herself by acknowledging her iniquity, accepting her punishment, and living an exemplary life. In a way, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale is also a pariah in that he lives as a coward outside the favor of heaven and of his own conscience. However, at the end of the novel, he too redeems himself by exposing his sin.

6. What inspiration you have aroused in your mind after reading \\In face of the divergence of the two roads, the speaker in the poem has to make a choice. On second thought, he decides to take the one less traveled by for it is more worthy of exploring yet still wondering about a totally different scenery he might come across on the road not taken. Life is always compared to a one-way journey, during which we'll surely meet with lots of choices just as the diverged roads. It's never an easy job to make final decisions for various factors have to be taken into account and what makes it even harder is the consideration of \cost\ We'd never know what the world has in store for us in the unpredictable future and the uncertainty makes us become more concerned about what we'd miss by some decision. But as the poet puts it, \to move on, confronting more and more other diverged roads and making different choices , and cherish what we can get along the journey instead of regretting for what we have missed on the road not taken.

3.\

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. 地铁站人群中幽灵般的一张张面孔黑色潮湿枝头上的一片片花瓣

The image Pound creates in this poem is the association of flowers with people's faces. In the dim light of the station, people's faces turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough. In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, according to the principles of the ―Imagists‖, i.e. the economy of expression and a dominant image. On the one hand, it helps to record objective observations of a Station of the Metro without interpretation or comment by the poet; on the other, it offers the readers infinite room of imagination. he ―Metro‖ is the underground railway of Paris.

The word ―apparition‖, with its double meaning, binds the two aspects of the observation together: Apparition meaning ―appearance‖, in the sense of something which appears, or shows up; something which can be clearly observed.

Apparition meaning something which seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed.

The poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station. It looks to be a modern adoption of the Japanese haiku.

He tries to render(呈现） exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.

Repeating it, you can have a colorful picture, also you can feel the beauty of music through it‘s repetition of different vowels and consonants, such as /p/ and /au/. Especially the repetition of /e/ in the second line emphasize it‘s sense of music.

In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, Apparition means ghost, phantom.

Subway gives us the image of dark, dirty, packed, jammed, and busy.

The speaker saw a bunch of people coming out of the train, with no expressions on their faces, like ghosts. Though they are in a modern world, taking a train, they seem to be absent-minded.

10.They don't pay much attention to the surroundings around them. Rush in, and rush out, catching up their times.

11.They never stop to think why they are in such a hurry. They don't have destinations, just like apparition. Or maybe they are indifferent, detached to the society.

12.The apparition of these faces\Hanging around, but do nothing good to the society.

13.The petals are the faces. The black bough resembles the long, dark train.

14.Living in the 20th century, it's much more convenient than before. But the distances between people are far. We are self-centered, selfish, and egotistic. We become \in other people's eyes. We rush for our own benefits. But can we change the world? Can we resolve the situation?

3.\

Helen, thy beauty is to me 海伦，你的美貌于我

Like those Nicean barks of yore, 似远古尼西亚人的帆船， That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 轻轻飘过芬芳的海面， The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 让旅途劳顿的游子， To his own native shore. 回到他故乡的岸边。

The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman with whom Poe became acquainted when he was 14 and he represents her as Helen of Troy–the quintessence 典范，典型of physical beauty–at the beginning of the poem. Poe doesn't spend much ink describing Helen's physical or psychical beauty directly but opens the poem with a simile–―Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicéan barks of yore‖–that compares the beauty of Helen with small sailing boats (barks) that carried home travelers in ancient times. This stanza vividly reveals the classic beauty of the ancient Greek and expresses Poe's appreciation and admiration for the woman.

4.“I'm nobody\

I'm nobody ! Who are you?我是个无名之辈，你是谁？ Are you nobody too?你也是，也是个无名之辈？

Then there's a pair of us---don't tell! 那么着就有了一对----不要声张！ They'd banish us, you know.你知道，他们容不得我俩 How dreary to be somebody!做个名人是好不无聊！ How public like a frog 声名多大，像青蛙一样，

To tell your name the livelong day在漫长的六月里不停的鼓噪， To an admiring bog沼泽 ! 把名字向仰慕的池塘宣扬！

The poem develops in the form of dramatic monologue, in which the speaker whispers with the readers about troubles brought by fame.

Being nobodies, many of us are expecting to become somebody some day, to become the spotlight of public attention. However, the narrator in the poem not only admits his/her being an outsider, but seems to like to be nobody for s/he thinks it is dreary to be somebody.

In the poem's second stanza, the speaker also makes a strange comparison. She says that being a somebody is like being a frog because frogs, though they can croak and make themselves heard and noticed, are noticed by \admiring public could hardly get sincere and close relationship as friendship.

As a nobody, the speaker does not have to face the scrutiny or disapproval of people who are likely to be jealous of her popularity or take pains to act as a somebody. She

can be herself and the most important is that there is another nobody acting as her companion and friend, shareing her anonymity.

5.\So much depends",upon",a red wheel",barrow",",glazed with rain",water",",beside the white",chickens.",",那么多东西依靠一辆红色手推车，晶莹闪亮于雨水中，旁边有几只白鸡。

In addition to making a true and profound statement, the little verse has a pleasing beauty. Notice that each ―stanza‖ is shaped like a wheelbarrow. The colors stand out because of their contrast with each other: the white chickens contrast with the red wheelbarrow; the static contrast with the dynamic; living thing contrasts with object without life; natural object contrasts with man-made object.

Although the whole poem is composed of only 16 words, but \ves much space for imagination and helps to enrich the whole picture: on a form, a wheelbarrow is used for a number of important chores----to move upon tools from the barn to the fields; to transport feed to the cows and chickens; to carry seeds for planting and the product to the house,etc. In addition, following the principles of the ―Imagists‖, Williams presents a fresh while sharp-looking picture of the yard of a farm house from children's perspective.

6.“Song of myself”

Theme: ", ―Song of myself‖ , consisting 1345 lines, is the longest poem in Leaves of Grass. ―Myself‖ is the central and principal image in this poem. It refers not only to the poet himself but also to a group of people who had the American national characteristics and the democratic ideals like Whitman. They were pioneers on the American continent: the ironsmiths, the carpenters, the butcher, and the waiters, etc., as listed in the poem. ",

These people were optimistic in spirit and strong physically. They live harmoniously with other p

eople in this world as well as with nature. In this song, Whitman sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self in relation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death. Individualism, nationalism, and internationalism or cosmopolitanism, the three contradicting beliefs are reasonably united. ", The selected part is the first and the sixth sections of ―Song of myself‖. In Section one, Whitman talks about the contradictory but also harmonious relations between myself and you, his willingness to live on this soil, and the importance of nature. These ideas are essential to understand Whitman‘s philosophy and esp. the whole ―Song of myself‖ ",

In Section Six, the poet turns his attention to the grass. He probes into the relationships between the grass and himself/the Lord/a child or a new life/death and so on. The grass is a symbol of life and equality. He suggests the central underlying truth in nature is death. To him, death is not an ending, but the ultimate source of equality and unity. As a natural part of the cycle of life, in death the body becomes part of nature in a different way. Death is immortality, though people do not recognize that.

The open boat Major themes

man's eternal struggle against nature, （This sense of complete absorption in the struggle against nature is illustrated by the famous first line of the story: “None of them knew the color of the sky.” The reason for this is soon made obvious; the imperiled survivors could not take their eyes off the waves, for to let their guard down for a moment would mean certain death. Significantly, Crane does not deal with the question of heroism; the men in the boat do not feel heroic, nor do they ask us to think of them in those terms. They are simply doing what they need to in order to survive, and supporting one another in this effort.） 2）the fragility of human existence,

3）the struggle for survival, and 4）the power of community.

5) Extreme isolation from society and community is also apparent in Crane's work. During the most intense battle scenes in The Red Badge of Courage, for example, the story's focus is predominately \

In \with light, motion and color to express different degrees of epistemological uncertainty. Similar to other Naturalistic works, Crane scrutinizes the position of man, who has been isolated not only from society, but also from God and nature. \old Romantic optimism and affirmation of man's place in the world by concentrating on the characters' isolation

Crane's work is often thematically driven by Naturalistic and Realistic concerns, including ideals versus realities, spiritual crises and fear. These themes are particularly evident in Crane's first three novels, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, The Red Badge of Courage and George's Mother. The three main characters search for a way to make their dreams come true, but ultimately suffer from crises of identity. In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character both longs for the heroics of battle but ultimately fears it, demonstrating the dichotomy of courage and cowardice. He experiences the threat of death, misery and a loss of self.

The themes of the novel: ",·A major theme that permeates his work is that human beings have no

power over their own destinies but simply move through life in a series of chance events. (Carrie Meeber moves through life in this manner and so do her lovers Drouet and Hurstwood. None of these characters make conscious decisions to change their lives in any way; they simply take opportunities as they arise. Carrie, Drouet, and Hurstwood all rely on instinct to guide them and circumstance to present plausible [seeming to be right or reasonable] opportunities.) ", · Sexual impropriety ", ·The theme of unrequited love and unfulfilled ambitions, against a backdrop/backcloth of a nation being transformed by industrialism and capitalism, provides the substance of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. ", ·Sister Carrie can be read as a novel of desire, seduction, or the critique of capitalism and consumerism ",

Point of View

Dreiser uses a third person omniscient point of view to tell the story of his heroine, Carrie. Through this point of view, Dreiser provides readers with insight into not only Carrie‘s thoughts but also those of all his characters ", ·Early twentieth-century, newly urbanized America ",·The taste and the literary value of Dreiser‘s novel is shaped and created by its setting and the author‘s tone. ",Chicago and New York have almost as organic and important role in the novel as the characters. They do not just form the simple environment for the novel, but they influence its character and a very strong impression. Chicago‘s character is kind of more ―positive‖, it is a city of promise, luck, rise (Carrie). In Chicago, Hurtswood means something. ",New York‘s character is different. It‘s a city of lies, fall, impersonal isolation of ―walled city where surviving is much more difficult than in Chicago. In New York, Hurstwood means nothing. ",·The setting creates different expectations to people---the different kinds of desire. ",Generally we can say that Dreiser deals with the desire of wealth, social status, material things which are represented by money. Within this generalization, we can find and identify many other faces and forms of lust and longing. Carrie, as an ambitious and strong woman embodies the social values of the consumer culture. All she longs for is a material wealth, which represents power. She can be seen as a symbol of money. ",Hurstwood‘s desire is to possess, to possess a quiet and peaceful life with exciting ―episodes‖. He views marriage as a contract that gives him a right to control both women without questions. He thinks he has the absolute power to make decisions Analysis of the chapter ",This chapter repeats the search for a job scenes presented earlier, but now differs strongly in both the way Carrie applies and where she applies. Whereas before she looked at department stores and then factories, she now looks at theaters and then department stores. This really marks the transition away from manufacturing that Dreiser upholds throughout the novel. Much the way we see her move from her miller father to the salesman Drouet to the manager Hurstwood, her own job search progresses from manufacturing to selling to acting. For Dreiser, the complete abandonment of manufacturing is the highest social achievement, one that Carrie is striving towards.

The Old Man And The Sea(1952):The theme of the novel, \ted,\",American poet Gertrude Stein coined the expression \generation.―

", This was the generation that had gone through World War I. They were \world, what the poet T. S. Eliot called a \",The question for these men and women was, how does one live in a world without stability, without security? Hemingway's answer was the code hero. ",Hemingway became a spokesperson for his generation. Hemingway wrote of war, death, and the \",The \of literary notables who lived in Europe, most notably Paris, after the First World War. ?Men and women were haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war and post World War I materialistic values of America . ?Figures identified with the \Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Peirce, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Erich Maria Remarque and Cole Porter. The Hemingway Hero ",figures who try to follow a hyper-masculine moral code and make sense of the world through those beliefs. ",Hemingway himself defined the Code Hero as \of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful.\",The code by which Hemingway's heroes must live is contingent on the qualities of courage, self-control, endurance and \pears, however, as old Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea. ",Irving Howe has described the typical Hemingway hero as a man \s wounds in silence, who is defeated but finds a remnant of dignity in an honest confrontation of defeat.\

",Death is not the ultimate fear: the Hemingway hero knows how to confront death. What he truly fears is nada (the Spanish word for nothing)-existence in a state of nonbeing. ",This code typically involves several traits for the Code Hero: ",(1) Measuring himself against the difficulties life throws in his way, realizing that we will all lose ultimately because we are mortals, but playing the game honestly and passionately in spite of that knowledge.

(2) Facing death with dignity, enduring physical and emotional pain in silence (3) Never showing emotions

(4) Maintaining free-will and individualism, never weakly allowing

commitment to a single woman or social convention to prevent adventure, travel, and acts of bravery

(5) Being completely honest, keeping one's word or promise

(6) Being courageous and brave, daring to travel and have \would phrase it

(7) Admitting the truth of Nada (Spanish, \f can provide meaning or purpose. This existential awareness also involves facing death without hope of an afterlife, which the Hemingway Code Hero considers more brave than \d false religious hopes Themes ",A central theme in Hemingway's work is ―grace under pressure‖ ---how the individual fits into society, and how one should live in what often seems to be a crazy and difficult world. This issue is explored in many of Hemingway's early short stories that focus on Nick Adams, Hemingway's young alter ego.

Other stories explore the hollowness of religious consolation as in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place and the meaninglessness of human life, male camaraderie, and the inevitability of death as in The Killers.

The Iceberg Principle ",

―I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn‘t show.‖ ", ―I sometimes think that my style is suggestive rather than direct. The reader must often use his imagination or lose the most subtle part of my thoughts.‖ ", ―If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.― ---- Hemingway Linguistic Style

1.\

2 Hemingway's search for truth and accuracy of expression is reflected in his terse, economical prose style, which is widely acknowledged to be his greatest contribution to literature.

3 In a discussion of Hemingway's style, Sheldon Norman Grebstein listed these characteristics: 4.―First, short and simple sentence constructions, with heavy use of parallelism, which convey the effect of control, terseness, and blunt honesty;

5.Second, purged diction which above all eschews the use of bookish, laminate, or abstract words and thus achieves the effect of being heard or spoken or transcribed from reality rather than appearing as a construct of the imagination

6.Third, skillful use of repetition and a kind of verbal counterpoint, which operate either by pairin

g or juxtaposing opposites, or else by running the same word or phrase through a series of shifting meanings and inflections.\

Hemingway Style Telegram style---

Economic language: simple words, short sentences, brief conversations. Ice-burg style: seven eighth under water Multiple themes.

Special features 福克纳

2.1. Setting :Oxford is the model for his fictional Jefferson, the central place of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County

2.2. Subjects :southern tradition, family, community, the land, history and the past, race, and the passions of ambition and love

2.3. Characters:Typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South To him his characters were real and constant and moved in his mind all the time. 2.4. The theme of history ",Most of his novels are about the decay of the old South, as represented by the Sartoris and Compson families, and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers, such as the Snopeses. ",The human drama in Faulkner's novels is then built on the model of the actual, historical drama extending over almost a century and a half. Each story and each novel contributes to the construction of a whole, which is the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. The theme of racial prejudice ",The theme of racial prejudice is brought up again in Absalom, Absalom! (1936), in which a young man is rejected by his father and brother because of his mixed blood. ",Faulkner's most outspoken moral evaluation of the relationship and the problems between Negroes and whites is to be found in Intruder In the Dust (1948). 2.5. Techniques ",2.5.1. Multiple Points of View ",He always structure his stories in his own original fashion and is proficient in employing a distinctive narrative method (Multiple Points of View ) of gradually fitting in and of withholding or even giving confusing information. Gradually confusion vanish as context and periphery [boundary, edge] are defined and the center is revealed. 2.5.2. Stream of consciousness ",words are often run together with no capitalization and no proper punctuation. Sentences are not always clearly indicated; many long ones are put together in peculiar ways. One fragment runs into another without proper notice. The use of nouns often causes irritating perplexity.

Hawthorne’s point of view

(1) Evil is at the core of human life.

Hawthorne sense of sin and evil in life, ―black‖ vision of life and human is haunted

Evil exists in the human heart, human heart is the source of evil. Everyone possesses some evil secret. Evil is man‘s birthmark.

a most disturbed and tormented one, discusses sin and evil in almost every book

literary world

rejects the Transcendentalist optimism

looks more deeply and more honestly into life, finding much suffering & conflict in it Hawthorne‘s point of view

(2) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation.

“God will give him blood to drink‖

霍桑在探讨罪恶时，不是宣扬加尔文教义，而是抨击了它对人性的摧残，是要使人正视罪的存在，并把人从泯灭人性的罪恶感中解脱出来。 Hawthorne‘s point of view (3) Evil educates.

Achievement is ―under the impact of and by engagement with evil‖ 经历过犯罪，受到其影响，人们才能有所成就 Man is better for the crime which brings about the fall. 人在犯罪后才能更好的完善自己 Hawthorne‘s point of view

(4) He has disgust in science. One source of evil is overweening (too proud of oneself) intellect. His intellectual characters are villains, dreadful and cold-blooded. Hawthorne‘s point of view

(1) Evil is at the core of human life.

(2) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation.

(3) Evil educates.

(4) He has disgust in science. One source of evil is overweening (too proud of oneself) intellect. Aesthetic ideas

(2) He was convinced that romance was the best form to describe America. the poverty of materials romances rather than novels

allow him to avoid offending the Puritan taste To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend:

In the early immigration to the New World, the first New England settlements (Mainly from England ) grew out of religious controversy, out of an urge for religious freedom and determination, out of fleeing from religious and political oppression and persecution,out of thirst for greater economic opportunity, for land, and for the adventure.

They were called ―Puritans,‖ so named after those who wished to ―purify‖ the religious practice in the church.

They soon established their own religious and moral principles known as American Puritanism which became one of the enduring influences in American thoughts and American literature.

Puritanism stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity and limited atonement赎罪 from God‘s grace.

With such doctrines in their mind, Puritans left Europe for America in order to prove that they were God‘s people, who would enjoy God‘s blessing on earth and in Heaven;

they felt that they were exiles under the special grace of God to establish a theocracy(神权政治） in the New World.

Over the years in the new homeland, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety.

The background of the story.

It‘s based on the colony times of America. It shows up the cruelty of the law ,the deceit of religion and the hypocrisy of the morality.

小说以两百多年前的殖民地时代的美洲为题材，但揭露的却是19世纪资本主义发展时代美利坚合众国社会典法的残酷、宗教的欺骗和道德的虚伪。 Main Characters

Narrator- The unnamed narrator works as the surveyor of the Salem Custom House some two hundred years after the novel?s events take place.

He discovers an old manuscript in the building‘s attic that tells the story of Hester Prynne; when he loses his job, he decides to write a fictional treatment of the narrative.

The narrator is a rather high-strung（十分敏感） man, whose Puritan ancestry makes him feel guilty about his writing career.

He writes because he is interested in American history and because he believes that America needs to better understand its religious and moral heritage. Hester Prynne

Hester Prynne: First, Hester reminds the reader Hestia ---Goddess of the hearth( 灶神） in Greek fairy, showing the author’s praise to Hester’s kindness.

Second, the pronunciation of Hester is very close to hastier (the comparative degree form of hasty), here the author implies that her marriage is haste, her love with Dimmesdale is haste, and to the extreme, her joy with the priest is haste.

Prynne has two symbolic meanings. First, its pronunciation is close to prurient (desire for physical joy) which is, hence, considered as the root of sin and crime.

Second, its pronunciation is very similar to prune (purify or get rid of), which therefore foreshadows Hester‘s self-save from the sin or crime.

Hester is the book's protagonist and the wearer of the scarlet letter that gives the book its title. The letter, a patch of fabric in the shape of an ―A,‖ signifies that Hester is an ―adulterer.‖

As a young woman, Hester married an elderly scholar, Chillingworth, who sent her ahead to America to live but never followed her.

While waiting for him, she had an affair with a Puritan minister named Dimmesdale, after which she gave birth to Pearl.

Hester is passionate but also strong—she endures years of shame and scorn.

Her alienation puts her in the position to make acute observations about her community, particularly about its treatment of women.

But it is what happens after Hester?s affair that makes her into the woman with whom the reader is familiar.

Shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, Hester becomes contemplative (沉思的）. She speculates on human nature, social organization, and larger moral questions. the narrator indicates that he secretly admires her independence and her ideas. Arthur Dimmesdale

Arthur Dimmesdale: First, Arthur reminds the reader of Adam, human beings ancestor who

committed the Original Sin with Eva in the Garden of Eden,

Arthur Dimmesdale, the initials AD are the beginning of ―Adultery‖;

Secondly, ―Dim‖ means lack of light,‖ dale‖ Means valley, which symbolizes the minister‘s dim-interior world of his love and the shadow of sin and guilty of his mind.

Arthur Dimmesdale means someone who committed adultery but dares cowardly to confess his sin or crime, and has to conceal it in the shadow and suffer it interiorly（内心地）.

Dimmesdale is a young man who achieved fame in England as a theologian(神学者） and then emigrated to America.

In a moment of weakness, he and Hester became lovers.

He deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically, developing a heart condition as a result.

Dimmesdale is an intelligent and emotional man, and his sermons are thus masterpieces of eloquence and persuasiveness.

His commitments to his congregation are in constant conflict with his feelings of sinfulness and need to confess.

Ironically, the townspeople do not believe Dimmesdale‘s protestations（明言） of sinfulness. This drives Dimmesdale to further internalize his guilt and self-punishment and leads to still more deterioration in his physical and spiritual condition. The town’s idolization of him reaches new heights after his Election Day sermon, which is his last. In his death, Dimmesdale becomes even more of an icon （偶像）than he was in life.

Many believe his confession was a symbolic act, while others believe Dimmesdale's fate was an example of divine judgment. Roger Chillingworth

Roger Chillingworth has two aspects. “Roger” is the homonymic(同音的） of Rogue (hoodlum, scoundrel, bully), which expresses his act to his wife;

Roger also reminds us the Jolly Roger (the black banner used by pirates).

We know that pirates‘ nature is to explore treasures and revenge, which demonstrates Chillingworth‘s act to his wife and to Dimmesdale.

“Chilling‖ means chilly. ―Worth‖ tells us Roger‘s act is, to some extend, worth/valuable----the author‘s contradictory psychology to Puritanism.

“Roger Chillingworth‖ is actually Hester?s husband in disguise.

He is much older than she is and had sent her to America while he settled his affairs in Europe. Because he is captured by Native Americans, he arrives in Boston belatedly（迟来） and finds Hester and her illegitimate child being displayed on the scaffold.

He lusts for revenge, and thus decides to stay in Boston despite his wife‘s betrayal and disgrace. He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to disguise himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester?s anonymous lover.

His single-minded pursuit of retribution reveals him to be the most malevolent（坏心肠） character in the novel.

As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in human warmth. His twisted, stooped, deformed shoulders mirror his distorted soul. Chillingworth's death is a result of the nature of his character.

After Dimmesdale dies, Having lost the objects of his revenge, he has no choice but to die. “Pearl”

“Pearl‖ has many symbolic meaning.

First, it means treasure--- the treasure to her mother.

Second, pearl is the homonymic(同音） of purl (stream),

Pearl‘s fate and life is like the purl in the forest, mysterious, can only flow in the forest, seldom bathe the sunshine.

Hester's illegitimate daughter Pearl is a young girl with a moody, mischievous spirit and an ability to perceive things that others do not.

For example, she quickly discerns the truth about her mother and Dimmesdale.

She is wise far beyond her years, frequently engaging in ironic play having to do with her mother's scarlet letter.

The main idea of the story

The story happened in Boston about 200 years ago. It narrates love affairs between three persons.

The punished woman, Hester and his husband，who called himself Roger Chillingworth. He is an old misshapen(畸形地） man and a doctor. Hester does not love him at all.

Another man is a young minister, Dimmesdale, who has a high position among ministers and is highly respected among his people in town.

Hester and Dimmesdale love each other. But their love is forbidden at that time,it is sinful.

Due to this, Hester is punished by society with a letter A on her chest, which considered an evil, a shame.

Chapter I: The Prison-Door

This first chapter contains little in the way of action, instead setting the scene and introducing the first of many symbols that will come to dominate the story.

A crowd of somber, dreary-looking(沉闷的）people has gathered outside the door of a prison in seventeenth-century Boston.

The building's heavy oak door is studded with iron spikes, and the prison appears to have been constructed to hold dangerous criminals.

No matter how optimistic the founders of new colonies may be, the narrator tells us, they invariably provide for a prison and a cemetery almost immediately.

This is true of the citizens of Boston, who built their prison some twenty years earlier.

The rosebush grows next to the prison door. The narrator suggests that it offers a reminder of Nature?s kindness to the condemned,

he says, it will provide either a “sweet moral blossom” or else some relief in the face of unrelenting (无情的） sorrow and gloom. Chapter Two: The Market Place

The crowd in front of the jail is a mixture of men and women, all maintaining severe looks of disapproval.

Several of the women begin to discuss Hester Prynne, and they soon vow（发誓） that Hester would not have received such a light sentence for her crime if they had been the judges. One woman, the ugliest of the group, goes so far as to advocate death for Hester. Hester emerges from the prison with elegance and a ladylike air to her movements.

She clutches her three month old daughter, Pearl. She has sown a large scarlet A over her breast, using her finest skill to make the badge of shame appear to be a decoration.

Several of the women are outraged when they see how she has chosen to display the letter, and they want to rip it off.

Hester is led through the crowd to the scaffold of the pillory. She ascends the stairs and stands, now fully revealed to the crowd, in her position of shame and punishment for the next few hours. Hawthorne compares her beauty and elegance while on the scaffold to an image of Madonna and Child, or Divine Maternity.

The ordeal（折磨） is difficult for Hester. She tries to make the images in front of her vanish by thinking about her past.

Hester was born in England and grew up there. She later met a scholar who was slightly deformed, having a left shoulder higher than his right. Her husband, later revealed to be Roger Chillingworth, first took her to Amsterdam and then sent her to America to wait for his arrival.

Hester looks out over the crowd and realizes for the first time that her life condemns her to be alone.

She looks at her daughter and then fingers the scarlet letter that will remain a part of her from now on.

At the thought of her future, she squeezes her daughter so hard that the child cries out in pain. Analysis

Here we are introduced to the scarlet A which has become eponymous（齐名的） with the novel itself.

Its introduction carries a touch of humor or, at least, resistance: Hester has appropriated the supposed symbol of shame as a beautifully embroidered letter, which she wears without the slightest air of anguish（痛苦） or despair.

Indeed, the fine stitch work around the A has reduced it to an ornament, a decorative and trivial accessory.

The community‘s reaction to Hester, as they watch her on the scaffold, Most of the people watching Hester’s punishment believe that it is far too lenient（仁慈）.

Some say they would like to rip the letter right off her chest; others decry（谴责） the failure of lawmakers to put Hester to death.

This scene is the first of three scaffold scenes in the novel.

In this scene Hester is forced to suffer alone, facing first her past and then her present and future. The scene at once reveals Hester's past without presenting us the details of her crime, and it ends with the revelations of the consequence of this past: \were her realities—all else had vanished.\

Study of the themes

Hawthorne uses symbolism to imply his theme. This novel is about adultery, or even really about sin.

It is about the effects of the sin on those whom it touches. It tells more about men‘s soul than about their actions.

Through the study we can also know that Hawthorne‘s contradictory attitudes to Puritanism --- hatred and respect, he uses symbolism to imply his theme. Definition of symbolism

Generally speaking, a symbol is anything which is used to represent some thing other than itself. In literature, it is most often a concrete object which is used to represent something broader and more abstract---often a moral, religious, or philosophical concept or value.

“The Scarlet Letter‖ is usually regarded as the first symbolic novel to be written in the United ?States. The letter “A”.

(i) ―A‖ means ―adultery‖. To the puritans it is a symbol of just punishment; to Hester, a device of unjust humiliation; to Dimmesdale, a piercing reminder of his guilt; to Chillingworth, a spur to the quest of revenge; to Pearl, a bright and mysterious curiosity.

(ii) ―A‖ varies its meaning as the development of the story, adultery---able---angel. The Prison:

Hawthorne describes the prison so as to make properly represent‖ the black flower of civilized society‖,

he is therefore using the prison building to represent the crime and the punishment which are aspect of civilized life;

he points out at least one symbolic intention of his wild rose-bush: “It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty(虚弱） and sorrow.” The scaffold and nights

The scaffold: is not only a symbol of the stern Puritan code for Hester to accept the punishment, but also becomes a symbol for the open acknowledgment of personal sin.

It is the place to which Dimmesdale knows he must go for atonement(赎罪）, the only place where he can escape the grasp of Chillingworth or of the devil.

Nights: is used as a symbol for concealment, and the day for exposure; Dimmesdale mounts the scaffold to give out his pain at nights; and in the end confesses his guilt and sin in the day. The sun and the forest

The sun: is used as of untroubled, guiltless happiness, or the approval of God and Nature. It shines on Pearl, but flees away from Hester and from Dimmesdale, even in the forest. The forest: is a symbol of darkness and devil. It is a place where witches gather. Sin, Knowledge, and the Human Condition

Sin and knowledge are linked in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

As a result of their knowledge, Adam and Eve are made aware of their humanness, that which separates them from the divine and from other creatures.

Once expelled from the Garden of Eden, they are forced to toil(劳作） and to procreate（生育）—two “labors” that seem to define the human condition.

The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human.

For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as ―her passport into regions where other women dared not tread,‖ leading her to ―speculate‖ about her society and herself more ―boldly‖ than anyone else in New England.

As for Dimmesdale, the “burden” of his sin gives him “sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his heart vibrates in unison（和谐） with theirs.”

Hester and Dimmesdale contemplate their own sinfulness on a daily basis and try to reconcile it with their lived experiences.

The Puritan elders, on the other hand, insist on seeing earthly experience as merely an obstacle on the path to heaven.

Thus, they view sin as a threat to the community that should be punished and suppressed.

Their answer to Hester‘s sin is to ostracize（放逐） her. Hester and Dimmesdale’s experience shows that a state of sinfulness can lead to personal growth, sympathy, and understanding of others.

These qualities are shown to be incompatible（矛盾的） with a state of purity. Identity and Society

After Hester is publicly shamed and forced by the people of Boston to wear a badge of humiliation, her unwillingness to leave the town may seem puzzling.

She is not physically imprisoned, and leaving the Massachusetts Bay Colony would allow her to remove the scarlet letter and resume a normal life.

Surprisingly, Hester reacts with dismay when Chillingworth tells her that the town fathers are considering letting her remove the letter.

Hester's behavior is premised on her desire to determine her own identity rather than to allow others to determine it for her.

To her, running away or removing the letter would be an acknowledgment of society?s power over her: she would be admitting that the letter is a mark of shame and something from which she desires to escape.

Instead, Hester stays, refiguring (绣花） the scarlet letter as a symbol of her own experiences and character.

Her past sin is a part of who she is; to pretend that it never happened would mean denying a part of herself.

Thus, Hester very determinedly integrates her sin into her life. Dimmesdale also struggles against a socially determined identity.

As the community's minister, he is more symbol than human being. Except for Chillingworth, those around the minister willfully ignore his obvious anguish, misinterpreting it as holiness. Unfortunately, Dimmesdale never fully recognizes the truth of what Hester has learned: that individuality and strength are gained by quiet self-assertion and by a reconfiguration, not a rejection, of one's assigned identity. Civilization versus the Wilderness

In The Scarlet Letter, the town and the surrounding forest represent opposing behavioral systems. The town represents civilization, a rule-bound space where everything one does is on display and where transgressions（犯罪） are quickly punished.

The forest, on the other hand, is a space of natural rather than human authority. In the forest, society?s rules do not apply, and alternate identities can be assumed.

While this allows for（体谅） misbehavior（品行不端）— Mistress Hibbins’s midnight rides, for example—it also permits greater honesty and an escape from the repression（抑制） of Boston. When Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the woods, for a few moments, they become happy young lovers once again.

Hester's cottage, which, significantly, is located on the outskirts of town and at the edge of the forest, embodies both orders.

It is her place of exile, which ties it to the authoritarian town, but because it lies apart from the settlement, it is a place where she can create for herself a life of relative peace.

Names

Chillingworth is cold and inhuman and thus brings a ―chill‖ to Hester's and Dimmesdale's lives. “Prynne‖ rhymes with ―sin,‖ while ―Dimmesdale‖ suggests ―dimness‖—weakness, indeterminacy, lack of insight, and lack of will, all of which characterize the young minister.

The name ―Pearl‖ evokes a biblical allegorical device—the ―pearl of great price‖ that is salvation. Questions :1.Why is the prison the setting of Chapter 1 ?

No matter how optimistic the founders of new colonies may be, they are quick to establish a prison and a cemetery in their ―Utopia,‖ for they know that misbehavior, evil, and death are unavoidable.

This belief fits into the larger Puritan doctrine, which puts heavy emphasis on the idea of original sin—the notion that all people are born sinners because of the initial transgressions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. he is therefore using the prison building to represent the crime and the punishment which are aspect of civilized life

What is the implication of the description of the roses?

The rosebush symbolizes the ability of nature to endure and outlast man's activities.

The narrator suggests that roses offer a reminder of Nature's kindness to the condemned; for his tale, he says, it will provide either a ―sweet moral blossom‖ or else some relief in the face of unrelenting sorrow and gloom. 梭罗

The book described the author‘s extremely simple life and regeneration he experienced when he lived near the Walden pond.

b. This is a book on self-culture（自修） and human perfectibility

c. In the book Thoreau criticized the modern civilization and told people to sink themselves in nature.

d. Spiritual richness is real wealth.

e. The structural framework of the book is within a single year, and progresses through spring, summer and autumn to winter. Walden, or Life in the Woods

Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau‘s sojourn(逗留） in a cabin near Walden Pond, in woodland owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.

Thoreau lived at Walden for two years, two months, and two days, but Walden was written so that the stay appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal divisions.

Thoreau did not intend to live as a hermit(隐士）, for he received visitors and returned their visits. Instead, he hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it.

Simplicity and self-reliance were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy.

As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, not far from his family home.

Walden, or Life in the Woods

Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude（独处）, contemplation(沉思）, and closeness to nature in transcending（超越） the \

Thoreau regarded his sojourn(逗留） at Walden as a noble experiment with three purposes:

First, he was escaping the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution by returning to a simpler, agrarian(耕种的） lifestyle.

Second, he was simplifying his life and reducing his expenditures, increasing the amount of leisure time in which he could work on his writings.

Third, he was putting into practice the Transcendentalist belief that one can best transcend(超越） normality（常态） and experience through nature.

The purpose of Walden is to argue for, explain, and demonstrate Thoreau's philosophy of life, a philosophy that is practical and poetic, personal and universal.

Rather than seeing the acquisition of wealth as the goal for human existence, Thoreau saw the goal of life to be an exploration of the mind and of the magnificent world around us.

Thoreau was stimulated by the natural things he found in life; he shunned(避开） the artificial. The manufactured collections that most of us work on through our lives are bogus（假的） -- and costly: we sweat, we labour, we toil, we worry: and we rarely ask ourselves to what purpose? Happily for Thoreau, and for all of us, a ticket to nature is free. For Thoreau the answer was to live happily and simply.

For Thoreau this could not only be done inexpensively, but only could be done,

Thoreau was out to test his theory that a man might become rich by making his wants few. Thoreau's plan was set: experience life and then write about it. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

This chapter begins with a discussion of buying a place to live and introduces Thoreau's alternative to property ownership.

It locates Walden Pond and describes Thoreau's day and what his purpose in life was. It also challenges us to make something better of our own lives.

This chapter is a short but important chapter for it touches upon the core of Thoreau's philosophy. Thoreau's beaconlight: \let alone.\

he determined to test his philosophy, to live away from the crowd with as few possessions as he can possibly get away with.

Outline of Where I lived, What I lived for

Thoreau recalls the several places where he nearly settled before selecting Walden Pond. He quotes the Roman philosopher Cato‘s(加图） warning that it is best to consider buying a farm very carefully before signing the papers.

He had been interested in the nearby Hollowell farm, despite the many improvements that needed to be made there, but, before a deed could be drawn, the owner's wife unexpectedly decided she wanted to keep the farm.

Consequently, Thoreau gave up his claim on the property. Even though he had been prepared to farm a large tract, Thoreau realizes that this outcome may have been for the best.

Forced to simplify his life, he concludes that it is best “as long as possible” to “live free and

uncommitted.” Thoreau takes to the woods, (逃进树林）dreaming of an existence free of obligations and full of leisure.

He proudly announces that he resides far from the post office and all the constraining social relationships.

Ironically, this renunciation(放弃） of legal deeds provides him with true ownership, paraphrasing a poet to the effect that “I am monarch of all I survey.”

Thoreau's delight in his new building project at Walden is more than merely the pride of a first-time homeowner.

When Thoreau first moves into his dwelling on Independence Day, it gives him a proud sense of being a god on Olympus, even though the house still lacks a chimney and plastering.

He claims that a paradise fit for gods is available everywhere, if one can perceive it: ―Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where.‖

Taking an optimistic view, he declares that his poorly insulated（隔热的） walls give his interior the benefit of fresh air on summer nights.

He justifies its lack of carved ornament by declaring that it is better to carve ―the very atmosphere‖ one thinks and feels in, in an artistry of the soul.

It is for him an almost immaterial（非实质的）, heavenly house, “as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers.”

He prefers to reside here, sitting on his own humble wooden chair, than in some distant corner of the universe, “behind the constellation(星座） of Cassiopeia‘s Chair.”（仙后座）

He is free from time as well as from matter, announcing grandiosely that time is a river in which he goes fishing.

He does not view himself as the slave of time; rather he makes it seem as though he is choosing to participate in the flow of time whenever and however he chooses, like a god living in eternity. Analysis

The title of this chapter combines a practical topic of residence (―Where I Lived‖) with what is probably the deepest philosophical topic of all, the meaning of life (―What I Lived For‖).

Thoreau thus reminds us again that he is neither practical do-it-yourself aficionado （狂热爱好者）nor erudite philosopher, but a mixture of both at once, attending to matters of everyday existence and to questions of final meaning and purpose. Thoreau‘s building of a house on Walden Pond is, for him, a miniature（缩图） re-enactment（再次呈现） of God's creation of the world.

He describes its placement in the cosmos（宇宙）, in a region viewed by the astronomers, just as God created a world within the void of space. He says outright（直率地） that he resides in his home as if on Mount Olympus, home of the gods. He claims a divine freedom from the flow of time, describing himself as fishing in its river.

Thoreau's point in all this divine talk is not to inflate his own personality to godlike heights but rather to insist on everyone's divine ability to create a world.

And the mere fact that Thoreau imagines that one can choose to call one thing reality and another thing not provides the spiritual freedom that was central to Emerson's Transcendentalist thought. The only current events that matter to the transcendent mind are itself and its place in the cosmos. Questions

1.Where indeed did Thoreau live, both at a physical level and at a spiritual level? He lived in a cabin on Walden Pond, which belonged to Emerson‘s property.

2.Had Thoreau ever bought a farm? Why did he enjoy the act of buying? No, he hadn‘t.

He avoided purchasing a farm because it would inevitably tie him down financially and complicate his life.

Thoreau didn‘t see the acquisition of wealth as the goal for human existence, he saw the goal of life to be an exploration of the mind and of the magnificent world around us. He regarded the places as an existence free of obligations and full of leisure.

3.Is it significant that Thoreau mentioned the Fourth of July as the day on which he began to stay in the woods? Why? Yes, it is.

Because The Fourth of July is known as Independence Day,the birthday ot the United States. Here Thoreau uses the day to express his beginning of regeneration at Walden. It also means a symbol of his conquest of being.

盖茨比

The entire story takes place in one summer in 1922.

The novel describes the life and death of Jay Gatsby, as seen through the eyes of a narrator who does not share the same point of view as the fashionable people around him.

The narrator learns that Gatsby became rich by breaking the law. Gatsby pretends to be a well-educated war hero, which he is not, yet the narrator portrays him as being far more noble than the rich, cruel, stupid people among whom he and Gatsby live.

Gatsby‘s character is purified by a deep, unselfish love for Daisy, a beautiful, silly woman who, earlier, married a rich husband instead of Gatsby and moved into high society.

Gatsby has never lost his love for her and, in an era when divorce has become easy, he tries to win her back by becoming rich himself. He does not succeed, and in the end he is killed by accident because of his determination to shield Daisy from disgrace.

None of Gatsby‘s upper class friends come to his funeral. The narrator is so disgusted that he leaves New York and returns to his original home. What is Fitzgerald‘s attitude toward Tom and Daisy? He criticized them as selfish, hypocritical persons.

From The Great Gatsby, talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s achievement.

Fitzgerald‘s greatness lies in the fact that he found intuitively in his personal experience the embodiment of that of the nation and created a myth out of American life. The story of The Great Gatsby is a good illustration ……

3. Gatsby‘s life follows a clear pattern: There is, at first, a dream; then disenchantment, and finally a sense of failure and despair. In this, Gatsby‘s personal experience approximates the whole of the American experience up to the first few decades of this century.

4. Now the virgin forests have vanished and made way for a modern civilization, the only fitting symbol of which is the ―valley of ashes, ‖ the living hell.

5. Here modern men live in sterility（贫瘠） and meaninglessness and futility(无益） as best illustrated by Gatsby’s essentially pointless parties. The crowds hardly know their host; many come and go without invitation. The music, the laughter, and the faces signify the purposelessness and loneliness of the partygoers beneath their masks of relaxation and joviality.(快活）

6.The shallowness of Daisy whose voice is ―full of money‖, the restless wickedness of Tom, the representative of the egocentric, careless rich, and Gatsby who is, on the one hand, charmingly innocent enough to believe that the past can be recovered and resurrected（复兴）, tragically convinced of the power of money. Background of the Novel

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote and set The Great Gatsby in the United States in the 1920s.

After World War I, the American economy was thriving, the stock market was growing quickly, and the decade was known as the Roaring Twenties兴旺的二十年代. It was also a period of great social upheaval.

In November 1920, women had been granted the right to vote, alcohol had been prohibited by a constitutional amendment,

and a predominantly African-American form of music, Jazz, was becoming mainstream. Fitzgerald had dubbed this era the ―Jazz Age\ Nick Carraway

Nick Carraway (Narrator)—a 29-year-old (thirty by the end of the book) bond salesman from the Midwest, a veteran, a Yale graduate, and resident of Long Island. Neighbor of Gatsby.

Nick is the hardest character to understand in the book because he is the narrator and will therefore only give us an impression of himself that he would like to give.

He tells the reader that \him lie on several occasions. So it is all but impossible to get an accurate picture of Nick.

By the end of the book he is very jaded(厌倦的）, though. When he and Jordan break up he says \“要是我年轻五岁，也许我还可以欺骗自己，说这样做光明正大。” Gatsby

Jay Gatsby (originally James “Jimmy”Gatz)—a young, mysterious millionaire later revealed to be self-made, originally from North Dakota, with shady business connections and a nostalgic(怀旧的） love for Daisy Fay Buchanan, whom he had met when he was a young officer in World War I. To understand Gatsby one has to look at not only his true life, but the life that he tried to create for himself.

The truth is that he came from poor beginnings and created a fantasy world where he was rich and powerful.

Even in his youth Gatsby was not content with what he had. He wanted money, so he managed to

get it. He wanted Daisy, and she slipped through his fingers.

So even when his wealth and stature are at their greatest, he will not be content. He must have Daisy.

But more than that there is a drive to possess her because that is what he wanted for all of those years. She was part of his image for the future and he had to have her.

And although Gatsby seems very kind, he is not afraid to be unscrupulous to get what he wants. When he wanted money, he was more than willing to become a bootlegger（酿私酒者）. His drive is what makes him who he is, good and bad. And it is this drive that ends up ruining his life. Daisy

Nick's second cousin, once removed; and the wife of Tom Buchanan.

Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald's own youthful romance with Chicago heiress Ginevra King.

Gatsby had courted but lost Daisy due to their different social standing, the main reason Fitzgerald believed he had lost Ginevra. Daisy is a trapped woman.

She's trapped in a marriage that she is unhappy in and trapped in a world where she has no chance to be free or independent.

She is at the mercy of（受??支配） her husband, a man who takes her for granted. Daisy is also terribly clever, delivering some of the funnier lines of the book.

When a reader looks at the foolishness and shallowness of Daisy they must realize that Daisy may be doing out of necessity.

As she said when she delivered her daughter, \beautiful little fool\

Daisy is smart enough to understand the limits imposed on her and has become jaded and indulgent because of them.

The word careless also describes Daisy well. Many of the things that Daisy does, the accident with Myrtle in particular, show a woman who is just careless.

She has become very much wrapped up in （酷爱）herself. Part of this is due to the fact that she had been spoiled all her life.

She was born into money and had an endless assortment of men who would continue to spoil her. So she has learned to think only of herself without regard for the people that it may hurt. Tom

Thomas \—an arrogant \husband of Daisy.

Buchanan had parallels to William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King. Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo(马球）. Like Ginevra's father, whom Fitzgerald resented, Buchanan attended Yale. Being born into a family that is wealthy has made Tom a spoiled man.

He hasn't really worked his entire life and instead spends his days in indulgence and ease. He has a shameless affair with Myrtle because it satisfies his needs.

He flaunts(炫耀） their relationship in public because he does not concern himself with the consequences of his actions, he's never had to.

This is also why he and Daisy escape in the end of the book. There was a situation they would have to face and they didn't want to.

So they ran to their money and fled the situation, leaving it to be dealt with by others.

Tom will spend his whole life doing things like that because that is who he is: A careless man who won't be bothered by the suffering he causes. Jordan

Jordan Baker—She is Daisy 's long-time friend, a professional golf player. Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins that her character was based on the golfer Edith Cummings, a friend of Ginevra King.

Jordan faces the same problems that Tom and Daisy do.

She has been born with money and has lived in a culture full of money and has been spoiled by it. She is surrounded by people like the Buchanans who perpetuate her indulgent behavior.

This can be observed in the scene where she and Nick are driving in the city and calls her a careless driver. She says she doesn't worry because the other people on the road aren't as careless as her and that she makes sure she surrounds herself with people who won't \

It can be seen that Jordan has no concept of accountability and that has been furthered by the people who allow her to go unaccountable. Chapter Nine

Nick makes plans for the funeral.

Gatsby's Funeral, three people show up. Nick returns to the west.

Nick meets with Tom Buchanan

Nick gets a last view of Gatsby's house. Decay

Decay is a word that constantly comes up in The Great Gatsby, which is appropriate in a novel which centers around the death of the American Dream.

Decay is most evident in the so-called \which probably has little to do with the New York landscape and instead serves to comment on the downfall of American society.

It seems that the American dream has been perverted(不正当的）, Gatsby lives in West Egg and Daisy in East Egg;

therefore, Gatsby looks East with yearning, rather than West, the traditional direction of American frontier ambitions.

Fitzgerald's implication seems to be that society has already decayed enough. Violence

Violence is a key theme in The Great Gatsby, and is most embodied by the character of Tom. He uses his immense physical strength to intimidate（胁迫） those around him.

When Myrtle taunts（嘲弄） him with his wife's name, he strikes her across the face.

The other source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new commodity at the time that The Great Gatsby was published,

Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the dangers of wealth.

The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle, is foreshadowed by the conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive violence.

The end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice of handgun as a weapon suggests Gatsby's shady past, but it is symbolic that it is his love affair, not his business life, that kills Gatsby in the end.

Class

Class is an unusual theme for an American novel.

It is more common to find references to it in European, especially British novels. However, the societies of East and West Egg are deeply divided by the difference.

Gatsby is aware of the existence of a class structure in America, Gatsby tries desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have attended Oxford in an attempt to justify his position in society.

Ultimately, however, it is a class gulf that seperates Gatsby and Daisy, and cements（巩固） the latter in her relationship to her husbad, who is from the same class as she is. World War I

Because The Great Gatsby is set in the Roaring Twenties, the topic of the Great War is unavoidable.

The war was crucial to Gatsby's development, providing a brief period of social mobility which quickly closed after the war.

Gatsby only came into contact with a classy young lady like Daisy as a result of the fact that he was a soldier and that no one could vouch for（担保） whether he was upper-class or not.

The war provided him with further opportunities to see the world, and make some money in the service of a millionaire.

Gatsby's opportunities closed up after the end of the war, however, when he found upon returning to America that the social structure there was every bit as rigid as it was in Europe.

Unable to convince anyone that he is truly upper-class (although his participation in the war gave him some leeway(借口） about lying), Gatsby finds himself unable to break into East Egg society. The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the love between a man and a woman.

The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration(瓦解） of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The decadent（颓废） parties and wild jazz music in The Great Gatsby resulted in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals.

When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became disillusioned, as the brutal carnage（大屠杀） that they had just faced made the social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty, hypocrisy.

A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators（投机者）.

American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream.

Gatsby?s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her.

Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses.

Gatsby's dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure.

Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so.

When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed. The Hollowness of the Upper Class

In the novel, West Egg and its residents represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its residents, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy（华而不实）, ostentatious（卖弄的）, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate（华丽的） mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce.

In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized(概括、缩影） by the Buchanans' tasteful home and the white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money's ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others.

The Buchanans exemplify this when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend(屈尊） to attend Gatsby's funeral.

Gatsby, on the other hand, whose wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy's window until four in the morning simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her.

Ironically, Gatsby's good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished,

and the Buchanans' bad qualities (carelessness,selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.‖

盖茨比信奉这盏绿灯，这个一年年在我们眼前渐渐远去的极乐的未来。

它从前逃脱了我们的追求，不过那没关系——明天我们跑得更快一点，把胳臂伸得更远一点??总有一天??于是我们奋力向前划，逆流向上的小舟，不停地倒退，进入过去。 These words return to the theme of the significance of the past to dreams of the future, here represented by the green light.

It focuses on the struggle of human beings to achieve their goals by both transcending and re-creating the past.

Yet humans prove themselves unable to move beyond the past: in the metaphoric language used here, the current draws them backward as they row forward toward the green light.

This past functions as the source of their ideas about the future (epitomized by Gatsby's desire to re-create 1917 in his affair with Daisy)

While they never lose their optimism (―tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . .‖), they expend all of their energy in pursuit of a goal that moves ever farther away. This apt metaphor characterizes both Gatsby's struggle and the American dream itself.

I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

Daisy speaks these words in Chapter I as she describes to Nick and Jordan her hopes for her infant daughter.

Daisy is not a fool herself but is the product of a social environment that, to a great extent, does not value intelligence in women.

The older generation values docility(温顺） in females.

she describes her own boredom with life and seems to imply that a girl can have more fun if she is beautiful and simplistic.

How does the geography of the novel dictate its themes and characters? What role does setting play in The Great Gatsby?

Each of the four important geographical locations in the novel—West Egg, East Egg, the valley of ashes, and New York City—corresponds to a particular theme or type of character encountered in the story.

West Egg is like Gatsby, full of garish（炫耀的） extravagance, symbolizing the emergence of the new rich alongside the established aristocracy of the 1920s.

East Egg is like the Buchanans, wealthy, possessing high social status, and powerful, symbolizing the old upper class that continued to dominate the American social landscape.

The valley of ashes is like George Wilson, desolate（无生命的）, desperate, and utterly without hope, symbolizing the moral decay of American society hidden by the glittering surface of upper-class extravagance.

New York City is simply chaos（混乱）, associated with the “quality of distortion” that Nick perceives in the East.

Setting is extremely important to The Great Gatsby, as it reinforces the themes and character traits that drive the novel's critical events.

Even the weather matches the flow of the plot. Gatsby‘s reunion with Daisy begins in a ferocious（凶猛的） thunderstorm and reaches its happiest moment just as the sun comes out. Tom's confrontation with Gatsby occurs on the hottest day of the summer. Finally, Gatsby's death occurs just as autumn creeps into the air.

The specificity of the settings in The Great Gatsby contributes greatly to the creation of distinct zones in which the conflicting values of various characters are forced to confront each other. What makes Gatsby ―great‖?

Nick considers Gatsby as a great figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world.

Though Nick recognizes Gatsby's flaws the first time he meets him, he cannot help but admire Gatsby's brilliant smile, his romantic idealization of Daisy, and his yearning for the future.

The private Gatsby who stretches his arms out toward the green light on Daisy's dock seems somehow more real than the vulgar, social Gatsby who wears a pink suit to his party and calls everyone ―old sport.‖

That is, Gatsby makes Daisy his dream because his heart demands a dream, not because Daisy truly deserves the passion that Gatsby feels for her.

Further, Gatsby impresses Nick with his power to make his dreams come true—as a child he dreamed of wealth and luxury, and he has attained them through criminal means.

As a man, he dreams of Daisy, and for a while he wins her, too. In a world without a moral center, in which attempting to fulfill one?s dreams is like rowing a boat against the current, Gatsby‘s

power to dream lifts him above the meaningless pleasure-seeking of New York society.

In Nick's view, Gatsby's capacity to dream makes him ―great‖ despite his flaws and eventual undoing.

power to dream lifts him above the meaningless pleasure-seeking of New York society.

In Nick's view, Gatsby's capacity to dream makes him ―great‖ despite his flaws and eventual undoing.

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