感恩节的由来英文版《英语短篇小说教程》练习参考答案unit12
《英语短篇小说教程》练习参考答案
Keys to Unit Twelve
Donald Barthelme: The Glass Mountain
圣诞节的英语作文
1) Questions for Discussion:
(Suggested answers for reference)
(1) Do you find anything unusual about the structure of the story? Why do you think the writer choos this manner of narration?
cymbals(Firstly, the title sounds strange – there is no “glass mountain” in the real world. Secondly, the short story is made up of 100 ntences and each ntence is numbered. The title, if one is familiar with European fairy tales, reminds one of a popular story. The structure is very unusual, subverting the established form of fiction writing and creating a fal perfectio
n with the story beginning at Sentence One and ending at Sentence One Hundred. The author ems to being mocking at the literary convention by inventing a form that looks grotesque. )
(2) What sort of person is the narrator, the first-person “I” who tries to climb the glass mountain?
(Judging from what goes on in his mind, we find that the climber might be an intellectual, or a writer, as he is familiar with fairy tales and talks about the definition of “symbol” etc. So, the climbing can be en not as actual, but as imagined and psychological. He is very much dissatisfied with the reality down “at the bottom of the mountain,” but the fanciful “golden castle”is unattainable. He finds himlf stranded in the middle. He reprents the spiritual plight of the “Modern Man.”)
(3) There are a lot of symbols in the story such as the glass mountain, the golden castle, the dead knights, the enchanted princess, the climber and the act of climbing. Can you try to explain their symbolic meanings?
我的梦想英语作文
(The glass mountain: the modern city life, or the impossible process of achieving meaning The golden castle: an ideal goal that is nothing but illusion
The fallen knights: the dead or dying tradition
The enchanted princess: aim or reward of hard endeavor
The climber: a modern man in predicament, trying to achieve lf-realization
The climbing: the difficult and impossible process toward the goal
The street scene: the real city life of confusion and chaos
The climbing irons and plumber’s friends: the ridiculous means for the “grand” task
The “acquaintances”: the uncultured, unmannered generation of people. )
(4) How do you interpret the ending of the story?
(Through imagination, with the eagle carrying him to up to the palace, the climber finally r
现金流量表的编制方法eaches the castle. But with his “golden touch,” the symbol changes into a princess, like cliché in old stories, and the climber is disappointed and disillusioned. He ems to have realized that the whole thing is nothing but fairy-tale fantasy.)
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(5) The whole story appears to be very absurd. What sort of reality can you e behind the apparent absurdity?
(Despite the absurdity in the form and contents, we can find in the short story a lot of things that are related to the reality in the West, as the writer es it:
1. the narrator/climber’s n of frustration and alienation
2. the life of confusion and disorder in the city
fancl卸妆油怎么用3. people’s inability to achieve a state of glory
4. the loss of tradition
5. the replacement of culture by hooliganism.
6. the loss of aim and meaning in life with only imagined idealism which one knows is unrealizable.)
2) Explanation and Interpretation:
(Explain the implied meaning of the following ntences, and point out their significance in the context of the story.)
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(1) 18. The mountain towers over that part of Eighth Avenue like some splendid, immen office building.
(“Eighth Avenue” suggests the location is a city, possibly New York, and the glass mountain is a glass-surfaced modern skyscraper. It indeed is an office building.)
(2) 78. My acquaintances were debating the question, which of them would get my apartment?muer
(They were certain that the climber “I” would inevitably fall and die in the end, like all the “knights.”)
(3) 80. “At the same moment a door opened, and he saw a courtyard filled with flowers and trees, and there, the beautiful enchanted princess.” (The Yellow Fairy Book)
96. At the same moment a door opened, and I saw a courtyard filled with flowers and trees, and there, the beautiful enchanted symbol.
(In the popular fairy tale, the ultimate aim of the hero is to rescue the “princess,” but the modern climber found it to be no more than a mere “symbol,”– something abstract, remote, and devoid of solid meaning.)
