Unit 4 Everyday U
Alice Walker
Teaching Aims
1.To comprehend the whole story
2.To learn to paraphra the difficult ntences
3.To understand the structure of the text
4.To appreciate the style and rhetoric of the passage.
5.To lean and master the vocabulary and expressions
Major Teaching Points
1. Background information
2. Detailed study of the text
3. Exerci
Time Allocation ( 6 periods, 270 minutes)
1. Background information (40 minutes)
2. Detailed study of the text (180 minutes)
3. Exerci( 50 minutes)
Part One Background Information
Alice Walker, poet, novelist and essayist, was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, who were sharecroppers.
When Alice Walker was eight years old, she lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. In high school, Alice Walker was valedictorian of her class, and that achievement, coupled with a "rehabilitation scholarship" made it possible for her to go to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia. After spending two years at Spelman, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and during her junior year traveled to Africa as
an exchange student. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965.
After finishing college, Walker lived for a short time in New York, then from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, she lived in Tougaloo, Mississippi, during which time she had a daughter, Rebecca, in 1969. Alice Walker was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and in the 1990's she is still an involved activist. She has spoken for the women's movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. Alice Walker started her own publishing company, Wild Trees Press, in 1984. She currently resides in Northern California with her dog, Marley.
She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color Purple. Among her numerous awards and honors are the Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ronthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters, a nomination for the National Book Award, a Radcliff Institute Fellowship, a Merrill Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman's Club of New York. She also has received the Townnd Prize and a Lyndhurst Prize.
“Everyday U” (1973)
It is included in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 2nd Edition, 1981. “Everyday U”, one of the best-written short stories by Alice Walker, describes three women. The mother is a working woman without much education, but not without intelligence or perception. The two daughters form a sharp contrast in every conceivable way: appearance, character, personal experiences, etc.
The story reaches its climax at the moment when Dee, the elder daughter, wants the old quilts only to be refud flatly by the mother, who intends to give them to Maggie, the younger one. The old quilts, made from pieces of clothes worn by grand- and great-grand-parents and stitched by Grandma’s hand, are clearly a symbol of the cultural heritage of the black people. Their different feelings about the quilts reveal their different attitudes towards their heritage as blacks.
Pre-reading Questions
1. What kind of woman is the mother?
What kind of girl is Maggie & Dee?
2. Why do you think colored people asked fewer questions in 1927?
3. What is the mother’s feeling toward Dee?
How is it changed in the cour of the story?
Part Two Detailed Study of the Text
1. An extended living room: an enlarged living room by a new addition to the original space.
stay 歌词Extended means prolonged, continued; enlarged in influence, meaning, scope, etc. e.g. extended care: nursing care provided for a limited time after a hospital stay
extended family: a group of relative by blood, marriage or adoption, often including a nuclear family, living together, esp. three generations are involved.
美工设计培训中心
2. homely:
not good-looking, or handsome; plain, unattractive
3. She thinks her sister… of one hand:
She thinks that her sister has a firm control of her life.
4. Confronted, as a surpri by her own mother and father:
brought face to face with her own mother and father unexpectedly
5. a TV program of this sort:
“This sort” carries a derogatory tone, suggesting that the TV program is of poor or inferior kind.
6. In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands:
The phra “in real life” is transitional, linking this paragraph and the one above, implying that tho TV programs are nothing but make-believe and the narrator is very skeptical of them. In reality she has the typical features of a black working woman.
7. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather:
Becau I am fat, I feel hot even in freezing weather.
8. Johnny Carson has much to do… witty tongue:
Johnny Carson, popular TV talk show star, is famous for his witty and glib tongue. But in this respect, I am far better than he, and he has to try hard if he wants to catch
up with me.
tongue: the act or power of speaking; manner or style of speaking
9. With one foot raid in flight:
ready to leave as quickly as possible becau of discomfort, nervousness, timidity, etc.
10. Sidle up:
move up sideways, especially in a shy or stealthy manner.
11. Chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle:
Maggie is so shy that she never rais her head or eyes when looking at and talking to people, and she is always so nervous and restless that she is unable to stand still.
shuffle: to change or shift repeatedly from one position to another.
孟晓驷12. Dee is lighter than Maggie:
Light here refers to the color of one’s skin, complexion, not weight. The word fair is similar to light, and the opposite is dark.
13. stretched open, blazed open:
wide open to the fullest extent
14. And Dee:
an elliptical ntence. And there was Dee.
15. a sweet gum tree:
a large North American tree of the witch hazel family, with alternate maple like leaves, spiny fruit balls, and flagrant juice.
16. The church and me:
Incorrect grammar, it should be the church and I.party girl
17. Augusta:
city in eastern Georgia on the Savannah River. It is obvious that the family lives in the rural area in Georgia, a southern state in America.
18. dimwit: (slang)
a stupid person, a simpleton
19. to her graduation: to attend her graduation ceremony.
20. Her eye lids would not flicker for minutes at a time:
Again it shows that Dee was undaunted with a strong character. She would look at anybody steadily and intently for a long time.
21. In 1927, the colored asked fewer questions than they do now;
In 1927, the colored people were more passive than they are now.
colored: of a group other than the Caucasoid, specially black.
22. Like good looks… pasd her by:
She is not bright just as she is neither good-looking nor rich.
23. church songs;
hymns in prai or honor of God
24. hook:
李楠篮球训练营to attack with the horns as by a bull
25. There are no real windows… on the outside:
portholes in a ship: small openings in a ship’s side letting in light and air
not round and not square: irregular in shape.
rawhide: untanned or partially tanned cattle hide
26. but there they are:
Before I could meet them (in the yard), they have already arrived.
27. I heard Maggie suck in her breath… it sounds like;
suck in her breath: inhale her breath
Uhnnnh: an exclamation of a strong negative respon
28. The dress is loo and flows:
The dress is loo and moves gently and smoothly.
29. that rope about:
That move about like a rope.
30. with Maggie cowering behind me:
with Maggie huddling behind me becau of fear and nervousness.
31. kiss me on the forehead:
Not usual. Normally, people kiss each other on the cheeks for greeting.
wk是什么意思
32. He don’t know: ungrammatical spoken English. There are quite a few instances of such u of language in the story.
33. We called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born:
As we named our daughter after her aunt, we added “Big” before her aunt’s name to make a distinction.
34. The Civil War: the war between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy) in the U.S. (1861—1865)
35. We got the name out of the way:
We overcame the difficulty and managed to pronounce it at last.
36. I wanted to ask him was he a barber:
Incorrect grammar, it should be “whether (if) he was a barber.”
37. Maggie’s brain’s like an elephant’s:
Elephants are said to have good memories. Here Dee is being ironic.
38. As a centerpiece for the alcove table:
centerpiece: an ornament, like a bowl of flowers placed in the center of a table. Anything artistic can be ud as a centerpiece.
alcove: a cluded ction of a room for having breakfast
39. Out came Wangero with two quilts:
inverted ntence order to achieve vividness of description
40. teeny:
(colloquial) variation of the word “tiny”
41. a penny matchbox:
a matchbox which costs a penny (a US cent)
42. to give them quilts to Maggie for when she marries John Thomas:
Incorrect grammar: to give the quilts to Maggie (for the occasion) when she marries John Thomas.
43. priceless:
italicized for emphasis
44. A kind of dopey, hangdog look:
季度英文dopey: (colloquial) mentally slow or confud: stupid儿童节快乐的英文
hangdog: ashamed and a hangdog expression
45. portion:
one’s lot; destiny
46. This was the way she knew God to work:
This was the way she knew how God worked.
47. Something hit me… of my feet;
A metaphor. It shows that one is suddenly filled with a new spirit or a thoroughly thrilling and exciting emotion caud by an entirely new experience.be my slave
48. try to make something of yourlf, too:
try to be successful like me.
make: to turn out to be; to prove to have the esntial qualities of
< He would make a capable leader.
Part Three Exercis
Ⅱ
.
1)She thinks that her sister has a firm control of her life.
2)She could always have anything she wanted, and life was extremely generous to her.
3)The popular TV talk show star, Johnny Carson, who is famous for his witty and glib tongue, has to try hard if he wants to catch up with me.
4)It ems to me that I have talked to them always ready to leave as quickly as possible.
5)She impod on us lots of falsity.
6)impod on us a lot of knowledge that is totally uless to us
7)She is not bright just as she is neither good-looking rich.
8)Dee wore a very long dress even on such a hot day.
9)You can e me trying to move my body a couple of conds before I finally manage to push mylf up.
10)Soon he knows that won't do for Maggie, so he stops trying to shake hands with Maggie.
11)As I e Dee is getting tired of this, I don't want to go on either. In fact, I could have traced it far back before the Civil War along the branches of the family tree.
12)Now and then he and Dee communicated through eye contact in a cretive way.
13)If Maggie put the old quilts on the bed, they would be in rags less than five years.
14)She knew this was God's arrangement.
IV.
1)inelegant
2)a stupid person/a simpleton
3)tightly curled
4)expresd or worded well/felicitous
5)say (ud to describe dialogue)
space x
6)as if shake hands in a fancy and elaborate way
