Lesson 12
The Loons
Teaching Periods: 8
Teaching Object:
English majors of junior year
Teaching Aims
To comprehend the whole story
To lean and master the vocabulary and expressions
To learn to paraphrase the difficult sentences
To understand the structure of the text
To appreciate the style and rhetoric of the passage.
Teaching Procedures
Background information
Text analysis
Language points
Rhetorical devices and effective writing skills
Exercise
Time Allocation
(8 periods, 360minutes)
Background information (45 minutes)
Intensive study of the text (225 minutes)
Exercise (90 minutes)
I. Background information
1. About the author
Jean Margaret(Peggy) Wemyss was born in Neepawa, Manitoba on July 18.1926 to
Robert Harrison Wemyss, a lawyer, and his wife Verna Jean, nee Simpson. Verna died
when Paggy was 4years old, and Robert later married her sister, Margaret Campbell
Simpson, a teacher and later a librarian, who was throughout the years one of Peggy’s
death. When Peggy was 9 and her brother still a baby, the family went to live with
Grandfather Simpson in his big brick house on First Avenue.
In a letter written in 1983, Margaret started “I was an extremely fortune child. As
someone who has always been interested in reading and in writing(which I began to
do in about Grade 2 or 3). I always had someone there who encourage me.” That
encouragement was provided by her step-mother, Margaret and later by Milderd
Musgrove her high school English teacher. Peggy wrote for and was an editor of the
Black and Gold, the Neepawa Collegiate paper. When she was in Grades Eleven and
Twelve, she had several articles published in the Neepawa Press.
After graduating from high school in 1944, Margaret attend United Church(now the
University of Winnipeg) and was assistant editor of the college paper Vox.
Jean Margaret Wemyss graduated from United College with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1947, and married John Fergus Laurence on September 13, 1947, in the
Neepawa Untied Church. She then worked for a time as a reporter for the Winnipeg
Citizen.
In 1950, after living a short time in England, Margaret and her husband, a civil
engineer, moved to British Somaliland. While there, she wrote a translation of Somali
prose and poetry, A Tree for Poverty. Laurence said that it was at the time that she
“began seriously to write.” A travel book, The Prophet’s Camel Bell”, written some
years later, describe the Laurence’s experience in Somaliland.
They moved to Accra, Ghana in 1952, with their 2-month-old daughter, Jocelyn,
who was born in England. During their subsequent 5years in Africa, Margaret
produced her first novel, This Side Jordan, which won the 1961 Beta Sigma Tamer,
written a few years later is also set in West Africa. Out of her Africa years came an
interest in contemporary literature by Africans, which resulted in her study of
Nigerian fiction and drama. Long Drums and Cannons, the Laurence’s son, David was
born in Ghana in 1955.
After leaving Africa, the family lived for 5 years in Vancouver, and during this time,
Margaret wrote The Christmas Birthday Story, a children’s book later rewritten.
After Vancouver, there followed seven years in England and purchase of her Elm
Cottage, in Penn, Buckinghamshire, 30 miles from London. In the 10 years period
1964 – 1974 the Manawaka books were published.
The Stone Angel(1964)
A Jest of God (1966) for which she received the 1967 Governor General’s Award
and which was basis for a movie entitled “Rachel Rachel” starting Joanne Woodward.
The Fire Dweller’s(1969)
A Bird in the House(1970)
The Diviner’s (1974), 1975 Governor General’s Award winner, and was made into a
movie in 1976
Margaret Laurence received honorary degree from more than a dozen Canadian
universities, was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971 and had
numerous other honors bestowed upon her.
An hour-long documentary film “Margaret Laurence –First Lady of Manawaka”
was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, and premiered in Winnipeg on
May 7, 1979. Adaptations of many of her works have been translated into several
languages and receive attention and praise from many countries.
She served as writer in Residence at the University of Toronto and Westerner
Ontario River in southern Ontario, which she named Margaret Cottage. Her return to
Canada become permanent in 1973, and she made her home in Lakefield, Ontario.
But despite her years away from her birthplace, Margaret Laurence continued to
consider herself “…a Prairie person, because I have always remained deeply just that.
The last decade of her life focused on promoting causes she passionately supported
–peace social justice, the equality of women, environment protection-through letters,
lectures, essays and fundraising campaigns.
Margaret Laurence died on January 5, 1987 and at her request her ashes were
brought by her children, Jocelyn and David to be interred in Riverside Cemetery,
Neepawa on June 23, the day before the official opening of The Margaret Laurence
Home, the former Simpson house where she had lived in her youth.
2. Loons
Who has ever paddled a canoe or cast a fly, or pitched a tent in the north woods and
has not stopped to listen to this wail of the wilderness?
And what would the wilderness be without it?
A.C Bent
Loons have long been considered by many North Americans as beautiful and
special, symbolizing wilderness and students. Many cottage-goers, campers, and
vacationers would feet their trip was incomplete without viewing a loon or
listening to its haunting call.
Loons are water birds like ducks and grebes, but they are classified separately by
scientists. The five species are Red-throated Loon Gavia stellata, Pacific Loon Gavia
immer. The Common Loon is the species best known to most of us, as its breeding
range lies across most of Canada. All five species of loons migrate to warmer areas
around the Gulf of Mexico and on the east and west coast of North America to winner
and return to northern lakes to breed when the ice melts in spring.
3. A glossary of literary terms
antagonist:
The bad person in a story; opposes the protagonist.
character:
A person portrayed in a novel short or plays. Characters can be animals or objects,
also but those are almost always personified.
characterization:
It is the way the author describe a character. Direct characterization involves the
author telling you what a character is like; indirect characterization is done through
dialogue or actions, and is considered the best form of characterization chronological
order.
chronological
When a story is told in the order that events actually happened.
climax
The point of highest action and suspense in a story.
conflict
It refers to the problem in the story. Usually the protagonist against 1.nature
2.him/herself or3.another character (the antagonists) or 4. against society.
connotation
The meaning we give a word.
denotation
The dictionary definition of a word.
dialogue
Words spoken by a character offset with quotation marks.
fiction
A story that is not true.
figurative language
Words that mean more than their literal meaning. For example it is raining cats and
dogs? Literally, it is not raining cats and dogs.
flashback
When the action of a story is interrupted by a scene from the past. The scene from
the past is the flashback.
foreshadowing
Hints in a story of what is going to happen to the plot or a character.
imagery
Words the author uses to put a picture in the reader’s mind.
irony
When the opposite of what you except happen or when you say the opposite of what
you mean, usually, for humorous effect (as opposed to sacasm)
literal language
When words mean exactly what they say
metaphor
Saying something is something else for comparison. He was a monster. Compare
with simile.
mood
The way the reader feels when reading a story.
moral
The lesson being taught by the story.
narrator
The person telling the story, may or may not be a character in the story. Be sure to
separate the author from the narrator, they usually aren’t the same person.
onomatopoeia
Words imitating sounds.
personification
Attaching human characteristics to something that not human.
plot
Sequence of events in a story where each event causes the next event to happen.
Otherwise you just have a story. Example: the king died and then the queen died. That
is a story. The king died and then the queen died of grief. That is a plot.
point of view
The angle from which a story is told.
first-person
The narrator is a character in the story and refers to himself as I
the. second person
The reader is the main character. Narrator uses the pronoun or he when referring to
the main character.
third person
Neither the reader nor the narrator is the main character. Narrator uses the pronoun
or he? When referring to the main character.
third-person omniscient
The narrator can tell what is going on the minds of all the characters.
third-person limited
The narrator can tell what is going in one or two of the characters, usually the main
character.
prose
Writing that isn’t poetry.
protagonist
A good person in a story, usually the central character.
sarcasm
Saying the opposite of what you mean to pretent to praise someone. Designed to
hurt.
satire
Making fun of something with humor and wit for the purpose of improving it. Satire
may be offensive, but generally, when done in right spirit the people it makes fun of
should not be offended. But they might be.
setting
Where the story takes place.
short story
A story from 500-15,000 words. After that you are leaving short story country and
entering Novel.
smile
A comparison using like or as. Hungry as a bear. Compare to metaphor.
stereotype
Preconceived idea od what a person or thing is like.
symbol
Something representing something else.
theme
The main idea of a story. A theme must be written as a complete sentence.
tone
The author’s attitude towards the characters or the story. The author may not like the
characters. And may make fun of them in a subtle way. Tone is different from mood
because it describes how the author feels about the characters, whereas mood
describes how the reader feels when reading the story.
II. Text analysis
1. introduction of the story
This touching story tells of the plight of Piquette Tonnerre, a girl from a native
Family. Her people were marginalized by the white-dominating society. They are
unable to exist independently in a respectable and dignified way. They found it
impossible to fit into the main current of culture and difficult to be assimilated
comfortably. At school
Piquete felt out of place and ill a ease with the white children. When she had
grown up she didn’t have any chance to improve her life. In face her situation was
more and more messed up to the end she was killed in a fire. Her death is like the
disappearance of the loons on Diamond Lake. Just as the narrator’s father
predicated, the loons would go away when more cottages were built up at the lake
with more people moving in. the loons disappeared as the nature was ruined by
civilization. In a similar way, Piquette and her people failed to find their position
in modern society.
2. the contextual analysis
Part I : paral—2 introduction and description of the surroundings of the Tonneres
Para 1
chink with mud. At the end of this para the author described the living
conditions
of the Tonnerres—dirty no one cares them about them, squeezed out of the
community.
Para 2
Keywords: halfbreeds, belong(sense of belong 归属感),live on relief, totally
unfamiliar with laughter(从来都没有笑容), grab, run, brawl, howl.
这两段通过许多细节介绍了主人翁的成长环境, 为后来着力塑造一个悲剧
人物做了铺垫, 间接的说明了这个悲剧的根本原因.悲剧可以问分为社会悲剧和
性格悲剧,此篇应该是属于社会悲剧.无论主人翁如何努力,如何在社会的洪流中
挣扎, 她的力量毕竟太小,最终还是逃脱不了这被洪流淹没的命运.
Part II: para3—47 recalling that holiday with on the Diamond Lake( in this part
we should pay a lot of attention to usage of various verbs which have been enriched
with the most colorful meanings in the language of English)
para3—15 the discussion about Piquette’s going with us before the holiday
Para 3
Keywords: a vaguely embarrassing, hoarse voice, clumsy limping walk, grimy
cotton dress 寥寥数笔就勾画出主人翁的外貌特征, 给读者留下了深刻的印象.成
功之处在于作者抓住了主人翁与众不同的特征,没有泛泛而谈, 这也是大家与众
不同之处.
para16—37 I tried to gain Piquette’s trust but was rebuffed
para38—47 the evening when I heard the crying of the loons
Eg. Para18: scuff swing( these two verbs can imply the joy deeply hidden in
the little girl’s heart)
Para23: squash the sand castle (Piquette is eager to get a happy life in the
future. But she tired her best to hide this wish from anyone. She
is always on her guard against anyone else. Her childhood
experience left too much shadow on her heart. She didn’t trust
anyone else.)
These are many such examples in the novel. Ask the students to understand
the word-choice by the author, esp. the usage of verbs, adj, and
so on.
para38—47 the evening when I heard the crying of the loons
Part III: para48—62 I met Piquette four years later when she was seventeen
years old was
going to marry with an English fellow. She changed a lot, expressed her
gratitude to my father and revealed strong eager for happiness.
Part IV: para63—70 several years later, I heared about Piquette’s death from
my mother.
Part V: para71—75 I revisited the Diamond Lake and found it had been greatly
changed and the loons disappeared, I felt remorseful for both loons and Piquette.
III. Detailed study of the text
1. the scrub oak: Oak is a large tree. Scrub oak is short, stunned oak tree.
2. chokecherry: North American wild cherry tree.
3. thicket: a thick growth of shrubs, underbrush or small trees.
4. clearing: an area of land cleared of trees.
5. shack: a small house or cabin that is crudely built and furnished.
6. chinked with mud: closed thae narrow openings with the mud.
7. Metis: people of mixed French and Indian blood.
8. entered their long silence: put down or repressed.
9. settlement: a small or isolated community; village.
10. added to: expanded
11. a chaos of lean-tos: a disorderly place crowded with sheds having a one-slope
roof. Lean-to: shed with a one-slope roof, the upper end of the rafters resting an
external support, such as trees or the wall of a building.
12. half-breed: a person whose parents of different ethnic types.
13. patois: a form of language, differing from the accepted standard, as a provincial
or local dialect.
14. Cree: a member of North American Indian people, living mainly in the Canadian
Provinces.
15. obscenities: offensive, repulsive marks or ideas.
16. They did not belong among the Cree: They did not have a proper and suitable
place among the Cree.
17. section hands( section gang): a crew of persons who do the maintenance work on
a railroad section.
18. on relief: receiving government aid because of poverty and unemployment.
19. one of the Tonnerre youngster, with a face…: One of the Tonnerre youngsters,
who looked deadly serious, never laughed…
20. bruised wild strawberries: wild strawberries with injured surface.
21. get mixed up in a Saturday-night brawl: get involved in a rough, noisy quarrel or
fight on a Saturday night after much drinking of liquor.
22. would hit out whoever was nearest: would aim at a blow at (try to hit) anybody
who happened to be the nearest.
23. Main Street: the principle street of any small town.
24. her attendance had…negligible: She often missed her classes and had little
interest in schoolwork. Sporadic: not constant, regular
25. a lot of school: school means attendance at school.
26. Otherwise, she existed…too long.
Otherwise: in all other points or respects.
She existed…: I only her as a person who would make other people feel ill at
ease.
27. She dwelled and moved…of vision: She lived and moved somewhere within
my range of sight. The implied meaning: although I saw her, I paid little attention
to her.
28. The damned bone’s flared up again: The condition of the bone suddenly
worsened.
Damned: (slang) giving force to an expression.
E.g. damned fool, damned foolish
Flare up: to show increased heat, anger or violence.
Trouble may flare up in L.A. and other big cities again.
29. it’s under control all right: all right: informal expression of beyond doubt,
certainly.
30. dickens: ( interjection) (colloquial) devil; deuce
31. stunned: shocked deeply, astouned.
32. I’ll bet anything: I am absolutely sure
33. for Pete’s sake: a mild exclamation of surprise, annoyance. Also for heaven’s
sake,
34. crossly: ill-tempered, irritably
35. stifle: suppress, repress, hold back.
36. at that: additionally, besides, as well.
It’s an idea, and a good one at that.
37. austere: very plain, lacking ornament or luxury.
38. lakefront: an area fronting on a lake.
39. the filigree of spruce trees: spruce trees grown in a pattern like a filigree, which
is a delicate, lacelike ornamental work of inter-wined wire gold, silver, etc.
40. the water glistening…caught it:
the water shining and sparkling with a green light.
as the sun reflected on it.
41. a little more bleached and fissured: became more colorless and had more cracks.
42. how well the place had wintered: After the winter the place still remained in
good shape. Winter(vi): to pass the winter
43. as though she no longer dwelt within her own skull: same with as though she had
gone somewhere. Or: as though her mind had gone out of her body.
44. with a sudden display of scorn: with a sudden display of scorn. Scorn: extreme,
often indignant contempt for someone or sth.
45. Wounded, I stamped away: My feelings hurt, I walked away angrily, with loud
heavy steps.
46. sprang from: was descended from
47. a daughter of the forest: a girl who was born and reared in the forest, who knew
everything about and felt at home with the forest.
48. prophetess of the wilds: female prophets; women who knew all the secrets of the
wilds, who could predict future events concerning the wilds. The wilds:
wilderness, nature.
49. thrashing my arms…I never grew cold: flinging my arms and legs so fast and so
violently and energetically that I didn’t feel cold at all.
50. what in hell ( more usually what the hell) : used for emphasis.
51. You nuts; (slang) Are you crazy?
52. Who gives a good goddamn?: (slang) Who cares?
53. as an Indian, Piqutte was a dead loss: If a person wished to get any information
about the Indians and their way of life, going to Piqutte for it was completely
useless.
54. scrambling: climbing and crawling.
55. bracken: growth of large, coarse, weedy ferns.
56. the lake was…the path of the moon: a line of moonlight reflected on the lake.
57. close-set (adj): set close together.
58. branches blackly sharp against the sky: Nominative absolute construction with a
noun plus a prepositional phrase. The branches looked black and clear with the
sky as the background.
59. phantom birds: birds that seem to appear to the sight but has no physical
existence; illusory
60. ululating sound: loud sound of wailing, lamenting.
61. plaintive: expressing sorrow, melancholy, mournful,sad.
62. separated by aeons…lamp of homes:
aeon (eon): an extremely long, indefinite period of time, thousands and
thousands of years; a billion years.
Neat: nice, pleasing, fine.
Summer cottages and the lighted lamps of home represents civilization.
63. strike: to seem to. E.g. That idea strikes me as silly.
64. Neither of us suspected…listening: Neither of us guessed that this would be the
last time we would ever sit together on the shore, listening. This sentence tells us
that sth that happened later would deprive them of another chance to do so.
65. Piquette and I remained…one another: Piquette and I failed to improve our
relationship and continued to feel uncomfortable in each other’s company for the
rest of the summer.
66. failed my father: disappointed my father’s hope that we should enjoy each
other’s company, become friends. Fail: to disappoint the hopes or the trust of.
67. I could not reach Piquette at all: I could not understand, impressed or make her
respond to my suggestion.
68. She remained both a reproach and a mystery to me: I blamed myself for being
unable to make her response warmer and at the same time found her mysterious.
69. I saw nothing…and my mother’s: I was so deeply absorbed and engrossed in my
pain and my mother’s that I didn’t notice what was going on around me.
70. When I looked outwardly: When I emerged from my personal misfortune and
began to look toward the outside world again.
71. its chrome and rainbow glass: the jukebox is made of chrome and glass with
rainbow colors.
72. stolid: impassive
73. was animated with a gaiety what was almost violent: Her face was made lively
and spirited by a kind of gaiety that was extremely intense and almost
uncontroolable.
74. her hair was…frizzily permed: her hair had a permanent wave with small tight
curls.
75. her features…blunt: Her features were still coarse and plain.
76. her skin-tight skirt.. slender body: Her tightfitting skirt and sweater in orange
color displayed a soft and slender body in an effort good enough to be envied.
77. I been around: I traveled around for some years.
78. a sore point: a point that is provocative of irritation or disagreeable feelings.
79. thought otherwise: thought differently
80. It’s just about the…: This small and unimportant town is very dull, and the only
thing that is interesting is dancing. Jerkwater: a train on an early branch railroad.
As adj means small, unimportant.
81. Boy, you couldn’t catch…: You couldn’t by any chance find me staying in this
small place, boy: (informal interjection) used to express excitement.
82. I don’t give a shit in this small place: I don’t care at all about this place.
83. to look the other way: to avoid the real sense.
84. the self-pity in her voice: By straining that Vanessa’s father was the only person
that had ever done anything good to her, Piquettee was saying that almost
everybody treated her badly.
85. All the old…: (slang)all the old malicious, bad tempered, gossiping women.
86. For the merest instant…: For the briefest moment, I saw her as what she really
was without her unusual pretence.
87. Her defiant face…hope: Normally she was a defensive person, and her face was
guarded as if it was wearing a mask. But when she was saying this, there was an
expression of challenge on her face, which, for a brief moment, became
unguarded and unmasked. And in her eyes there was a kind of hope which was
so intense that it filled people with terror.
88. swell: ( slang) excellent
89. As I mouthed…: As I said those conventional phrases of congratulation in an
affected and insincere manner. Mouth: to say in an insincere manner.
90. a real slattern…how: a dirty, untidy woman, dressed in a very careless way. Old:
anyhow.
91. brew: to brew means to make beer or other beverage from malt and hopes by
steeping, boiling and fermenting. Brew is a beverage that has been brewed.
92. who had heard the crying of the loons: who had truly understand the meaning
and the emotion conveyed in the crying of the loons.
VI. Appreciation of the story
In the background information, some literary terms have been brietly explained.
Then I’d like to analyze and appreciate her short stories, fictions or novels.
1) theme
The theme of the story is: through the description of the plight and
marginalized by those major ethnic groups, describe their strong desire of
being assimilated and their strong disappointment, reveal her own strong
sympathy toward these pitiable people.
2) setting
In this novel, two settings are presented to the readers and both are very
important in the characterization and the expression of the theme of the
passage.
The first setting is presented in para-land 2 in which the living surrounds and
conditions of Piquette are described in detail in order to lay down the
fundamental causes why this girl is doomed to a strategic life in the later years.
Misfortune and had been buried in her life since her childhood.
The second setting in presented in para—17 in which the author tired her best
to depict an idyllic world or heaven in her eyes, maybe also in the eyes of
Piquette, helping to emphasize the loneliness, torture, struggle and strong
desires for freedom and happiness in the deep heart of Piquette.
3) plot
The plot in the novel is not very complicated.
The summer holiday together—the meeting in the bar—heard about her
death—reveal the lake
4) characters
the characters are
Piquette—premature, cold, reserved, sensitive, afraid of being hurt, desire to
get own happiness, couldn’t escape the doomed ending.
“I”—happy, simple, candid, sentimental
“my” father and mother—warm hearted, very kind, sympathetic.
5) protagonist
Of course the protagonist here is Piquette. All the plots are centered on her.
6) characterization
The characters of the protagonist are expressed through her actions, words and
dialogue with others. Detailed analysis is given later.
7) climax
The climax should be the meeting after four years because during the meeting
the conflicts, the readers can be very clear of what a girl protagonist is.
8) conflict
There are some conflicts in the summer holidays between the two girls
through the conflicts, the readers can be very clear of what a girl the
protagonist is.
Actually, the conflict between Piquette( the mirror ethnic people) and the
whole society the conflict between the loon( the symbol of the fast changing
modern world, these two conflicts buried in the plots and the theme of the
whole novel are the real conflicts in it.
9) dialogue
Dialogue are so many in this novel and they play a fundamental role in
characterization.
10) person
The story is told in the first person. That will help to make the story more
believable. While the life experience of the protagonist is told in the third
person. ie. Her life is retold by another person who is quite familiar with her or
who holds a very complicated of times, and add a touch of a gloomy color to
the strategic of the protagonist.
11) symbol
It is quite obvious to find symbolism in this novel. Here the loon symbolized
the little girl—Piquette., the crying of the loons symbolizes the eagerness of
the girl for personal happiness, the disappearance of the loons in the modern
world symbolizes the death of the girl in the chaos of the modern society.
These are only some examples for the students. Students can learn how to
appreciate the novels.
12) A comparison to show the changes of Piquette’s fact in different stages
appearance
behaviour
character
childhood
(that summer)
hoarse voice
clumsy limping walk
“a repraoach and
grimy cotton dress (face)bore no expression mystery” reserved
kept silent rude attitude
lonely” defiant.
16years old (para49.56.60)changed
animated, talk and laugh
violent gaiety
(a café)
much” lipstick, hair, eyes, loudly, teeter, speak the was seeking her
skirts, sweater, hash perfume truth
own happiness
the end of put on an awful weight
her life
looked a mess a real
(para 69) slattern dress the old
本文还有一个对比—潜鸟叫声的对比
never speak drunk most
of the day
helpless, hopless