Unit 10 The Richer, the Poorer
教学目的 了解作者及其背景知识；
熟悉本文使用的写作手法；
掌握仿拟，提喻，对比等修辞手法；
通过深刻理解文章内涵，培养学生社会洞察力和相关的讨论能力，同
时掌握文中的核心语言点。
教学内容 背景知识介绍
作品赏析
写作技巧
语言理解
教学重点 文学作品的赏析；
文学中的修辞手法―仿拟，提喻，对比等的使用
文章中重点词汇及重点句型的讲解与介绍
教学方法
学时分配
讲授、问答、讨论、模仿、练习
6 学时
Unit 10 The Richer, the Poorer
Background Information(60minutes)
1. Gypsies
Roma (people), commonly known as Gypsies, a traditionally nomadic people found
throughout the world. While the term gypsy is often attached to anyone leading a
nomadic life, the Roma share a common biological, cultural, and linguistic heritage
that sets them apart as a genuine ethnic group. When they first arrived in Europe over
500 years ago, the Roma were called Gypsies in the mistaken belief that they had
come from Egypt. The true origins of the Roma remained a mystery until the late 18th
century, when European linguists discovered connections between the Romani
language and certain dialects spoken in northwestern India. More recent linguistic and
historical studies have confirmed that the Roma originated in India. The world
population of Roma is difficult to establish with any certainty. Estimates suggest that
there are between approximately 15 and 30 million Roma worldwide. Some 10
million Roma live in Europe, and they make up that continent’s largest minority
population. The largest concentrations of Roma are found in the Balkan peninsula of
southeastern Europe, in central Europe, and in Russia and the other successor
republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Smaller numbers are
scattered throughout western Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the
Americas. The Roma are divided into groups sometimes referred to as nations or
tribes. These divisions generally reflect historical patterns of settlement in different
geographic areas. Although historically renowned as wanderers, the vast majority of
modern Roma live in settled communities.
2. Lifestyles in America
1). Lost Generation
Lost Generation, group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris
during the 1920s and 1930s. The group never formed a cohesive literary movement,
but it consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F.
Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams, Thornton Wilder, Archibald MacLeish,
and Hart Crane.
The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who, in
a conversation with Hemingway, used an expression she had heard from a garage
manager, une géneration perdue (“a lost generation”), to refer to expatriate Americans
bitter about their World War I (1914-1918) experiences and disillusioned with
American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The
Sun Also Rises (1926).
Ernest Hemingway
Twentieth-century American author Ernest Hemingway wrote novels and
stories that reflected his rich life experiences as a war correspondent, outdoor
sportsman, and bullfight enthusiast. His writing style is simple yet vivid, and his
characters embody the idea of “grace under pressure.”
2). Beat Generation
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, who met as students at Columbia
University in the 1940s, and San Francisco-based poet and publisher Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore, in the North Beach section of San
Francisco, became a center of Beat culture and remained an enduring symbol of
alternative literature into the 1990s. Another center of Beat activity was New York
City’s East Village, where Ginsberg made his home.
3). hippie
Hippie, member of a youth movement of the late 1960s that was characterized
by nonviolent anarchy, concern for the environment, and rejection of Western
materialism. Also known as flower power, the hippie movement originated in San
Francisco, California. The hippies formed a politically outspoken, antiwar, artistically
prolific counterculture in North America and Europe. Their colorful psychedelic style
was inspired by drugs such as the hallucinogen Lysergic Acid Diethylamid (LSD).
This style emerged in fashion, graphic art, and music by bands such as Love, the
Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Pink Floyd.
Pink Floyd
The British rock group Pink Floyd, left to right, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, Nick
Mason, and Rick Wright, was formed in London, England, in 1965. In 1968 British
guitarist David Gilmour joined the band, with Barrett leaving soon after. One of the
group’s most successful albums was Dark Side of the Moon, from 1973, which spent
15 years as one of the top 200 albums in the United States.
4). yuppie
yuppie
---a Young Upwardly mobile
Professional Person;
---someone under 40 who
prospered during the 1980s
yuppie
---Young Urban Professional
Person
Yuppies are thought to be more conservative than the preceding hippie
generation. Dispensing of the social causes of their more passionate parents (who
themselves shed traditional values), yuppies tend to be 9-5 professional workers.
Because of this, some people see them as sellouts. Yuppies tend to value material
goods (especially trendy new things). In particular this can apply to their stocks,
imported automobiles, development houses, and technological gadgets, particularly
cell phones.
Unfortunately, the fast paced pursuit of these material goods has unintended
consequences. Usually in a hurry, they seek convenience goods and services. Being
"time poor", their family relations can become difficult to sustain. Maintaining their
way of life is mentally exhausting. Sometimes, they will move every few years to
where their job goes, straining their family. The fast-paced lifestyle has been termed a
rat race.
Language points(30minutes)
Vocabulary
1. cashier: teller
2. dime=10 cents: quarter=25 cents nickel=5 cents penny=1 cent
3. dismal: lacking hope or comfort, showing or causing sadness
e.g. in a dismal voice a dismal rainy day
4. errand: a short trip to do sth. for sb.
e.g. Your errand is to mail the letter.
run errand for sb.: to go somewhere for sb. to do sth.
e.g. She looked after babies, she ran errand for the old.
5. giddy: (dizzy) feeling a little sick and unable to balance because everything seems
to be moving
e.g. We looked down from a giddy height.
我们从使人头晕的高处往下看。
6. grieve: to feel extremely sad, esp. when sb. you love has died
e.g. grieved over her father's sudden death
7. indulge: to let yourself do or have what you want even if it is bad for you
indulge in sth. indulge oneself (with sth.)
e.g. They went into town to indulge in some serious shopping.
I indulged myself with a long hot bath
indulge sb. e.g. He even indulged his children.
8. miserly adj. stingy; reluctant to spend money
9. sentimental: too easily affected by tender feelings such as love, sadness, etc. n.
sentiment
10. smart v. to hurt with stinging pain
e.g. The slap delivered to my face smarted.
在我脸上的这一巴掌开始剧烈地疼痛。
“No creature smarts so little as a fool”(Alexander Pope)
“傻瓜是受到精神上折磨最少的”(亚历山大·波普)
11. spree: a short period of time doing sth. you enjoy 狂欢; 纵乐
e.g. He’s out on a spree.
他到外面潇洒去了。
12. threadbare: wore out; in bad condition 破旧的；陈腐的
e.g. threadbare rugs 衣衫褴褛
threadbare excuses 陈腐的借口
Sentence paraphrase(110minutes)
1. Lottie had a bank account that had never grown lean. (para1)
lean adj. small in amount or quality
e.g. lean years 荒年
a lean budget 不宽裕的预算
Lottie always had quite a lot of money deposited in the bank.
2. Bess had the clothes on her back, and the rest of her worldly possessions in an
old suitcase. (para1)
“worldly” means of or related to the material world, here “worldly possessions”
means all the things Bess had
All that Bess had to her name was the clothes she was wearing and an old suitcase
that contained all the other things she owned.
3. run errands for sb. (para3): to go somewhere for sb. to do sth. (e.g. take a
message, buy sth., to deliver goods, etc.)
4. She never touched a penny of her money, though her child’s mouth watered for
ice cream and candy.
water (v.) (esp. of the eyes and mouth) to form or let out water or watery liquid, esp.
tears or saliva（口水）
e.g. At the sight of the roast duck, my mouth watered.
Whenever I pass that factory, my eyes water.
She never spent a penny of what she had earned on ice cream and candy, though as a
child, she wanted very much to have them.
5. When the dimes began to add up to dollars, she lost her taste for sweets. (para4)
add up to: to amount to; to make a total amount of
When her savings grew considerably, she was too old to want candy any more.
6. variety store (para5): a retail store that carries a large variety of usually
inexpensive merchandise
7. She decided to keep her money for clothes. When she entered high school, she
would wear a wardrobe that no one else would be able to match. (para5)
match: (v.) to be as good, interesting, successful, etc. as 比得上
She decided to keep her money to buy clothes when she started high school. Then no
other girls in her school would have more and better clothes to wear than she did.
8. put one’s mind to sth./ set one’s mind on sth. (para6): to concentrate on sth. or to
be determined to achieve sth.
e.g. I’m sure you can do anything if you set your mind on it.
She’s put her mind to improving her pronunciation
9. She made her choice easily. A job in hand was worth two in the future. (para9)
She made her choice without the slightest hesitation. To have a promising job now
was surely far more worthwhile than college.
C.f. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 双鸟在林不如一鸟在手.
10. …, even getting himself and Bess stranded in Europe. (para12)
strand: (vt.) to leave sb. in a place from which they have no way of leaving 使滞
留；to make left on the shore and unable to return to the water 使搁浅 e.g. The
ship was stranded on the island.
Once Harry and Bess were left extremely helpless in Europe, and they didn’t even
have enough money to return home.
11. They were often in rags and never in riches. (para12)
They were often poor and never had much money.
in rags: wearing very old torn clothes 衣衫褴褛
riches: (esp. in written English) large amount of wealth
e.g. She gave away all her riches.
(from) rags to riches: from being extremely poor to being very rich
12. Bess grieved because she had no child, not having sense enough to know she was
better off without them. (para13)
Bess felt very sorry that she had no children. She was not sensible and practical
enough to know that with children, their conditions would have been worse.
sense: good and especially practical understanding and judgment to do sth., often used
in the phrase “have the sense to do sth.).
be better off: to have more money
be better off (doing sth.): used to say that it is better to do sth.
e.g. She is better off without him.
13. Very likely she would have dumped them on Lottie’s doorstep
(para13)
If she had had children, she would very probably have left them with Lottie.
dump sb./ sth.: to get rid of sb./ sth.
14. That Lottie had a doorstep was only …at a price so low and terms so reasonable
that it would have been like losing money to refuse. (para14)
Here “a doorstep” refers to “a house”. In English, a part of an object is often used to
stand for the whole.
e.g. wheels: (informal) a car
engine: (=locomotive) 火车头
C.f. parts of the body can refer to a particular type of people in spoken English:
mind: an intelligent person hand: a person who does physical work
e.g. the great minds of the century
a factory hand
本世纪的大思想家们
一个工厂工人
big mouth: a person who talks too much or too loudly; sb. who tells secrets
loudmouth: a person who talks too much or too loudly
terms: the stated conditions concerning payment, prices, etc.
15. (para18) (all) for nothing: without payment; with no reward or good result
e.g. They volunteered to help and work for nothing.
I stood in line for three hours and all for nothing—the book was sold out.
16. Lottie, trapped by the blood tie, … (para20)
Though Lottie always disapproved of Bess’s way of life, she was well aware that as
sisters they were closely related.
17. (para22) go about sth./ doing sth.: to start working on sth.
e.g. How shall we go about the job?
He went about improving his pronunciation patiently.
18. (para24) play house: a children’s game in which children pretend to be mom or
dad or sb. else housekeeping 过家家
19．Passing her gleaming mirrors, at first with vague awareness, then with painful
clarity, Lottie saw herself as others saw her, and could not stand the sight. (para25)
When she walked past her shiny mirrors, Lottie noticed, at first dimly, then clearly,
how old and wore she looked. She came to know, painfully, exactly how she looked to
others. She disliked her appearance and couldn’t bring herself to look into the mirrors
any more.
20. She went on a spending spree from the specialty shops to beauty salon, emerging
transformed into a woman who believed in miracles. (para26)
Then she began visiting specialty shops and beauty salons, spending money lavishly
and wastefully to improve her looks. It seemed that she had changed into a woman
believing that miracles might happen if you set your mind on it.
specialty shop: a shop that sells particularly fine or excellent goods
beauty salon/parlor/shop: a place where women rare given beauty treatment for the
face, hair, nails, etc.
21. Stiffly she suffered Bess’s embrace, her heart racing harder, her eyes suddenly
smarting from the onrush of cold air. (para28)
She accepted Bess’s warm hug in a formal way. Her heart beat faster and a gust of
cold wind stung her eyes.
stiff: lacking ease; rigidly formal
suffer: (formal) to accept without dislike or complaint
smart: to hurt with stinging pain
onrush: a strong fast movement forward
22. With the glow of good food in her stomach, Bess began to tell stories.
glow: to give out light or heat 发光; 放热
After the good dinner, Bess’s spirits returned and she began to tell her sister about her
life over the years.
23. They were rich with places and people, most of them lowly, all of them
magnificent. (para30)
She and Harry had been to many places and met a lot of people, though most of them
belonged to low social classes, they were all very wonderful.
24. Her face reflected the joys and sorrows of her remembering, and above all, the
love she lived by that enhanced the poorest place, the humblest person. (para30)
As she talked, Lottie could see that the years she had lived with Harry was full of both
joys and sorrows, and that the most important thing was his love for her. This love had
made the poorest place a paradise and the second-rate horn player, her husband, a
perfect man to her.
the love she lived by: the love that she maintained life with (她藉以维持生命的爱情)
enhance: to increase good qualities in sb. or sth.
25. “How have the years used you?” (para32)
“How have you been over the years?”
use sb.: (formal) to treat a person in a stated way
e.g. She thought that she had been ill used.
His boss is using him shamefully.
26. I know I’m too old to kick up my heels, but I’m going to let you show me how.
(para34)
I know I’m too old to change my way of life and learn to enjoy myself, but I hope
you’ll teach me how.
kick up one’s heels: (AmE, informal) to be relaxed and enjoy oneself
e.g. She’s a workaholic and doesn’t know how to kick up her heels.
她是个工作狂,不懂得如何享受生活.
He plans to kick up his heels and go on a trip to Europe when he finishes his book.
C.f. kick one’s heels: (BrE) to have nothing to do while waiting for sb./sth. 空等
e.g. We’re just kicking our heels until the next semester begins.
27. If I land on my head, I guess it won’t matter. I feel giddy already, and I like it.
(para34)
I’m determined to start a new life at any cost. I feel happy and excited already, and I
like the feeling.
land on one’s hand: to result in an unpleasant situation
feel giddy: to feel so happy and excited that one can’t behave normally.
Writing Techniques( 25minutes)
1. parody
Parody(仿拟）, comic imitation of a piece of writing. The term has come to be
applied also to the comic imitation of history, fiction, scientific writing, or any other
prose. The essence of parody is the treatment of a light theme in the style appropriate
to a serious work. The humor lies in the contrast between subject matter and the
treatment of it.
In parody, the theme and the characters are greatly modified or completely
changed, but the style of the original is closely followed in those peculiarities that
easily lend themselves to ridicule.
eg.
1). Familiarity breeds contempt.
(old saying )
Quality breeds success.
(ad for Ford )
2). Necessity is the mother of invention. (from Aesop’s Fable )
Failure is the mother of success.
3). A bird in hand is worth two in the woods. (saying)
A job in hand was worth two in the future.
4).Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you’re!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
(The Star by Jane Taylor)
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly
Like a teatray in the sky. (from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol)
2. synecdoche（提喻）
Synecdoche, figurative locution whereby the part is made to stand for the whole,
the whole for a part, the species for the genus, and vice versa.
Thus, in the phrase “50 head of cattle,” ”head” is used to mean whole animals, and in
the sentence “The president's administration contained the best brains in the
country”,brain is used for intellectually brilliant persons..
eg.
That Lottie had a doorstep was only because her boss…
doorstep
a house
more examples:
wheels
car (infml )
engine
locomotive (a vehicle that pulls a train)
mind
an intelligent person
hand
a person who does physical work
big mouth
a person who talks too much or too loudly someone who tells secrets
loudmouth a person who talks too much or too loudly
3. contrast
eg. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of laboring those problems
which divides us.
(John F. Kennedy)
Your knowledge of English “tells” you that certain strings of phonemes are
permissible and others are not.
(Victoria Franklin)
Text Analysis (10minutes)
1. Structure
Part One:(para. 1) the two sisters’ contrasting financial conditions in old age
Part Two: (para. 2-19) recall on every earlier crucial stage of their lives
Part Three: (Para. 20-34) their reunion in old age and similar opinions they share
on life
Assignment
What’s your attitude toward life? What do you think of Lottie and Bess?
Finish the exercises in the textbook.
Reference Books:
宋兴蕴
杨立民
胡文仲
《现代大学英语全程辅导》
《现代大学英语教师用书》
《英美文化辞典》
辽宁师范大学出版社
外语教学与研究出版社
外语教学与研究出版社