• Title: The
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Bluest Eye
----------Toni Morrison
Teaching Aims: The teaching of this lesson aims
to enable students to master:
• 1 20 key words and about 100 other new words
• 2 20 key phrases and their translations
• 3 the way of analyzing the usage of metaphor in
this lesson
• 4 the way of dividing the lesson
• 5 the skills of translation in ten sentences
• 6 the main idea stated by the author
• The teaching of this lesson is divided into five
parts
Part One: Background
Information(in one period)
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In this part, the teacher and the students are working together to offer as much
information as possible in one period. Information comes in all directions. In this way ,
views of the students can be broadened and versions of the world can be easily seen.
We follow two procedures:
I: The teacher gives a brief introduction about the background information and guides
the students to the text by asking some questions.
Toni Morrison was born in Ohio in 1931.
This text is taken from her first novel The Bluest Eye (1970).
This novel is divided into four parts which were named after four seasons:
autumn( she went into the society with a wish that she would have the bluest eyes some
day; winter(she was suffering parents’ beating, classmates’ scorn and adults’ coldness
and was raped by her father); spring(she was pregnant); summer( she gave birth to a
baby who was dead when she was 13). In the end she went into insanity.
Seasons----nature----law----inevitable
Desire for the bluest eye: symbolize black people’s confusion and dislocation of values
when their own culture are restrained and restricted.
Centre on eye : symbolize how black people observe and perceive the white people’s
world
Her longing for eye: symbolize that she wanted to accept white people’s culture and
wanted to observe the world with their eyes
Her theme: history, destiny and spirit, or mental world
The people in today’s lesson :Louis and his wife, Geraldine with a son named Junior,
Pecola
• II: Some students are asked to introduce some
important notes because they have got some
relevant information from the internet to help
understand the lesson.
• 1 About the author:
• Present the picture downloaded from the
internet and try to make the author impressive in
the students’ minds.
• 2 brown girls
• 3 Lifebuoy soap, Cashmere Bouquet talc,
Jergens Lotion, Dixie Peach
• 4 Washington Irving School
Part Two Detailed Study of the
Text(in six periods)
• In this part, the teacher finishes the explanation of words, sentences, grammar
in six periods.
• Approaches used in this part:
• 1 Raising questions to make the students think differently;
• 2 Explaining some points;
• 3 Discussing some topics in pairs or with the teacher
• 4 Communicating with the students by repeating some words, some sentences
or some explanations.
• 5 Asking volunteers to read each paragraph or asking them to read together.
• 6 Asking them to summarize the main idea in each paragraph and in each
section separately
• 7 Asking them to seek some transitional paragraphs or sentences
• 8 Asking them to analyze the rhetorical speeches used in some sentences and
master the skills used in organizing the ideas.
• 9 Asking them to paraphrase as many sentences as possible
• 10 Making them pay attention to the special usages of some common words
Detailed Study of the Text
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PartⅠ(paras.1--9)
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1.How is the text structured?
Taken from a novel, our text is not exactly like a complete, well-structured story. We
may roughly divide the text into two parts. Paragraphs 1—9, which form the first
section, describe a type of characters—the brown girls. Part two , which begins from
Paragraph 10,tells the story about what happens to the little black girl Pocola in the
house of such a brown girl.
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Para.1
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2.They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From
Meridian.
(1)They refer to a character type the author describes in this passage. The author points
out, ”They are thin brown girls who have looked long at hollyhocks in the backyards of
Meridian, Mobile, Aiken, and Baton Rouge. ”(Para.2)These brown girls have lighter
skins than other black people because of their mixed blood. Many of them are
descendents of former slaves who were house servants. Working in the house rather than
in the fields, they were closer to their white slave owners than the field Negroes. It was a
common thing for a white master to have babies with black maids. These house servants
usually felt superior to field Negroes .
(2)The author mentions several places: Mobile(in southwest Alabama),Aiken(in west
South Carolina) ,Newport News(in southeast Virginia),Marietta(in northwest Georgia)
and Meridian(in east Mississippi). There is one thing in common among them, that
is .they are all towns in the Deep South, where slavery and the plantation system existed
before the Civil War .The setting of the novel The Bluest eye is an industrial town called
Lorain in Ohio, which is in Midwest and different from the Deep South .
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3.And the sounds of these places in their mouths make you think of love .
When the brown girls pronounce the names of these places, they are full of
affection and make other people associate these places with love.
4...they tilt their heads and say “Mobile” and you think you’ve been kissed.
They say “Mobile” with pride. ”You think you’ve been kissed “is another
way of saying “the sounds of these places in their mouths make you think of
love”.
5.They say ”Aiken ”and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn
wing.
(1) glance off: to hit a surface at an angle and then move away from it in
another direction
(2)a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn wing: Here the author uses
a butterfly with a torn wing as a metaphor, meaning fragile beauty.
(3)The implied meaning is that life in the Deep South seems romantic and fills
them with sentimental nostalgia, although life there is not easy.
6.”Yes,I will.”
Again, this is associated with “love ”.When a man proposes marriage, he asks
the woman, ”Will you marry me?” If the woman agrees to marry him ,her
answer will be :”Yes ,I will,”
7...but you love what happens to the air when they open their lips and let the
names ease out.
That means they say those names in a very gentle and tender manner.
• Para.2
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8. How does the author describe the brown girls from the Deep South cities in
Paragraph 2?
In this paragraph the author gives a general picture of who these brown girls are ,
what they are like, and how they live. The descriptions show that they are thoroughly
assimilated into the white, middle-class way of life.
9. The sound of it opens the windows of a room like the first four notes
of a hymn.
hymn: a song of praise to God
When one sings a hymn, the very first four notes will fill one’s heart with an are of
freshness, just like opening a window of a room. The sound of the four-syllable name of
Meridian has the same effect.
10. Perhaps because they don’t have home towns, just places where they were born.
(1)This is perhaps because they only have places of birth, but not places where they
feel at home and which they identify themselves with.
(2)This sentence presumes that America is a mobile society in which people tend to
move around instead of staying at one place all their lives. Note the difference between a
place where one was born and a hometown. In American culture, a hometown may or
may not be one’s place of birth. It is a place of personal experiences, a place where one
feel most at home and which one identifies with most. In Chinese culture one’s
hometown is one’s place of birth or one’s ancestral place along with one’s family and
cultural roots.
11.but these girls soak up the juice of their home towns, and it never leaves them.
(1)juice: the essence of anything;(slang) power and influence
(2)but these girls are strongly influenced by their hometown, and the influence stays
with them forever even after they leave their hometown.
12.they have the eyes of people who can tell what time it is but the color of the sky.
他们的眼睛可以根据天空的颜色判断是什么时间了。
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13. Such girls live in quiet black neighborhoods where everybody is gainfully
employed, where there are porch swings hanging from chains. Where the grass is
cut with a scythe, where rooster combs and sunflowers grow Internet
The yards and pots of bleeding heart, ivy, and mother in-law tongue line the steps
and windowsills.
where everybody is gainfully employed: where everybody has good and steady job
每个人都有一份好工作
gainful: producing gain, profitable
porch swings hanging from chains:
rooster comb: also called cockscomb, rooster comb is an ornamental plant of the
amaranth family, with tight clusters of red, pink or yellow flower heads somewhat
like a rooster’s crest.
Bleeding heart: native to woodlands, bleeding heart is a common garden perennial
plant with the unique flowers which resemble tiny pink or white hearts with drops
of blood at the bottom.
Mother-in-law tongue: a tropical perennial plant. It is said the plant is called
mother-in-law’s tongue because the liquid this plant contains is so poisonous that a
small dose of it in coffee or other drinks would paralyze the vocal cords of the
person drinking it.
All the details about the quiet black neighborhoods, porch swings, neatly cut grass,
and potted plants lining the steps and windowsills indicate that these brown girls
live in pretty houses, according to the white middle-class values, a pretty and
comfortable house is one of the essentials of a happy home. In the primer used at
the beginning of the novel, the first thing of the happy family is a pretty house:
“ here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty.”
14 they have put in the window the cardboard sign that has a pound measure
printed on each of three edges—10 lbs., 50lbs.—and No ICE on the fourth.
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(1) in those days when refrigerators were not available, iceboxes were used for keeping
food cool. Every day the iceman would come to sell or deliver ice. These people, who could
afford to buy ice, would put up a cardboard sign in the window to tell the iceman if they
needed ice that day and how much. If they needed 25 pounds that day, they would turn
the cardboard sign in a way so that the edge with 25 lbs. would be shown on the top of the
sign in an upright position. The edges with 10 lbs. and 50 lbs. would be on the side while
No ICE would be upside down. And the iceman would know that he should deliver 25
pounds of ice.
(2) 他们在窗上挂了一块硬纸板做的牌子,上面的三边分别写着10磅, 25磅, 第四边写着
“不要冰块”.
15 these particular brown girls from Mobile and Aiken are not like some of their sisters.
In a small town, the black people usually live close together within a few blocks in a
neighborhood. They have a strong sense of neighborhood, or community. The women call
one another “sister”. The brown girls from places like Mobile and Aiken are different
from and feel superior to the other girls of their own race.
16 they are as sweet and plain as battercake.
(1) battercake: a plain cake made of flour, sugar and butter
(2) the author compares these brown girls to a battercake, describing them as being sweet
but plain and ordinary, lacking special or exciting qualities.
17 they wash themselves with orange-colored Lifebuoy soap, dust themselves with
Cashmere Bouquet talc, clean their teeth with salt on a piece of rag, soften their skin with
Jargons Lotion.
Lifebuoy soap, Cashmere Bouquet talc and Jargons Lotion are toilet articles that cost
more and represent prestige, and are used by middle-class white people. These brown
girls try to imitate the middle-class whites and to make themselves clean and pretty
according the standards of beauty set by the dominant culture.
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18 they straighten their hair with Dixie Peach, and part it on the side.
Like people of any race, the African-American people are born with certain physical traits.
They have dark skin, broad nose, thick lips and kinky hair, some black people try to alter
their appearance and look more like white people because they are told that white is
beautiful while black is ugly. so , they whiten the skin, or have surgery that makes the nose
narrower and higher, or straighten their hair and maybe dye it blond. Here in this story, the
brown girls straighten their naturally curled hair With Dixie Peach and part it on the side.
These acts reflect the self-contempt existing in some African-Americans.
19. they do not drink, smoke, or swear, and they still call sex “nosey”.
Drinking, smoking and swearing are considered to be bad behavior. Therefore these brown
girls don’t drink, smoke or swear. They still think sex is vulgar and indecent. This is another
example showing how the brown girls try to meet the conventional puritanical codes of
moral conduct.
20 they sing second soprano in the choir, and although their voices are clear and steady,
they are never picked to solo.
(1) second soprano: 第二女高音
(2) choir: a group of singers organized and trained to sing together, especially in a church
(3) solo: to perform a solo 独唱
(4) a choir of a black church is quite different from a choir of a white church. The former is
much more lively and sings with passion, if any of our students have seen the movie “Sister
Act” starring the famous black actress Whoop Goldberg, they should remember how the
black choir sings with vitality and passion. Although their voices are clear and steady, the
brown girls in our story can only sing the second not the first soprano, not picked to
perform a solo because the solo performer, who plays the leading role in the choir, should
have not only a good voice, but also great passion. The brown girls may have the former but
not the latter.
21 they are in the second row, white blouses starched, blue skirts almost purple from
ironing. This is another detail showing these girls are neat and well-behaved.
• Para. 3
• 22. what does the author tell us about the brown girls in paragraphs 3
and 4?
• In these two paragraphs the author shows that these brown girls have
not only assimilated the way of life but also the ideology of the white
middle-class. They receive more formal school education than their
poorer sisters, and as a result they are more alienated from their black
cultural heritage and try to “get rid of the funkiness of passion, the
funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human
emotions”.
• 23 they go to land-grant colleges, normal school, and learn how to do
the white man’s work with refinement: home economics to prepare his
food; teacher education to instruct black children in obedience; music
to soothe the weary master and entertain his blunted soul.
• (1) land-grant: an appropriation of public land by the government for a
railroad, State college, etc. Land-grant colleges and universities were
originally founded as of the 1860s by such government land grants on
condition that they offer instruction in agriculture and the mechanical
arts. They are now supported by the individual States and they cost less
than the more prestigious private colleges.
• (2) home economics: a science and art of homemaking, including
nutrition, clothing, budgeting, and child care
• (3) as these brown girls are from relatively better-off families,
they receive more education than the worse-off blacks. They
usually go to land-grant colleges or normal schools where
teachers are trained. The purpose of their education is to
prepare them to serve the white man with refinement. They
major in home economics to do housekeeping for their masters.
They are educated to be teachers so that they will teach the
black children to be obedient. They are trained in music in order
to entertain the white masters.
• (4)他们就度于政府拔地建造的大学以及师范学院.他们学习如何
把服务白人的工作做得更细致:学家政是为了给他们烧饭做菜;
学当老师是为了教育黑人孩子顺从;学音乐是为了让疲惫的主人
身心放松,为他那已麻木的灵魂提供消遣.
• 24.the careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and
good manners.
• This is an incomplete sentence. A complete sentence would be:
the education they receive at home and at school helps them
with a careful development of patience, high morals, and good
manners.
• 25. in short, how to get rid of the funkiness.
• (1)this is another incomplete sentence. A complete sentence would
be: in short, the whole purpose of their education is to get rid of the
funkiness. In the author’s opinion, getting rid of the funkiness is
alienating from the black cultural heritage.
• (2) funkiness: see Note 12 to the text. “funkiness” is obviously an
important word in our text. It is repeated three times in the next
sentence, and the word “funk” is capitalized in paragraph 4. yet, it is
hard to explain the exact meaning of this term, and even harder to
find a single Chinese equivalent for it. “funky” has several
meanings. It is associated with a jazz style having an earthy quality
derived from early blues or gospel music. It may mean
unconventional, eccentric, offbeat, etc. it also may mean very
emotional, informal, relaxed, casual, etc. Funk is associated with
spontaneity and sensuality. A number of Chinese terms may be
applied to describe “funky”
• 26 the dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the
funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.
• The word “dreadful” is said in an ironical tone. That is to say, in the
eyes of the middle-class white people and in the eyes of the brown
girls, the funkiness of passion, nature and a wide range of human
emotions is dreadful. Therefore, “wherever it erupts” they “wipe it
away”. (para.4)
• Para.4
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27, wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; wherever it crusts, they dissolve it;
wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle
all the way to the grave.
(1) erupt: to burst forth or out as from some restraint
(2) crust: to fall in drops
(3) drip: to fall in drops
(4) flower: to bloom; to reach the best or most vigorous stage
(5) cling: to hold fast; to stay
(6) the brown girls try hard to repress their emotions and passions. However, these natural
human emotions cannot be wiped out totally. Sometimes they will emerge and burst out. And
they will develop, become stronger and stay with them. So whenever and wherever this funk
bursts out, the brown girls will do their best to stifle it. Then it emerges again, and they will
kill it again. The brown girls have to fight the battle constantly all their lives because
funkiness comes back naturally.
28. the laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little
generous.
They make sure that they don’t laugh too loudly, don’t speak with their mouths opened too
round, and don’t make too generous gestures.
29 they hold their behind in for fear of a sway too free…
(1) behind: (informal) bottom, buttocks
(2) for fear of a sway too free: if a woman walks with a free sway, moving her buttocks from
side to side too much, she will be considered to be sexy. And this is what the brown girls try to
avoid. So they hold their buttocks in when walking.
30…when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick… as
they have thick lips, the brown girls try to make their lips appear not so thick by covering only
part of their lips with lipstick.
31…and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair.
What worries them most is their hair, which curls up at the edges. In paragraph 2, we see the
brown girls straighten their hair with Dixie Peach, and part it on the side like white girls.
• Para.5
• 32．What is Paragraph 5 about?
• This paragraph tells us although these brown girls never seem
to have boy friends; they always marry and become good
housewives. Several concrete examples are given to show that
these women are good at housekeeping. Note that the author
begins to shift the plural “they” to the singular “she” in this
paragraph, preparing for talking about one of such girls named
Geraldine from Paragraph 10.
• 33. There will be pretty paper flowers decorating the picture of
his mother.
• The paper flowers imply that these girls’ way of life is not
natural but artificial, in contrast to the funk.
• 34.... that their Sunday shirts will billow on hangers from the
door jamb, stiffly starched and white.
• On Sundays, people go to church in their Sunday best. Men
usually wear white shirts. In the morning, the wife gets the
husband’s white shirt ready. She has starched it stiff and put it
on hangers on the door jamb for the husband to put on before
going to church.
• Para. 6
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35. What does the author tell us in Paragraphs 6---9?
What men do not know is that the brown girl will make her home her own
inviolable world against any outsider, even against her husband. She runs the
house in her own way. Although she keeps the house clean and tidy, she does
not give it any warmth.
36. What they do not know is that this plain brown girl will build her nest stick
by stick, make it her own inviolable world, and stand guard over its every
plant, weed, and doily, even against him.
(1) “What they do not know’ is linked with the last sentence of the previous
paragraph. Although they are right in thinking that the brown girl can keep
the house well and bear children easily, they do not know the brown girl will
build her nest bit by bit and defend it as her own fortress world.
(2) 他们有所不知的是,这个相貌平常,褐色皮肤的女孩将一点一点地筑起她的
小巢,把家变成她自己的,不可侵犯的小天地. 她守护着家里的一草一木,甚至对
她的丈夫都有所防范.
37.A sidelong look ill be enough to tell him to smoke on the back porch
(1) She loves cleanness and does not allow smoking in her house. She has so
much authority in the home that a sideways look will be enough to tell him to
smoke on the back porch.
(20) 她只需斜眼看他一下,他就知道该到房后的走廊上去抽烟.
38.Nor do they know that she will give him her body sparingly and partially.
As the brown girl defines sex as vulgar and indecent, she will not enjoy
normal sexual life thoroughly and wholly but will restrain herself in making
love with husband.
• Para.7
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39. What is Paragraph 7 about?
In this paragraph the author describes how a cat might engage the brown girl’s affections. In
her stifled womanhood, she denies herself of normal sensual experience and therefore can only
find occasional sensual delight in a cat.
40.Occasionally some living thing will engage her affections.
(1) engage: to attract ,hold(the attention. etc)
(2) affection: fond or tender feeling
(3) In Paragraphs 5 and 6 we see how the brown girl takes good care of everything in the house.
She “stands guard over its every plant, weed, and doily’. But none of them are warm and alive.
Occasionally some living thing, a cat, will engage her affections.
41. At her gentlest touch he will preen, stretch, an open his mouth.
(1) This shows the cat responds to her gentle touch with delight and satisfaction.
(2)当他请轻轻地扶摸他时,他会满意地舔着毛,伸着懒腰,张开嘴巴.
42. And she will accept the strangely pleasant sensation that comes when he writhes beneath her
hand and flattens his eyes with a surfeit of sensual delight.
(1) writhe: to make twisting or turning movements
(2) surfeit: too great an amount; excess
(3)Note the use of the expressions of “pleasant sensation” and “sensual delight”. Sensual
pleasures or delights are eruptions of the funkiness. The brown girl attempts to stifle them
consciously. But she is a human being after all. Subconsciously she still wants them. As she can’t
enjoy them in her relationship with her husband in a normal and healthy way, she accepts them
as they come when she is playing with the cat.
The next sentence gives more details about her sensual delight with the cat. From these detailed
descriptions we can see the brown girl transfers her sensual pleasures that she ought to share
with her husband to an animal. By describing her affections for the cat the author intends to
show how the false social values can distort womanhood. Internet
This sense, the brown girls are victims of false social values. At the same time, as we see in later
passages this distorted personality victimizes other people.
• Para 8
• 43…she sits reading the “uplifting thoughts” in
THE LIBEITY MAGAZINE…
• “uplifting thoughts”: see Note 13 to the text
• 44. she will fondle that soft hill of hair…
• Soft hill of hair: hair like a soft hill 像小山一样的
软毛
• 45…when the intruder comes home from work…
• The intruder is her husband. She has built her
nest, in which the only living thing that engages
her affections is the cat. Before her husband
comes home she has played and dozed with the
cat.
• Para9
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46. for she does bear a child easily, and painlessly. but only one. A
son, Named Junior.
She gives birth to only one child, a son, to fulfill her wifely duty.
Actually she is not interested in children and has no real affections for
them, so she will not have more than one child if she can help it. The
son is named Junior after his father, indicating the continuity of the
family line.
• Para. 10
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47. What is the function of Paragraph 10?
This paragraph serves as a transition from the discussion of the
brown girls Internet
General to focusing on one particular brown girl-Geraldine, who lives
in Lorain Ohio with her husband Louis and her son Louis Junior.
48. One such girl… who did not seat in her armpits nor between her
thighs, who smelled of wood and vanilla…
Who smelled of wood and vanilla: 散发出木头和香草的味道
49．There she built her nest, ironed shirts, potted bleeding hearts,
played with her cat, and birthed Louis Junior.
She is one of the regular brown girls who live a meaningless and
monotonous life.
• Para. 11
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50. Geraldine did not allow her baby, Junior, to cry.
Like a typical brown girl, Geraldine did not allow any natural feelings to express themselves.
So she even didn’t allow her baby to cry.
51. As long as his needs were physical, she could meet them-comfort and satiety.
(1) physical as opposed to emotion. She could only satisfy his physical needs such as his desire
for food, clothing, toys, etc. The implied meaning is that as a mother, she failed to meet her
son’s emotional needs.
(2) satiety: the state of being satiated
(3) if his needs were physical, she could meet them. She could make him comfortable and give
him enough or even more than enough to satisfy his physical needs.
52, Getaldine did not talk to him, coo to him, or indulge him in kissing bouts, but she saw that
every other desire was fulfilled.
(1) bout: a period of time taken by some activity
E.g.: a bout of shopping
(2) this sentence shows that Geraldine failed to give her baby tender, motherly love.
(3)她不对他讲话,不柔声哄他、宠他。但是她能确保他的其他要求都得到满足。
53. as he grew older, he learned how to direct his hatred of his mother to the cat, and spent
some happy moments watching it suffer.
(1) the absence of love breeds hatred. As the boy did nit know what to do about the situation,
he learned to direct his hatred to the cat, which he taught had robbed him of his mother’s
affections, and which was weaker and more helpless than he. It is terrible for a child to
harbor hatred for his mother, and it is even more terrible for a child to direct his hatred to a
cat. With this detail, the author shows that the distorted motherhood further distorted the
personality of the child. This detail also prepares the reader for what is going to happen late
in the story.
(2)当他大一点时, 他学会了如何把对妈妈的仇恨发泄到猫的身上,.当他看到那只猫受折磨时,
他开心极了.
• Para12
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54. junior considered the playground his own, and the schoolchildren coveted his
freedom to sleep late, so home for lunch, and dominate the playground after school.
小路易把运动场看成是自己的,小学生们都羡慕他有这么多自由,可以睡懒觉,可以
回家吃午饭,放学后还能控制运动场.
55. he hated to see the swings, slides, monkey bars, and seesaws empty…
Monkey bars: an arrangement of horizontal and vertical bars erected as in a
playground for children to climb on, swing from, etc.
56.white kids; his mother did not like him to play with niggers.
The author emphasizes that the kids playing with him were white kids because his
mother did not like him to play with black children., the word “nigger”, originally
simply a dialectal variant of “Negro”, is today accepted only in black English; in all
other contexts it is now generally regarded as virtually taboo because of the legacy
of racial hatred that underlies the history of its use among whites. The narrator
suggests that Geraldine used the word “ nigger”, speaking like a racist white
person, when she told her son not to play with black kids.
57. she had explained to him the difference between colored people and niggers.
(1) the definition of “colored” is of a group other than the Caucassoid, in north
America, the term is mainly applied to the blacks several terms have been used to
refer to the American black people. “colored People (NAACP), found in 1990 by
W.E.B. Du Bois and some other social reformers,. The word “negro” is defined as a
member of any of the indigenous, dark-skinned people of Africa, living chiefly
south of the Sahara Desert, or a person having some African ancestors; a black. As
explained above, “nigger” was originally a variant of “Negro” but is now a taboo,
an extremely offensive word for a black person. “black” is widely used.
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Not only to refer to a black person but in certain set phrases connected with the
black people such as black power, meaning political and economic power as
sought but black people such as black power, meaning political and economic
power as sought by black which is precise in meaning and connotes no prejudice.
(2) when Geraldine explained the difference between colored people and niggers,
she tried to distinguish the black people with brown skins like herself from the
rest of the other black people, implying the blacks with lighter skins wrier
superior to those with darker skins.
58. … his hair was cut as close to his scalp as possible to avoid any suggestion of
wool, the part was etched into his hair b the barber.
(1) in paragraph 2, we see how the brown girls straighten their hair with Dixie
Peach, and part it on the side. Geraldine must have done this to her hair Now she
was trying to make her son’s hair appear less like that of a back boy by having
his hair cut short so that it was not long enough to curl up like wool and having a
part cut into his hair by the barber.
(2) etch: to make a drawing, design, etc. on metal, glass, etc. by the action of an
acid, especially by coating the surface with was and letting acid eat into the lines
or areas laid bare with a special needle; here used metaphorically to refer to the
action of the barbers scissors
(3) 他的头发肩的很段，仅仅贴着头皮，这样就显不出像羊毛般卷曲的样子，
发缝是理发师特意修出来的。
59．The line between colored and nigger was not always clear; subtle and telltale
signs threatened to erode it, and the watch had to be constant.
(1) telltale: revealing what is meant to be kept a secret
(2)有色人与黑人的界线并不总是分明， 一些微妙的，能暴露秘密的迹象可能
造成这一界线模糊不清，所以要时时当心才是。
• Para.13
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60, more than anything in the world he wanted to play King of the Mountain and have
them push him down the mound of dirt and roll over him.
(1) king of the Mountain : a game in which each player attempts to climb to the top of
a mound of earth and to prevent all others from pushing or pulling home off the top
(2)Geraldine put ideas of racial prejudice into her sons mind. She also taught him to
avoid the funkiness. When he was still a normally and innocent boy, he used to long to
play with the black boys, and he experienced pleasure in playing with them. According
to the brown girls, this was and instance of the eruption of the funkiness. Geraldine
helped her son to get rid of it eventually.
(3) 有色人和黑人的界限并不总是分明，一些微妙的，能暴露秘密的迹象可能造成这
一界限模糊不清，所以要时时当心。
61. smell their wild blackness
闻到他们身上的野味
62. He wanted to sit with them on curbstones and compare the sharpness of
jackknives, the distance and arcs of spitting.
Several details are mentioned here to show Junior was a normal boy and would have
enjoyed doing things just as any other naughty boys would like to do.
他想和他们坐在马路的石牙上，比谁的折叠刀最锋利，谁的唾沫吐得最远，弧线最
好。
63. He played only with Ralph Nisensky, who was two years younger, wore glasses, and
didn’t want to do anything.
Judging from the name, Nisensky was a whire boy of European descent. He was
different from the black boys Junior used in play with. He wore glasses, suggesting he
was a good pupil who read a lot, and he was not wild or funky, but neat and quiet, and
he didn’t want to do any of the things Junior would have liked to do with black boys.
In short, he was just the type of boy Geraldine wanted her son to mix with.
• Para.14
• 64. When the mood struck him, he would call a child passing by
to come play on the swings or the seesaw
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When the mood struck him: 当他来情绪时（或：当他心血来潮
时）
• Para.15
• 65. Alternately bored and frightened at home, the playground
was his joy.
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当他在家感到无聊，或者挨了责骂时，运动场就成了他的全部欢
乐所在。
• 66. She kept her head down as she walded. He had seen her
many times before, standing alone
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Always alone, at recess. Nobody ever played with her.
Probably, he thought, because she was ugly.
• at recess
• The black girl kept her head down, showing she was very timid
and frightened. She was very lonely, too. At recess kids played
together, but nobody ever played with her. She was “ugly:”
because she was very black. All the kids, including Pecola
herself, thought so because all of them were educated to
internalize the white values that dictate standards of beauty.
• Para.27
• 67. “ No. What is it?”
• When Junior asked, “Say, you want to see something?”
Pecola knew she’d better avoid thisboy by declining the offer,
and so she answered “No” . But she couldn’t help asking,
“What is it?” out of curiosity like any other kid.
• Para.31
• 68. “Real kittens?”
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Little girls usually like kittens. Real kittens were too great a
temptation for Pecola to resist.
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The mention of kittens reminds the reader of the primer at
the beginning of the novel, which says, “ See Jane. She has a
red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See
the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with
Jane.” After reading this part of the story, we know the author
uses the primer ironically.
• Para.33
• 69. He held the door open for her, smiling his encouragement.
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Smile his encouragement: 他用微笑来鼓励她
• Para.35
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70. How beautiful, she thought. What a beautiful house.
When Pocola stepped into the house, she saw how pretty it was, and she was
amazed at its beauty. As she was admiring the pretty house , suddenly Junior threw
a big cat in her face. Of course, it never occurred to Pocola that such a terrible thing
would take place in this beautiful house.
71.There was a big red-and-gold Bible on the dining-room table. A color picture of
Jesus Christ hung on a wall with the prettiest paper flowers fastened on the frame.
The Bible , containing all the important teachings of Jesus Christ, is a symbol of
Christian faith. However, the big red-and-gold Bible placed on the most
conspicuous place in the room had become a showpiece. For the same purpose of
showing off, a color picture of Jesus Christ hung on a wall with pretty paper
flowers. It’s easy to see the irony here because Jesus. Christ teaches love of one
another, love of your neighbors, but what Junior and his mother did to Pocola later
before the picture of Jesus is just the opposite. They have nothing but hatred for
this little black girl.
72. She was deep in admiration of the flowers when Junior said, “Here!”
她深深地沉浸在对花的欣赏之中，突然，小路易喊道：“给你！”
he screeched.
To screech is to make a very unpleasant, high noise with one’s voice, especially
because one is angry.
She sucked inn her breath in fear and surprise and felt fur in her mouth.
她又惊又怕，倒吸了口气， 这时她感到嘴里有猫毛。
The cat clawed her face and chest in an effort to right itself, then leaped nimbly to
the fuller.
– right itself: to restore itself in an upright or proper position
– 那猫抓她的脸和胸，拼命想站稳，然后敏捷地跳到地面上
• Para.36
• Junior was laughing and running around the room clutching
his stomach delightedly.
• Junior was laughing so hard that his stomach ached. So he
was running around the room clutching his stomach
delightedly.
• Para.37
• “You can’t get out. You’re my prisoner,” he said. His eyes were
merry but hard.
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(1) It’s terrible to see how a child could take delight in
torturing another child. It proved Junior to be a cruel, heartless
boy. His character was all distorted. By describing this cruel
act, the author shows what pernicious impact a loveless
mother could have on her child. In the primer used as an
introduction to the novel, there are these lines: “here comes a
friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will play a good
game.” Junior, instead of being a friend who would play with
Pecola, play a nasty trick on her, and treated her cruelly as his
prisoner.
• (2) His eyes were merry but hard.
• 他的眼睛既快活又冷酷。
• Para.37
• “You can’t get out. You’re my prisoner,” he said. His eyes were
merry but hard.
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(1) It’s terrible to see how a child could take delight in
torturing another child. It proved Junior to be a cruel, heartless
boy. His character was all distorted. By describing this cruel
act, the author shows what pernicious impact a loveless
mother could have on her child. In the primer used as an
introduction to the novel, there are these lines: “here comes a
friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will play a good
game.” Junior, instead of being a friend who would play with
Pecola, play a nasty trick on her, and treated her cruelly as his
prisoner.
• (2) His eyes were merry but hard.
• 他的眼睛既快活又冷酷。
• Para.39
• 78. Pecola’s banging on the door increased his gasping, highpitched laughter.
• (1) his gasping, high-pitched laughter: Junior laughed
hysterically.
• (2)佩克拉拼命拍门，这让他笑得更厉害了。他尖声笑着，几乎
• Para40
• 79 the blue eyes in the black face held her.
• (1) What Pecola desired most was a pair of blue eyes. Now she
saw the blue eyes in the black face of the cat and she was
attracted by them.
• (2)黑猫脸上的蓝眼睛吸引了她的注意力。
• Para.41
• 80. he saw the cat stretching its head and flattening its eyes.
• Flatten its eyes:眯起眼睛
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• Para.42
• 81. His voice changed suddenly, when he saw the cat stretching
its head and flattening its eyes, he suddenly became very angry
because he had seen that expression many times as the animal
responded to his mother’s touch. Until this moment he had
watched Pecola suffer with delight.
• 82. With a movement both awkward and sure he snatched the
cat by one of his hind legs and began to swing it around his head
in a circle.
• 他用一个既别扭又有把握的动作抓住猫的一条腿，开始在头顶上
一圈一圈地抡。
• Para.43
• 83 the cat’s free paws were stiffened, ready to
grab anything to restore balance, its mouth wide,
its eyes blue streaks of horror.
• 那只猫没被抓住的爪子变的僵硬，时刻准备抓住
任何可以使他恢复平衡的物体，它的嘴巴大张
着，眼睛闪者一道道恐怖的蓝光。
• Para.44
• 84. They both fell, and in falling, Junior let go the
cat, which, having been released in mid-motion,
was thrown full force against the window.
• 他们俩都摔倒了，小路易到下去时撒开了抓猫的
手，那猫在转了一半时突然放开了，结果，它结
结实实地摔到了窗户上。
• 85. except for a few shudders, it was still.
• 它不动了，只是抽动了几下。
• Para.48
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86. She looked at Pecola. Saw the dirty torn dress, the plaits sticking out on
her head, hair matted where the plaits had come undone, the muddy shoes
with the wad of gum peeping out from between the cheap soles, the soiled
socks, one of which had been walked down into the heel of the shoe.
(1) This image of Pecola was disgusting to Geraldine. She had been trying
hard to make everything, her house, her husband, her son, etc., clean and
neat. Pecola represented an image of extreme ugliness and dire poverty,
things she had avoided and hated all her life.
(2)她打量着佩克拉，看见她穿着又胀又破的裙子，头上扎着小辫子，有几根已经散
开了，头发乱糟糟的，鞋上粘满了泥土，廉价的鞋底中露出一团胶块，袜子也是脏
兮兮的，其中的一只还在走路时滑到了鞋的后跟。
87. She saw the safety pin holding the hem of the dress up.
Apparently the dress was not made for Pecola for it was too big for her. So a
safety pin was used to hold the hem up.
88. She had seen this little girl all of her life.
Geraldine had seen black girls like Pecola at many places and many times in
the past.
89. hanging out of windows over saloons in Mobile, crawling over the
porches of shotgun houses on the edge of town, sitting in bus stations
holding paper bags and crying to mothers who kept saying “shet up!”
(1) Saloon: a place where alcoholic drinks are sold to be drunk on the
premises; bar
(2) Shotgun house: a long, narrow house with rooms arranged one behind
the other
(3) Paper bag: shopping bag
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(4) “shet up!” “Shut up!” pronounced with a black accent
(5) these details further describe the type of girls Geraldine had known all
of her life, in a black neighborhood of Mobile, where she came from, these
girls could be seen everywhere. They might be hanging out of windows
over saloons. They might be crawling over the porches of poor crowded
houses on the edge of town. They might be waiting in bus stations with
their mothers.
90. eyes that questioned nothing and asked everything.
This sentence contains an antithesis, a contrast of thoughts. The meaning
of the sentence is ambiguous, one interpretation may be: on the one hand,
they were ignorant and uncomprehending. They did not question why
their lives were so miserable. On the other hand, as they were povertystricken and practically had noting, their eyes revealed their desire for
anything that could make their lives easier
91. Unblinking and unabashed, they stared up at her.
(1) Unabashed: not embarrassed, not ill at ease, and not self-conscious
(2) The little girls stared up at Geraldine in that way because Geraldine,
who was nice, neat and brown, was so totally different from them that they
were filled with surprise, curiosity and wonder.
92. The end of the world lay in their eyes, and the beginning, and all the
waste in between.
The author seems to say that in the eyes of these girls one can see that they
were without any hope for the future and that their life would be nothing
but a waste.
• para.49
• 93. They sat in little rows on street curbs, crowded into pews at
church into pews at church, taking space from the nice, neat,
colored children; they clowned on the playgrounds, broke things in
dime stones, ran in front of you on the street, made ice slides on the
sloped sidewalks in winter.
• (1) Pew: a long wooden seat in a church
• (2) Clown: to act silly
• (3) Dime store: five-and-ten-cent store where supposedly everything
costs only a few cents
• (4)Geraldine listed things these black girls did to prove that they
had no manners and were not nice and quiet like brown girls,
• 94. The girls grew up knowing nothing of girdles, and the boys
announced their manhood by turning the bills of their caps
backward.
• (1) Girdle: a piece of women’s underwear which fits tightly around
her stomach, bottom and hips and makes her look thinner
• (2) Manhood: the state or time of being a man
• (3) Bill: the peak or visor of a cap
• (4) As the girls were growing into young women, they had never worn
girdles to make their figure look slimmer, and thus more elegant; and when
the boys grew up, they just began to wear their caps with the bills turned
backward to indicate that they had become adults. As we know, in some
cultures, manhood is announced and celebrated with certain formal rites.
However, for these poor black boys, there was no rite to mark this important
stage of their lives, except for taking up some habits that adult men had, such
as smoking or turning the bills of their caps backward.
• (5) 这些女孩发育成大人了，却不知紧身褡为何物。而男孩把鸭舌帽的
帽檐转到后脑勺就算宣布自己是大人了。
• 95. Grass wouldn’t grow where they lived. Flowers died. Shades fell down.
Tin cans and tired blossomed where they lived.
• (1) On the surface, the sentence means that these children roamed around
among garbage thrown away tin cans and tires. They didn’t live in houses
with well-cut grass and pretty flowers. On a deeper level, the sentence
implies that Geraldine was blaming these black children for causing all the
good things to die and band things to happen in the black
• 96. “ you nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house.”
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Geraldine, who was supposed to have good manners, here used a very
strong swearword for
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Pecola and ordered her to get out of her house at once. She hated this
helpless black girl so much because this little girl reminded her of her racial
origins and racial identity which she had been trying so hard to forget.
• Para.52
• 97. Pecola backed out of the room, staring at the pretty milk
brown lady in the pretty gold and green house who was talking
to her through the cat’s fur.
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Here the word “ pretty” is used twice, and the fact the brown
lady talked through the fur of the injured cat is emphasized. In
this way a picture is created in contrast with the picture
depicted in the primer used at the beginning of the novel, and
an ironic effect is achieved. In the pretty green and-white
house, Jane lives happily with her mother and father, a kitten
and a dog. The lovely kitten goes meow-meow. A friend comes
and will play with Jane. In Geraldine’s pretty house, the cat
was mistreated by Junior, and Pocola was bullied by him and
cruelly treated and deeply hurt by both the mother and the boy.
In the end , she was turned out of the pretty house.
• 98.......Jesus looking down at her with sad and unsurprised
eyes......
• Although Jesus Christ felt sad and was sympathetic with
Pecola, he was not surprised at what had happened inn the
house because he had seen too many tragedies in the world.
• Para.33
• 99.Outside, the March wind blew into the rip in her dress.
She held her head down against the cold. But she could
not hold it low enough to avoid seeing the snowflakes
falling and dying on the pavement.
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(1) In the concluding paragraph of the story, the author
loads meanings into the description of how Pecola
walked away from the house in cold wind. A cold wind
was blowing and snow was falling. The snowflakes were
falling and dying on the pavement. Why is the would
“dying” chosen for describing the falling snowflakes?
Doesn’t that imply that something in the heart of Pecola
also died? We can see that the cold wind and snow
reflect the coldness Pocola felt after the event; the
coldness in nature reflects the coldness in human
relationships.
• (2)外面，3月的风吹进了她撕破的衣裙。她顶着冷风，垂
着头。不过，头垂得再低，她也看得到雪花纷纷飘落到人
行便道上并立刻消融。
Part Three: Summary of the whole lesson and the
discussion of the questions
( in two periods)
• In this part , the teacher is
summarizing the whole lesson to make
the students aware of the thoughts
and ideas offered by the author and
make the students know what we should
learn from the lesson.
• Finish the quiz for Lesson 4
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Find the English explanations for the following words:
Gainfully fretful soprano enunciation erupt dollop retrieve caressSurfeit
scalp telltale curbstone laurel alternately recess radiator Whine streak
hem unabashed1 complain in a sad complaining voice
2 colored line
3 sth used for heating a room
4 not ashamed, not self-conscious, not embarrassed
5 edge of a piece of cloth
6 revealing what is meant to be kept as a secret
7 achievements
8 skin of head
9 happening every some time
10 a time for rest between lectures
11 burst forth or out as from some restraint
12 pronouncing words clearly and carefully
13 high singing voice
14 anxious and complaining
15 mass of soft food
16 find sth and get it back
17 too great an amount; excess
18 touch gently
19 producing gain or profitable
20 edge of the part of a road where people can walk
• II: Phrases:
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1 a torn wing
2 nod in the wind
3 be gainfully employed
4 blunted soul
5 home economics
6 wear lipstick
7 inviolable world
8 a sidelong look
9 engage one’s affection
10 comfort and satiety
11 take a shortcut
12 smile one’s encouragement
13 beat sb witless
14 suck in one’s breath
15 on street curbs
16 the soiled socks
17 flatten its eyes
18 singed fur
19 at recess
20 telltale signs
Part Four: Key to Exercises
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1 This is perhaps because they only have places of birth, t=but not places where
they feel at home and which they identify themselves with. But these girls are
strongly influenced by their hometown, and the influence stays with them
forever even after they leave their hometown.
The brown girls try hard to repress their emotions and passions. However, these
natural human emotions cannot be wiped out totally. Some times they will
emerge and burst out. And they will develop , become stronger and stay with
them. So whenever and wherever this funk bursts out, the brown girls will do
their best to stifle it.
if his needs were physical, she could meet them. She could make him comfortable
and give him enough or even more than enough to satisfy his physical needs.
Geraldine had seen black girls like Pocola at many places and many times in the
past.
on the one hand, they were ignorant and uncomprehending. They did not ask
question why their lives were so miserable. On the other hand, as they were
poverty-stricken and practically had nothing, their eyes revealed their desire for
anything that could make their lives easier.
in the eyes of these girls one can see that they were in despair, without any hope
for the future, and that their life was nothing but a waste.
as the girls were growing into young women, they had never worn girdles to
make their figure look slimmer, and thus more elegant; and when the boys grew
up, they just began to wear their caps with the bills turned backward to indicate
that they had become adults.
• A. Phrases
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Key to translation
他们可以根据天空的颜色判断是什么时间了
每个人都有一份好工作
用铁链悬挂的游廊摇椅
像小山一样的软毛
她散发出木头和香草的味道
避免显出像羊毛般卷曲的样子
当他心血来潮时
他用微笑鼓励她
B．Sentences
1．他们在窗上挂了一块硬纸做的牌子，上面的三边分别写着10磅、25磅、50
磅，第四边写着“不要冰块”。
2． 她们就读于政府拨地建造的大学以及师范学院。她们学习如何把服务白人
的工作做得更细致；学家政是为了给他们烧饭做菜；学当老师是为了教育黑人孩
子顺从；学音乐是为了让疲惫的主人身心放松，为他那已麻木的灵魂提供消遣。
3． 她只需斜眼看他一下，他就知道该到房后的走廊上去抽烟。
4． 小路易把运动场看成是自己的，小学生们都羡慕他有这么多自由，可以睡
懒觉，可以回家吃午饭，放学后还能控制运动场。
5． 她最喜欢玩“山大王”的游戏，喜欢被他们推下土山坡，让他们滚在他身
上。
6．她深深地沉浸在对花的欣赏之中，突然，小路易喊道：“给你！”
7． 佩克拉拼命拍门，这让他笑得更厉害了。他尖声笑着，几乎喘不过气。
8．不过，头垂得再低，她也看得到雪花纷纷飘落到人行便道上并立刻消融。
Part Five: Assignments
• In this part, all the assignments will be listed ,
the teacher will assign them to the students after
each two periods.
• 1 seek out some information about each note on
the internet and hand them in to the teacher
• 2 read the whole lesson
• 3 memorize the new words
• 4 prepare for the discussions
• 5 do the exercises
• 6 pre-review of the next lesson
• 7 prepare for the quiz
• 8 prepare for Lesson Ten