新世纪英语专业综合教程(第二版)第4册 Unit13.ppt

1、Unit13,Watch the movie clip and answer the following questions.,What do you feel from Lesters words?,Pre-reading Activities - Audiovisual supplement 1,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,He is depressed and sedated.,Very cold and passionless.,2. What do you think of their marriage?,Pre-readin

2、g Activities - Audiovisual supplement 2,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,American Beauty,Video Script1,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,Lester: Thats my wife, Carolyn. See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? Thats not an accident. Jim: Hush, Bi

3、tsy! Hush, whats wrong with you? Lester: Thats our next-door neighbor, Jim. And thats his lover, Jim. Jim: You spoiled her. Bitsy, no bark. Come inside now. Me? Come on. Yes. Inside. Carolyn: Good morning! Jim! Jim: Good morning, Carolyn. Carolyne: I love your tie, that color! Jim: I just love your

4、roses. How do you get them to flourish like this?,Video Script1,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,Carolyn: Well, Ill tell you. Eggshells and miracle-Gro. Jim: Ive never heard about that. Lester: Man, I get exhausted just watching her. She wasnt always like this. She used to be happy. We use

5、d to be happy.,1. Divorce in America,Cultural background 1,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,The divorce rate in America is reported to be more than 50%, which means one in two couples will break up. Why is it so high? What is the real reason for them to divorce? Freedom is one of the most

6、important beliefs for Americans and nothing can replace it. So if they think the love and family cant offer them happiness and safety, they would choose to divorce. They wouldnt think more about the family or the children because they take themselves as the center. Whats worse, as the divorce rate i

7、n America rises, bad effects are brought on children who are used to growing up with both parents.,Cultural background 2,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,2. Stuttered speech,1) Money Money is a sensitive area and your household finances need to be properly structured. You and your spouse s

8、hould define your core values. Try to come to an understanding about what you both care the most about spending money on.,Cultural background 3,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,2) The in-laws It is not uncommon for some mothers- or fathers-in law to overstep their boundaries and interfere

9、with their childs marriage. If your in-laws are causing difficulties in your marriage, you and your spouse will then need to set boundaries with your parents.,Cultural background 4,Audiovisual supplement,Cultural background,3) The way they spend their time together Of course, you and your spouse hav

10、e individual needs and interests. However, you and your spouse should focus on the time you spend together, instead of the activity itself.,Structural analysis,Structural analysis,General analysis,Rhetorical features,Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinsh

11、ip. People get married for such reasons as legal, social, emotional and economical; for public declaration of love; or for the lawful foundation of a family. Marriage practices are diversified in different cultures. They are dependent on many things, such as conventions, habits, legal system, etc. H

12、ow much do contemporary people value their marriage? What are the possible causes of their difficulties in regard to marriage? How can marriage be more rationally understood? This text attempts to convince the readers that marriage is thought to be full of difficulties by all people, conventional an

13、d unconventional, past and present, and it suggests that taking a proper attitude towards these difficulties may make some difference.,Structural analysis,The text falls into three parts:,Part I,(Paragraph 1): The author, after quoting Russell on the subject, puts forward his own argument that diffi

14、culties in regard to marriage have been an old issue for centuries.,Part II,(Paragraphs 2 7): The author analyzes the roots of such difficulties by listing quotations from famous literary works and famous people.,Structural analysis,General analysis,Rhetorical features,Structural analysis,Part III,(

15、Paragraphs 8 9): The author assigns the causes of unhappy marriages to the excessive consciousness of difficulties in human beings, and encourages people to face the difficulties in marriage bravely.,Structural analysis,General analysis,Rhetorical features,Rhetorical Features 1,In this text the auth

16、or often makes comments on the people he quotes or what is said by those people so as to express his own opinions. Listed below are the comments made by the author in Paragraphs 5 7: the reputed saying of the henpecked Socrates, . . (Paragraph 5) Burton is far from encouraging! (Paragraph 5) Pepys s

17、cribbled in his diary . (Paragraph 5) The pious Jeremy Taylor was as keenly aware that marriage is not all bliss. (Paragraph 6) The sentimental and optimistic Steele (Paragraph 6) Dr. Johnson, devoted husband though he was (Paragraph 7),Structural analysis,General analysis,Rhetorical features,MARRIA

18、GE Robert Lynd “Conventional people,” says Mr. Bertrand Russell, “like to pretend that difficulties in regard to marriage are a new thing.” I could not help wondering, as I read this sentence, where one can meet these conventional people who think, or pretend to think, as conventional people do. I h

19、ave known hundreds of conventional people, and I cannot remember one of them who thought the things conventional people seem to think. They were all, for example, convinced that marriage was a state beset with difficulties, and that these difficulties were as old,Detailed reading1.1,Detailed reading

20、,1,Detailed reading1.2,Detailed reading,if not as the hills, at least as the day on which Adam lost a rib and gained a wife. A younger generation of conventional people has grown up in recent years, and it may be that they have a rosier conception of marriage than their ancestors; but the convention

21、al people of the Victorian era were under no illusions on the subject. Their cynical attitude to marriage may be gathered from the enthusiastic reception they gave to Punchs advice to those about to marry “Dont.”,Detailed reading2.1,Detailed reading,I doubt, indeed, whether the horrors of marriage w

22、ere ever depicted more cruelly than during the conventional nineteenth century. The comic papers and music-halls made the miseries a standing dish. “You can always tell whether a mans married or single from the way hes dressed,” said the comedian. “Look at the single man: no buttons on his shirt. Lo

23、ok at the married man: no shirt.” The humour was crude; but it went home to the honest Victorian heart. If marriage were to be judged by the songs conventional people used to sing about it in the music-halls, it would seem a hell mainly populated by twins and leech-like mothers-in-law.,2,Detailed re

24、ading2.2,Detailed reading,The rare experiences of Darby and Joan were, it is true, occasionally hymned, reducing strong men smelling strongly of alcohol to reverent silence; but, on the whole, the audience felt more normal when a comedian came out with an anti-marital refrain such as: O why did I le

25、ave my little back room In Bloomsbury, Where I could live on a pound a week In luxury (I forget the next line). But since I have married Maria, Ive jumped out of the frying-pan Into the blooming fire.,Detailed reading3-4,Detailed reading,No difficulties? Why, the very nigger-minstrels of my boyhood

26、used to open their performance with a chorus which began: Married! Married! O pity those whore married. Those who go and take a wife must be very green. It is possible that the comedians exaggerated, and that Victorian wives were not all viragos with pokers, who beat their tipsy husbands for staying

27、 out too late. But at least they and their audiences refrained from painting marriage as an inevitable Paradise. Even the clergy would go no farther than to say that marriages were made in Heaven. That they did not believe that marriage necessarily ended there is shown by the fact that one of them w

28、rote a “best-seller” bearing the title How to Be Happy Though Married.,3,4,Detailed reading5.1,Detailed reading,I doubt, indeed, whether common opinion in any age has ever looked on marriage as an untroubled Paradise. I consulted a dictionary of quotations on the subject and discovered that few of t

29、he opinions quoted were rose-coloured. These opinions, it may be objected, are the opinions of unconventional people, but it is also true that they are opinions treasured and kept alive by conventional people. We have the reputed saying of the henpecked Socrates, for example, when asked whether it w

30、as better to marry or not: “Whichever you do, you will repent.” We have Montaigne writing: “It happens as one sees in cages. The birds outside despair of ever getting in;,5,Detailed reading5.2,Detailed reading,those inside are equally desirous of getting out.” Bacon is no more prenuptial with his ca

31、ustic quotation: “He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry: A young man not yet; an elder man not at all.” Burton is far from encouraging! “One was never married, and thats his hell; another is, and thats his plague.” Pepys scribbled in his diary: “

32、Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor folk decoyed into our condition.”,Detailed reading6.1,Detailed reading,The pious Jeremy Taylor was as keenly aware that marriage is not all bliss. “Marriage,” he declared, “hath in it less of beauty and more of safety than the sing

33、le life it hath more care but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys.” The sentimental and optimistic Steele can do no better than: “The marriage state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of Heaven and Hell we are ca

34、pable of receiving in this life.”,6,Detailed reading7,Detailed reading,Rousseau denied that a perfect marriage had ever been known. “I have often thought,” he wrote, “that if only one could prolong the joy of love in marriage we should have paradise on earth. That is a thing which has never been hit

35、herto.” Dr. Johnson is not quoted in the dictionary; but everyone will remember how, devoted husband though he was, he denied that the state of marriage was natural to man. “Sir,” he declared, “it is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the mo

36、tives which they have for remaining in that connexion and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation are hardly sufficient to keep them together.”,7,Detailed reading8,Detailed reading,When one reads the things that have been said about marriage from one generation to anothe

37、r, one cannot but be amazed at the courage with which the young go on marrying. Almost everybody, conventional and unconventional, seems to have painted the troubles of marriage in the darkest colours. So pessimistic were the conventional novelists of the nineteenth century about marriage that they

38、seldom dared to prolong their stories beyond the wedding bells. Married people in plays and novels are seldom enviable, and, as time goes on, they seem to get more and more miserable. Even conventional people nowadays enjoy the story of a thoroughly unhappy marriage. It is only fair to say,8,Detaile

39、d reading9,Detailed reading,however, that in modern times we like to imagine that nearly everybody, single as well as married, is unhappy. As social reformers we are all for happiness, but as thinkers and aesthetes we are on the side of misery. The truth is that we are a difficulty-conscious generat

40、ion. Whether or not we make life even more difficult than it would otherwise be by constantly talking about our difficulties I do not know. I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear. Is it quite certain that the ostrich by

41、burying his head in the sand never escapes his pursuers? I look forward to the day when a great naturalist will discover that it is to this practice that the ostrich owes his survival.,9,1. Why is it said that the younger generation of conventional people has a rosier conception of marriage than the

42、ir ancestors? (Paragraph 1),Detailed reading2Question 1,Because people of the younger generation are mostly not yet married and they thus have great expectations of marriage.,Detailed reading,Detailed reading5Question 1,Detailed reading,2. What attitude did people in the Victorian era have towards m

43、arriage? (Paragraph 1),Even people in the Victorian era, which was a period renowned for its emphasis on social duties rather than rights, did not have expectations for a difficulty-free marriage.,1. Who are those people the author quoted? Are they considered conventional or unconventional? Why? (Pa

44、ragraphs 27),Detailed reading2Question 2-7,The people quoted are all philosophers, writers, and scientists, whom the author considers as unconventional people, since they were all people with knowledge, talents and wisdom beyond the ordinary. What they thought of marriage could be derived from the e

45、ssence of human experience.,Detailed reading,Detailed reading5Question 2-7,Detailed reading,2. How did the novelists and playwrights describe marriage in their works? (Paragraphs 27),The conventional novelists of the nineteenth century seldom described marriage after the wedding. Even when married p

46、eople did appear in plays and novels later on, they usually seemed more and more miserable.,1. What attitudes do social reformers and thinkers and aesthetes hold towards marriage? Why? (Paragraphs 89),Detailed reading2Question 8-9,Social reformers tend to take an optimistic view towards marriage, wh

47、ile thinkers and aesthetes are on the pessimistic side, thinking of marriage as full of miseries. Social reformers usually encourage people to get married by convincing them of the happiness of marriage, since marriage and family are the cornerstones of a stable society; while thinkers tend to analy

48、ze both the positive and negative sides of marriage, and aesthetes strive for the perfection of marriage, so they focus more on its miserable side.,Detailed reading,Detailed reading5Question 8-9,Detailed reading,2. Did the author draw a conclusion concerning the truth of marriage? Why or why not? (P

49、aragraphs 89),No, he didnt. He explains that whether marriage is difficult or not depends on peoples attitude: if we think its difficult, then it is; but if we can ignore the difficulties, then they may well cease to exist.,Detailed reading8 Activity,Group discussions Do you think that half our diff

50、iculties are imaginary? Give some specific examples in your study and life experiences to illustrate your opinion.,Detailed reading,Collocation:,be beset with/by,e.g.,A nightmare afflicts me from time to time. Unemployment afflicts 1.2 million workers in that country.,beset: v. (of a problem or diff

51、iculty) trouble (sb. or sth.) persistently,Detailed reading1 beset,Detailed reading,e.g.,problems besetting the country The maintenance of an effective incomes policy is beset with problems.,Synonym:,afflict,rosy: a. likely to be satisfactory and very successful or enjoyable,Detailed reading1 rosy,D

52、etailed reading,e.g.,rosy prospects a rosy view,Synonym:,hopeful, promising,Idiom:,Everything in the garden is rosy. 样样称心如意。/ 一切都满意。/ 事事如意。,Detailed reading1 illusion,illusion: n. a false idea or belief, esp. about sb. or about a situation,Detailed reading,e.g.,He could no longer distinguish between

53、 illusion and reality. It is time for them to cast aside their illusions.,Collocation:,be under no illusions about sth. have/cherish/entertain/hold illusions about sth.,e.g.,illusionary stage effects,Derivation:,illusionary a.,Synonym:,vision, delusion, fantasy, misconception,Detailed reading1 cynic

54、al,Detailed reading,cynical: a. skeptical,e.g.,a cynical view/smile He was getting harder and more cynical about life.,Translation:,由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。,The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.,_ _,他不相信她有胜利的希望。,He was cynical about her prospects for victory.,_,

55、Derivation:,cynicism n.,Detailed reading1- crude,Detailed reading,crude: a. rude and offensive,e.g.,a crude remark/joke crude interference in another countrys internal affairs the crude behaviour of schoolchildren,Synonym:,vulgar,Derivation:,crudely ad. crudity n.,e.g.,The crudity of her language sh

56、ocked him.,Detailed reading1- reverent,Detailed reading,reverent: a. showing great respect and admiration,e.g.,a reverent silence file past the tomb in a reverent manner give reverent attention to the sermon,Synonym:,respectful, adoring,Derivation:,reverently ad. reverence n.,e.g.,The crowd knelt in

57、 reverence and worshipped. The younger generation lack reverence.,Detailed reading1 refrain,Detailed reading,refrain: n. (in Paragraph 2) a regularly recurring phrase or verse, esp. at the end of each stanza or division of a poem or song; chorus vigorous and glowing v. (in Paragraph 4) stop oneself

58、from doing sth., esp. sth. that one wants to do,Collocation:,refrain from (doing) sth.,e.g.,refrain from laughing/tears He has refrained from criticizing the government in public.,Detailed reading2 green,Detailed reading,green: a. young and lacking experience,e.g.,a green hand The new trainees are still very green.,Antonym:,experienced, mature, versed,Detailed reading2 tipsy,Detailed reading,tipsy: a. slightly drunk,e.g.,The wine had made Barton