美国文学课后问题参考答案VIP

Questions on American LiteratureQuestion 4 on P16 Describe briefly how Poe characterizes Montresor and Fortunato as contrasts.“The Cask of Amontillado” best explains Poes literary theory on short story writing that literature creates beauty and shows intensity of emotion as he characterizes Montresor and Fortunato as striking contrasts.At the beginning of the story, Montresors self-introduction left readers an impression that he was a person with great patience as he had borne Fortunatos insult many a time before. And his determination to revenge seemed only words without action. Yet, he turned out to be a cunning, discreet avenger, plotting secretly and waiting patiently for a best opportunity to appear. When a perfect moment came, he grasped it and smilingly begged for Fortunatos favor while he covered his evil intention so well that Fortunato couldnt help but fall into his trap. The so-called bad guy, Fortunato, took such unusual pride in his knowledge of wine and his skill of wine judgment that he became insensitive, foolishly blind, unable to detect Montresors sinister purpose. He gradually approached his grave quite willingly and Montresor easily took his advantage. It was towards the end of the story that truth was revealed. Montresor, the relentless avenger, attacked Fortunato, the big fool, and buried him alive. We readers took aback, hard to believe Montresors cruelty. The emotional intensity was thus naturally achieved. Through such characterization Poe reveals his purpose of writing, i.e., there is evil in human nature, which is usually covered and ignored, and too much pride brings one his final destruction.Question 1. p. 33. Why is the prison the setting of Chapter I and what is the implication of the description of the roses? Hawthornes intention of using the prison as the setting of Chapter I is quite obvious. Here, the prison “black flower of civilized society” symbolizes the 17th-century Puritan society of Boston, where its residents were all prisoners as there was no freedom (of speech, will or love) but cruel and outdated rules and regulations. Yet no matter how dark the prison-like Puritan environment was, there had been some brave and steadfast people fighting for justice, right and freedom. Anne Hutchinson was a good example. Hawthornes description of the roses carries such implication that Hester Prynne was following Anne Hutchinsons footsteps, remaining faithful to Nature and morality. The roses “sweet moral blossom” symbolize hope and future of mankind.Question 2. p. 33. Describe the appearance of Hester Prynne and the attitude of the people towards her. Hester Prynne was a tall figure of perfect elegance, characterized by a certain state and dignity. She was lady-like, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days. She appeared so graceful because she possessed true love, which she thought was something noble and worthwhile and for which she was willing to sacrifice herself. Hester had acquired strong psychological independence, which provided her more power and courage to endure serenely and quietly the public insult (abuse), weight and hardness of the reality. Hawthorne seems to stress the importance of psychological independence. Different people have different attitude towards Hester. Some are sympathetic, others feel sorry for her, and still others, especially those cold-hearted, middle-aged wives express their hatred towards Hester because she has brought shame upon them. And they hate her because of her youth, beauty and love she possesses obviously, all of which are what they lack in their daily life. They think the present punishment given to Hester by the judges is too mild to warn the others effectively. Some of them even suggest that death should be the just penalty.Question 3. p. 33. What has happened to Hester? Why does she make the embroidery of the letter “A” so elaborate? How does this tell us about her character?Hester has offended the Puritan rule, sinned, guilty of adultery. Condemned (Punished) to wear on the breast of her gown the scarlet letter, “A”, she is to stand on the platform before the meeting house for 3 hours so that her shame (disgrace) might be a timely warning and a reproach to all who saw her.The reason why she makes the embroidery of the letter “A” so elaborate might be that she believes in and treasures her true love with Dimmesdale. She is loyal to her lover, faithful to morality, honest to herself. She becomes independent and strong in psychology, generous in action, living a life with complete dignity and great fortitude.What is Hawthornes “black” vision of life and human beings?Hawthornes literary world is very disturbed, tormented and problematical, mostly because of his black vision of life and human beings. He looks more deeply and honestly into life, finding in it much suffering and conflict, and the redeeming power of love. According to Hawthorne, “There is evil in every human heart,” and a piece of literary work should “show how we are all wronged and wrongers and avenging one another.” So in almost every book he writes, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. One source of evil Hawthorne is concerned most is the over-reaching intellect (pride of intellect), which usually refers to someone who is too proud, too sure of himself. The tension between the head and the heart (ration and emotion) constitutes one of the dramatic moments when the evil of “pride of intellect” would be fully revealed. Hawthornes intellectuals are usually villains, dreadful because they are devoid of warmth and feelings. They tend to go beyond and violate the natural order by doing something impossible and reaching the final truth, without a sober mind (清醒的头脑) about their own limitations as human beings. Chillingworth, Dr. Rappaccini, Ethan Brand, Dr. Aylmer in “Birth Mark”, Owen Warland in “The Artist of the Beautiful” are but a few specimens of Hawthornes chilling, cold-blooded human animals.Discuss the function of the verse structure of Whitmans Leaves of Grass.Leaves of Grass is written in free verse with a looser and more open-ended syntactical structure invented by Whitman. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning contribute to the musicality of the poem. Free verse means a poetic form without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. Lines and sentences of different lengths are left lying side by side just as things are, undisturbed and separate. By means of “free verse”, the poet believed that he has turned the poem into an open field, an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play.In what way are Emily Dickinsons poems unique and unconventional? Dickinsons poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry, there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. The form of her poetry is more or less like that of the hymns in community churches, familiar, communal, and sometimes irregular. Dickinsons irregular or inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. However, her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness. Her poems are usually short, rarely more than twenty lines, and many of them are centered on a single image and focused on one subject matter. Her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and personification to vivify some abstract ideas. Dickinsons poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness, and her limited private world has never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.Give a brief analysis of the relationship between Huck and Jim in Mark Twains novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is famous for its characterization of Huck. He is a typical American boy with a sound heart and a deformed conscience. His words and manner appear to be vulgar, but he is honest and kind in heart. Jim is an escaped black slave searching for his freedom. He is extremely kind and good-hearted. The remarkable rafts journey down the Mississippi River is symbolic, served as Hucks mental progress and education and Jims road to freedom. On the way, Jim takes great care of Huck while Huck does not have any chance to return his kindness until when Jim is sold by the “King”. After a period of hesitation, Huck decides to rescue Jim no matter what consequences may come. Finally, Jim gets his freedom and Huck becomes more mature in defying slavery. With the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows.Comment on the characteristics of Modern literature. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psychoanalysis as its theoretical base. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than on the objective. They are mainly concerned with the inner world of an individual. Therefore, they pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one. In their writings, the past, the present and the future are mixed together and exist at the same time in the consciousness of an individual.What theories have influenced the development of the American literature in the Modern Period? And in what way they did it? Several theories exerted influence on the development of American literature in the Modern Period. First, Darwinism, which suggests that man was dominated by the irresistible forces; second, Marxist theory, which holds that the root cause of all behavior was economic and that the leading feature of the economic life was the division of society into antagonistic classes based on a relation to the means of production; third, Freuds psychoanalysis which emphasizes on the unconscious and the irrational side of human psyche. Apart from the above, modern European arts such as Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism also had great impact on the American literature in the modern period.How does Porter describe Granny Weatherall so vividly?Porter adopts the controlled stream of consciousness technique to depict the dying moments of an old lady, who is struggling with the trauma of her jilting and the oncoming of death. Since the mind can jump and travel in time and space without explanation, time sequence is mixed up: the past is fused with the present, the dead with the living. Her incoherent dying reveries indicate the full life she has led, the dominating role she has played. But her last thoughts are of her being jilted years before. It is because of her dying mind presenting both fragmentary past and present that the reader obtains a complete picture of this woman though she has weathered all kinds of difficulties, she has certain vulnerability (weakness). This way, the character of Granny Weatherall becomes more authentic, truer to life and more trustworthy. The readers feelings of admiration for the heroine are naturally aroused.Fabulous parties are vividly described in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, which are characteristic of the roaring twenties in the United States. Discuss the spirit of the Jazz Age with examples from the novel. How does Fitzgeralds fiction embody the spirit of the Jazz Age?Fitzgerald has always been regarded as the spokesman of the Jazz Age, and his masterpiece The Great Gatsby is a vivid description of the time. The Jazz Age is characterized by the moral degeneration. Young people of the 1920s had a sense of reckless confidence not only about money but about life in general. Since they grew up with the notion that the world would improve without their help, they felt excused from seeking the common good. Therefore, they indulged themselves to worldly “happiness”. They clung to the belief of “eat, drink, and be merry”. As we can see at the fabulous parties in the novel, people are engaged in heavy drinking and dancing. They spent money extravagantly, took risk they did not take as risk, and enjoyed themselves to their hearts content. Moreover, they were quite sexually loose. They plunged themselves in casual sex. Thats why Nick thought Jordan would easily yield herself up to a man. But beneath this mask, we may feel a strong sense of sterility, meaninglessness and futility. People were squandering, but ironically, they did not know who provided them for all these. They just fecklessly did so.What do you find in the conversation on p. 182?The conversation is very simple and terse, in a reportage way without any emotive words or authorial comments. Yet this conversation carries very rich implications. The younger waiter cannot understand the fact that the rich old man attempted to kill himself because he believes that one has everything when he is rich. And the middle-aged waiter understands the old man and his behavior because he is much experienced and understands life better. Money cannot buy happiness or youth or everything. The old man is lonely, afraid of death. Life means loneliness, darkness and death to him. So he has much sympathy for the old man.The sentence “ Fear for his soul.” implies that the old man and his niece are Christians. If the old man committed suicide by hanging himself, he would go to hell instead of to paradise because Christians are not supposed to kill themselves. Its against their belief.How did “The Lost Generation” come into existence in the literary history of the United States? Who were the leading figures of this literary movement? “The Lost Generation” came into existence in the literary history of the United States after the First World War. When the war broke out, many young writers volunteered to take part in “the war to end wars” only to find that modern warfare was not as glorious or heroic as they thought it to be. Disillusioned and disgusted by the frivolous, greedy and heedless way of life in America, they began to write and they wrote from their own experiences in the war. Thus “The Lost Generation” came into being. Among the leading figures were Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, etc. “Lost Generation” means a group of writers and artists who were disillusioned by the First World War and aware that the world is crazy, meaningless and futile. The whole life is undercut and defeated.Discuss Hemingways “Iceberg” style by taking “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” as an example.Hemingway once said, “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” Typical of this “iceberg” analogy is Hemingways style. According to the writer, good literary writing should be able to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best way to produce the effect is to set down exactly every particular kind of feeling without any authorial comments, without conventionally emotive language, and with a bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs (one-eighth above water). Seemingly simple and natural, Hemingways style is actually polished and tightly controlled, highly suggestive and connotative (seven-eighths under water). Besides, Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are so well presented that the characters are full of flesh and blood, and the use of short, simple and conversational words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is a very good example. The simple sentences with monosyllabic words are combined into a short beginning paragraph by Hemingways deliberate use of conjunctions, stressing the loneliness of the old man in a natural way. The story is told in a highly objective and almost reportage way, with terse conversations (between the two waiters) but no trace of authorial comments. Yet this simple style (one-eighth above water) is highly metaphorical (seven-eighths under water that is supposed to be figured out by the reader), vividly presenting three characters (old man, middle-aged and young waiters). Without any names, they actually represent three generations in real life, who are weak one way or another. What they lack is human dignity as they cannot face the reality, the nothingness of life or their own problems. The old mans struggles do not help the waiters to fully wake up and they will remain the same as before.How does Frost use the figurative symbolic language in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.In this poem, Frost uses the figurative symbolic language in describing the wind, snow and horse, especially the horse. The first line in the second stanza, “My little horse must think it queer” and the second line in the third stanza “to ask if there is some mistake” tell us that this is no ordinary horse. It is a very special horse that can think and can ask questions. Here the horse is challenging the impractical sense of the driver with his own horse sense. The horse has been given some human characteristics as he can challenge the speaker in a sensible way.How does the poet tie the sense together with the sound in the poem?Rhyme of a poem is the repetition of an important word in a certain position. The rhyme scheme of this poem is: a b c d a b c d b c d d a b c d Except the last stanza, three out of the four lines rhyme. These stanzas are very compact sound-and-sense units. The third line in each stanza always rimes with the first line in the next stanza. The sound helps pass the sense quite smoothly. In the last stanza, the sound here is bro