fame大学英语综合教程四课文4页

1、Fame Fame is very much like an animal chasing its own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it. Fame and the exhilarating celebrity that accompanies it, force the famous person to participate in his or her own destruction. Ironic isnt it? Those who gain

2、 fame most often gain it as a result of possessing a single talent or skill: singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc. The successful performer develops a style that is marketed aggressively and gains some popularity, and it is this popularity that usually convinces the performer to continue perf

3、orming in the same style, since that is what the public seems to want and to enjow. But in time, the performer becomes bored singing the same songs in the same way year after year, or the painter becomes bored painting similar scenes or portraite, or the actor is tired of playing the same character

4、repeatedly. The demand of the public holds the artist hostage to his or her own success, fame. If the artist attempts to change his or her style of writing or dancing or singing, etc., the audience may turn away and look to confer fleeting fickle fame on another and then, in time, on another , and s

5、o on and so on. Who cannot recognize a Tennessee Williams play or a novel by John Updike or Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or W. H. Auden or T. S. Eliot? The same is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, Dali or Picasso and it is true of movie makers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Ch

6、en Kai-ge or Zhang Yimou. Their distinctive styles marked a significant change in the traditional forms and granted them fame and forturn, but they were not free to develop other styles or forms because their audience demanded of each of them what they originally presented. Hemingway cannot even now

7、 be confused with Henry James or anyone else, nor can Forst be confused with Yeats, etc. The unique forms each of them created, created them. No artist or performer can entirely escape the lure of fame and its promise of endless admiration and respect, but there is a heavy price one must pay for it.

8、 Fame brings celebrity and high regard from adoring and loyal fans in each field of endeavor and it is heady stuff. A performer can easily come to believe that he or she is as good as his or her press. But most people, most artists do not gain fame and fortune. What about those performers who fail,

9、or anyone who fails? Curiously enough, failure often serves as its own reward for many people! It brings sympathy from others who are delighted not to be you, and it allows family and friends to lower their expectation of you so that you need not compete with those who have more talent and who secce

10、ed. And they find excuses and explanations for your inability to succeed and become famous: you are too sensitive, you are not interested in money, you are not interested in the power that fame brings and you are not interested in the loss of privacy it demands, etc. -all excuses, but comforting to

11、those who fail and those who pretend not to notice the failure. History has amply proven that some failure for some people at certain times in their lives does indeed motivate them to strive even harder to succeed and to continue believing in themselves. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his

12、first novel Look Homeward, Anger rejected 39 times before it was finally published and launched his career and created his fame. Beethoven overcame his tyrannical father and grudging acceptance as a musician to become the greatest, most famous musician in the world, and Pestalozzi, the famous Italia

13、n educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in fourth grade, at about age 10, because he seemed to the teacher to be

14、 quite dull and unruly. Many other cases may be found of people who failed and used the failure to motivate them to achieve, to succeed, and to become famous. But, unfortunately, for most people failure is the end of their struggle, not the beginning. There are few, if any, famous failures. Well the

15、n, why does anyone want fame? Do you? Do you want to be known to many people and admired by them? Do you want the money that usually comes with fame? Do you want the media to notice everything you do or say both in public and in private? Do you want them hounding you, questioning you and trying to u

16、ndo you? In American politics it is very obvious that to be famous is to be the target of everyone who disagrees with you as well as of the media. Fame turns all the lights on and while it gives power and prestige, it takes the you out of you: you must be what the public thinks you are, not what you

17、 really are or could be. The politician, like the performer, must please his or her audiences and that often means saying things he does not mean or does not believe in fully. No wonder so few people trust politicians. But we have not answered the question at the beginning of this paragraph: why doe

18、s anyone want fame? Several reasons come to mind: to demonstrate excellence in some field; to gain the admiration and love of many others; to be the one everyone talks about; to show family and friends you are more than they thought you were. Probably you can list some other reasons, but I think are reasonably common.I say to those