现代大学英语精读LessonProfessions for WomenPPT课件

1、The Victorian ideology of FemininityThe Victorian ideology of Femininity The French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose demands for human liberty had been influential upon a number of movements for political reform, forcefully articulated some of the most restrictive tenets of what can be calle

2、d the nineteenth centurys ideology of femininity. The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to console them, and to make life sweet and agreeable to them these are the duties of women at all times, and what should be taught them from their infancy.第1页/共26页 The ideal w

3、omen he thus envisioned a pure, decorous, and even angelic creature was only one particularly notable representative of a standard against which every middle- and upper-class womans conduct was measured, and other writers, female as well as male, elaborated upon the virtues of such an ideal. In 1854

4、, in a long and very popular poem, The Angle in the House, Coventry Patmore described such selflessness more extravagantly,Man must be pleased, but him to pleaseIs womans pleasure; down the gulfOf his condoled necessitiesShe casts her best, she flings herself.第2页/共26页The model woman was an angel or

5、a queen She must appear delicate, frail, ethereal. She must look and act like a fragile creature. A good woman was essentially passionless: if men were beasts ruled by sexual desire, their pure wives and daughters knew nothing of such matters. It was generally agreed that on her wedding night, the a

6、ngelic virgin should in one way or another behave as Queen Victoria was said to have: close her eyes and think of England. Otherwise, a woman was in danger of becoming a fallen woman.第3页/共26页 At 15, burned early writing because her stepmother felt that a reputation for scribbling would harm the girl

7、s marriage prospects and because she herself was early impressed with ideas that fastened degradation to this class of composition then, as now, called the novel. Evelina (1778) Explored the social development of a heroine who proves herself worthy of her well-born suitor. Cecilia; or Memoirs of an

8、Heiress (1782) Analysized the social and economic problems of women Tried to raise the status of the novel by combining verisimilitude with instructions.Fanny Burney (1752 1840)第4页/共26页Aphra Behn (1640 1689) Spy and playwright, traveler and wit, Aphra Behn was Englands first professional woman write

9、r. In a age when many women of letters were intellectual aristocrats who claimed to write only for pleasure and fame among their friends, Behn was a middle-class widow who frankly wrote for money and public acclaim. In 1666, she entered the intelligence service of King Charles II, when such public t

10、oils of state affairs were unusual with her sex. She carried out her mission remarkably well, but was never paid properly. So she ended up spending some time in 1668 in a London debtors prison, which decided her upon what was, for a woman, an unprecedented step: writing for money. She became a profe

11、ssional and highly productive playwright.第5页/共26页Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) She was more rigorously and formally educated than most women of her time. She was precociously and independently interested in economic topics Her fathers death in 1826 forced her to support

12、her mother and herself by needlework and writing for the Globe on economic topics such as machinery and labor. Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832-34 Illustrations of Taxation, 1834. Society in America, 1837. Retrospect of Western Travel. Deerbrook, 1839. 第6页/共26页Jane Austen (1775 -1817) She de

13、fined herself as a writer by self-consciously satirizing not only the female tradition in literature but also its effects on the growth and development of the female imagination. She comically criticized the overvaluation of love, the miseducation of women, the subterfuges of the marriage market, th

14、e rivalry among women for male approval, the female cult of weakness and dependency, the discrepancy between womens private sphere and public (male) history.第7页/共26页George Eliot (1819-1880) Eliot was aware that her identification with masculine achievement threatened to undermine her consciousness o

15、f herself as a woman. You may try, but you cannot imagine what it is to have a mans force of genius in you, yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl., said a heroin in her novel.第8页/共26页Questions What problems does the author discuss through her two experiences? What figurative devices were employe

16、d? What are the advantages for using metaphors? What would left literally without the metaphors?第9页/共26页 And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her

17、better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. In those days the last of Queen Victoria every house had its Angel. She slipped behind me and whispered And she made as if to guide my pen. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My ex

18、cuse, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard.第10页/共26页Kill

19、ing the Angel in the HouseKilling the Angel in the House I, a woman writer who wants to review a mans novel. I have a mind of my own. I have five hundred pounds a year so that I dont have to depend solely on charm for my living. I want to express what I think to be the truth about human relations, m

20、orality, sex. The Angel in the House, a Model woman representing the Victorian ideology of femininity. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Above all, be pure. She never has a mind or wish of her own. These questions cannot be dealt with freely and open

21、ly by woman. 第11页/共26页Killing the Angel in the HouseKilling the Angel in the House Came between me and my paper. Bothered me and wasted my time and tormented me Shadow of her wings fell on my page; the rustling of her skirts in the room Slipped behind me and whispered Would have killed me; would hav

22、e plucked the heart out of my writing. Died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. She always crept back. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. I acted in self-defence. I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. I dispatched her. Its far harde

23、r to kill a phantom than a reality. I flatter myself that I killed her in the end.第12页/共26页 Do a battle with a phantom. The phantom was a woman.the Angel in the House With this metaphor, the author invites us to look at her struggle to free herself from the Victorian ideology of femininity as a seve

24、re battle between enemies. And the enemy has complicated natures. Describing the enemy as a phantom, she allows the reader to imagine the great difficulty in fighting an intangible enemy. By personifying the traditional ideology of femininity as the Angel in the house, the author left a powerful imp

25、ression upon the reader, for they can feel its existence and its each and every movement. 第13页/共26页Meaning of Arts and Cats Arts: 1. She excelled in the difficult arts of life.2.Use all the arts and wiles of our sex.3.I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the

26、arts and professions open to human skill. Cat: 1.But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, I went out and bought a cat a beautiful cat, a Persian cat.2.What could be easier than to write articles and to buy Persian cats with the profits?3.I made one pound ten and six by

27、 my first review; and I bought a Persian cat with the proceeds. Then I grew ambitious. A Persian cat is all very well, I said; but a Persian cat is not enough. I must have a motor car.第14页/共26页questions What is a novelists state of mind? Why does the author use the metaphor of fishing to describe he

28、r state of mind? In what way does the image of a fisherman at a deep lake fit the situation of a woman writer? What was the problem discussed in the second experience?第15页/共26页The fisherman at a deep lake perfectly fits the situation the author is trying to describe. Outwardly, the lake appears dead

29、ly calm, and the fisherman sunk in dreams calm, too. Beneath the surface of the water, there are big fish as well as hard stones, hidden in darkness. The line may go deep into the water to catch the biggest fish or, to crash on a hard rock. Inside the fisherman/writer, there are conflicting thoughts

30、. That is, the freest imagination that, according to traditional thinking, should be held privately and not dealt with in public, as well as the awareness of the consequences of revealing the imagination to the public. Through this metaphor the reader perceives that the truth about body and passion and sex is force