《英语短篇小说教程》练习参考答案unit3、4
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《英语短篇小说教程》
练习参考答案
1
Keys to Unit Three
Richard Selzer:
The Discus Thrower
1) Questions for
discussion
(Suggested answers for reference)
(1) What impression do you get of the
patient from the description given in the story?
(In spite of his serious illness, the man
never moans or complains. He talks little and
generally keeps the physical suffering to
himself. He tries to maintain an image of a real
man
although he is in the grip of Death. He
behaves in the manner of Hemingway’s “tough guy” –
acting by the principal that “A man can be
destroyed but can not be defeated.”)
(2)
In the short conversations, we hear the patient’s
demand to know about exact time and his
demand
for shoes. Why is he still interested in time and
what does he want shoes for since he can’t
walk anymore?
(His interest in exact time
and his demand for shoes seem to suggest that,
deep in his heart,
the man refuses to accept
the fate. It might be the result of fierce
psychological conflict within the
patient,
with reality and rationality on one side, and wish
and will on the other side. Some
abnormal
behaviors indicate the man’s unwillingness to
reconcile with the fate in spite of his
self-
restrain.)
(3) Read carefully the
paragraph about plate-throwing. Why does the
writer give such detailed
description of it?
What is your interpretation of this rather
abnormal behavior?
(From the detailed
descriptions of his “discus” throwing, we seem to
learn that the man is
rather skillful at that,
and that he might have had some training in the
sport of throwing discus.
Then why dose he
throw plates? Is it because it brings back the
memory of the best moment in his
life when his
physical power wins the glory and cheers? By this
impulsive “reliving” or
“restaging” of the
explosive energy he once had, the man gains some
satisfaction – he laughs after
it – and proves
that he is still alive. This action reveals the
complicated inner world of a man who
is forced
to face death.)
(4) Why does the writer
choose “The Discus Thrower” as the title? Is it
coincidence that the short
story has the same
title as the famous Greek sculpture Discobolus
(Discus Thrower)?
(In the Greek
sculpture, we see the frozen moment of beauty:
male vitality, energy and
muscle power. It is
a celebration of life and physical capability.
This patient might once be a
discus thrower,
professional athlete or amateur, and now forms
such a contrast to the sculptured
image. This
leaves a lot of room for reader’s own reflection
on life and death.)
2) Explanation and
interpretation
(Explain the implied meaning
of the following sentences, and point out their
significance
in the context of the story.)
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(1) a. From the
doorway of Room 542 the man in the bed seems
deeply tanned. Blue eyes and
close-cropped
white hair give him the appearance of vigor and
good health.
b. He lies solid and inert. In
spite of everything, he remains impressive, as
though he were a
sailor standing athwart a
slanting deck.
(The patient is fatally ill,
but he looks, or keeps an image of a strong man.
His life is
threatened by disease, but the
spirit of a strong man is still there. He does not
collapse, but
does what he can, though rather
vainly, to struggle to maintain the dignity of a
man.)
(2) “Yes,” he says at last and
without the least irony. “You can bring me a pair
of shoes.”
(see suggested answer to Question
2.)
(3) It’s a blessing, she (the head
nurse) says.
(Though the head nurse is the
one who has complained a lot about the patient’s
unreasonable
behaviors and upon his death she
says “It’s a blessing,” it does not mean that she
is cold blooded,
and thus feels relieved of
her troubles. She means that God has allowed him
to go, so he no longer
needs to suffer and to
struggle in this world. It is thus a blessing from
God.)
(4) He is still there in his bed.
His face is relaxed, grave, dignified.
(He is
dead, possibly dying with relaxed feeling as he
has kept his final image of being a true
man
with dignity and can now sleep in peace.)
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《英语短篇小说教程》
练习参考答案
4
Keys to Unit
Four
Somerset Maugham: Mr. Know-All
1) Opinions of Understanding:
(1)
Which of the following is a round character?
A. The narrator “I”. B. Mr. Kelada. C. Mr.
Ramsay. D. Mrs. Ramsay.
(2) Which of
the following is a most typical flat character?
A. The narrator “I”. B. Mr. Kelada.
C. Mr. Ramsay. D. Mrs. Ramsay.
(3) The
narrator decided that he might have an unpleasant
company even before seeing Mr. Kelada
because
_______.
A. he had to share a cabin
with the latter
B. he had known the latter
to be a loud and noisy person
C. the latter
had a foreign name
D. the latter had a bad
reputation
(4) From the story we can
deduce that Mrs. Ramsay’s pearl necklace was
probably ________.
A. a worthless
imitation
B. an expensive purchase that she
borrowed money to pay for
C. a gift from her
husband
D. a gift from a lover of hers that
her husband knew nothing about
(5) By the
end of the short story, the narrator said, “At
that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr.
Kelada.” The words may suggest that _______.
A. he actually enjoyed the company of Mr.
Kelada
B. he found that Mr. Kelada was
entirely different from what he had expected him
to be
C. he liked Mr. Kelada just for a
moment
D. he had changed his earlier
attitude towards Mr. Kelada
2) Questions
for Discussion:
(Suggested answers for
reference)
(1) What are the undesirable
qualities of Mr. Kelada according to the narrator?
Find them out in
the text and list them. Are
they good proof that Mr. Kelada is an unpleasant
person?
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1）…my fellow
passenger’s name was (not) Smith or Brown. (not
Anglo-Saxon sounding)
(line 9).
2) When I
went on board I found Mr. Kelada’s luggage ..and
toilet things (showing bad taste)
(lines
11-16)
3) Mr. Kelada was short and of a
sturdy build, cleanshaven and dark skinned, with a
fleshy,
hooked nose and very large lustrous
and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and
curly. (His
physical features indicate that he
is not a white European.) (lines 32-34)
4) He
spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing
English and his gestures were
exuberant.
(lines 34-35)
5) Mr. Kelada was chatty. (line
57)
6) Mr. Kelada was familiar. …(observing)
no such formality. (lines 64-68)
7) “The three
on the four,” said Mr. Kelada (participating in
other person’s card game, being
rather nosy)
(lines 71-81)
8) I not only shared a cabin
with him and ate three meals a day at the same
table, but I could
not walk round the deck
without his joining me. (caring little about other
people’s privacy) (lines
85-86)
9) He was
a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on
board. He ran everything. (line
90-91)
10)
He was certainly the best hated man in the ship.
We called him Mr. Know-All. (line 94)
11) He
was … argumentative. He knew everything better
than anybody else. (lines 96-97)
But
the above list only proves that Mr. Kelada was a
person of different culture and behaved
differently. Nurtured by his more Oriental
culture, he behaved in a way that was nothing
wrong in
itself, but was disliked by the
narrator of the story, who held a prejudice
against non-Western
culture.
(2)
Underline the descriptions of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay,
and discuss the contrast between the
couple.
Mr. Ramsay:
1) He was as dogmatic as Mr.
Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine’s
cocksureness.
(lines 103-104)
2) He was a
great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with
loose fat under a tight skin, and
he bulged
out of his ready-made clothes. (lines 106-108)
3) He was argumentative (lines 122-124) and
insensitive (lines 155-170)
Mrs. Ramsay:
1) Mrs. Ramsay was a very pretty little thing,
with pleasant manners and a sense of humor.
(lines 110-111)
2) She was dressed always
very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes.
She achieved
an effect of quiet distinction.
(lines 111-113)
3) You could not look at her
without being struck by her modesty. It shone in
her like a
flower on a coat. (lines 115-116)
(The husband and the wife are very
different almost in every way. One is loud, fatty,
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aggressive and the other is
quite, pretty and modest. The contrast gives the
reader an impression
that the man is unworthy
of the lady and may indicate at possible lack of
harmony in the
marriage.)
(3) We have
been given enough hints about the true value of
the necklace and the possible story
behind it.
Can you find them?
1) “They’ll never be
able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like
me can’t tell with half an
eye.” He pointed to
a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. “You take my word
for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that
chain you’re wearing
will never be worth a cent less than it is now.”
(lines 134-137)
2) Mrs. Ramsay in her modest
way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside
her dress.
(line 136)
3) “Oh, in the trade
somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if
it was bought on Fifth
Avenue, I shouldn’t be
surprised to hear that anything up to thirty
thousand was paid for it.” (lines
145-147)
4) “Oh, Elmer, you can’t bet on a certainty,”
said Mrs. Ramsay. (line 155)
5) “But how can
it be proved?” she continued. “It’s only my word
against Mr. Kelada’s.”
(line 159-160)
6)
Mrs. Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands
to the clasp. (line 164)
7) “I can’t undo it,”
she said. “Mr. Kelada will just have to take my
word for it.” (line 165)
8) The Levantine took
a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely
examined it. A smile
of triumph spread over
his smooth and swarthy face. (lines 170-172)
9) … Mrs. Ramsay’s face. It was so white that
she looked as though she were about to faint.
She was staring at him with wide and terrified
eyes. They held a desperate appeal. (lines
173-175)
(4) Why did Mr. Kelada choose
not to tell the truth of the value of the pearl
necklace?
(Obviously he wanted to help the
helpless lady by not revealing the true value of
the necklace.
Otherwise she would have to face
an awful and embarrassing explanation. He might
have
regarded Mr. Ramsay as being unworthy for
the lady and acted out of disdain.)
(5)
Why did the narrator say by the end of the story
“I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada”?
(He
seemed to be aware of his own prejudice after he
had seen the positive quality of the
Levantine: wisdom, self-sacrifice, and
sensitiveness to other’s misfortunes.)
3)
Explanation and Interpretation:
(Explain the
implied meaning of the following sentences, and
point out their significance
in the context of
the story.)
(1) I was prepared to dislike
Max Kelada even before I knew him.
(This
indicates that the narrator, the English
gentleman, had a deep-rooted racial and cultural
bias against non-English. It is not the
person, but what his name represents that he
disliked.)
(2) But when I was told the
name of my companion my heart sank…. I should have
looked upon it
with less dismay if my fellow
passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.
7
(“Smith” and “Brown” are typical
English surnames. The name “Max Kelada” indicates
a
man from a different, most likely “inferior”
culture in the opinion of the narrator.)
(3) The Consular Service is ill paid, and she
was dressed always very simply.
(This
foreshadows the fact that the pearl necklace was
far too expensive for her purse.)
(4)
Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and
slipped the chain inside her dress.
(She
quickly hid the chain inside, an act that reveals
her fear of its true value being noticed
by
somebody.)
(5) “If I had a pretty little
wife I shouldn’t let her spend a year in New York
while I stayed at
Kobe,” said he.
(Mr.
Kelada hinted that the husband’s leaving her alone
in New York was unwise and had led
to some
consequences. She had now a wealthy suitor. )
4) Suggested Homework:
Let us suppose
that in the afternoon on the same day when Mr.
Kelada got back the 100
dollars, he met Mrs.
Ramsay somewhere on the deck, and there were no
other people around.
They had a short
conversation about what had happened previously.
Using your imagination, write
out the short
dialogue between the two. The conversation may
begin like this:
(-- Good morning, Mrs.
Ramsay. It’s a surprise to see you alone here.
-- Good morning, Mr. Kelada. I don’t feel
well, so I come out for a bit of fresh air.
--
It’s always a pleasure to see a charming lady like
you.
-- Thank you for saying so. I’m extremely
sorry for what happened yesterday, and I’m
grateful for what you did, for me.)
--
Lying about the necklace?
-- Lying for my
sake. You are generous and have a good heart.
-- Anyway, I got the 100 dollars back. You
delivered it yourself?
-- Yes, I did. You
did me a great service, and there is no way that
you should be paying that
money.
-- I
have been the laughingstock of everybody on board.
-- You have my respect. I was real terrified
yesterday, and fortunately you came to the rescue.
-- It is a wonderful gift, that necklace,
from a true admirer, I guess?
-- You
embarrass me, Mr. Kelada, but you seem to notice
everything.
-- It’s a good match to a
pretty lady like you.
-- Don’t laugh at me,
I beg. I don’t think I’ll be wearing it anymore.
Thank you again, and I
think I’ll be going
back to the cabin.
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