Download Lesson Two Discovery of a Father

Lesson Two
Discovery of a Father
By Sherwood Anderson
About the author:
Sherwood Anderson (1876~1941)
• Sherwood Anderson’s life was in a way archetypal
of literary lives in modern America. He was born
into a poor family in Camden, Ohio, the U.S. in
1876, but spent his formative years in the town of
Clyde, Ohio, which inspired the setting of many of
his stories. He worked as a laborer in 1896~1898,
then served in the Spanish American War.
• He was the author of many stories and
novels, and he was a major influence on a
younger generation of important writers,
including Faukner, Hemingway, Wolfe,
Steinbeck, and others, both through his
writings and his acts of personal kindness. It
was through his influence, for example, that
the first books of both Faukner and
Hemingway were published.
• His masterpiece ---- Winesburg, Ohio was
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published in 1919.
And he also left three personal narratives:
A Story-Teller’s story (1924)
Tar : A Midwest Childhood (1926)
Sherwood Anderson’s Memoirs (1942)
• His Writing Style:
• Anderson wrote his stories that appeal not
through careful fabrications of incidents or
episodes, but by the sheer emotional force
of the moments of revelation, or the
Joycean epiphany that these stories describe.
About the Stories
• This is a story
about an
interesting
character told by
his son who later
became a wellknown writer.
• With well-selected
anecdotes and using
the tone of a little boy,
the author gives a
vivid character sketch
of his father whom he
used to despite but
gradually learns to
understand and
appreciate when he
grows up.
Detailed Discussion of the Text
• Paragraph 1
• You hear it said that fathers want their sons
to be what they feel they cannot themselves
be, but I tell you it also works the other way.
• P: In a general way, fathers want their sons
to live up to their expectations. But it is
also true the other way around, that is to
say the children have the same demand on
their fathers.
• dignified: sb or sth that is dignified deserves
respect because of being controlled,
graceful serious and calm.
• eg. My parents want me to be a dignified
man.
• flow: a continuous stream, movement, or
supply of sth
• eg. During the tourist season, the flow of
traffic usually doubles.
• Paragraph 2:
• It seemed to me then that he was always
showing off.
• Please pay attention to the use of continuous
tenses to express the strong approval or
disapproval.
• eg: He is always making fun of other people.
I don’t like that.
• She is a wonderful person. She is always
helping others.
• Let’s say someone in our town had got up a
show.
• P: Let suppose sb in our town had arranged
or organized a public performance.
• to stand: to endure; to bear; to put up with
• eg. I didn’t go to his talk. I couldn’t stand
his nonsense.
• Paragraph 3:
• Grand Marshal: the
man in charge of
arranging or
controlling crowds
at certain public
events such as
parades and
ceremonies
• Paragraph 4:
• … as good a time as they were.
• as good a time as…: Note the position of
the indefinite article. It is put between the
adjective and the noun. More examples:
• He is as intelligent a student as Tom.
• Scarlet Letter is as interesting a novel as
Oliver Twist.
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•
•
•
Paragraph 5:
loaf: v. avoid activities esp.work
[ph] loaf around or loaf about
eg. Stop loafing(around/ about) and get on
with cleaning the windows!
• to go broke: to become bankrupt; become
penniless
• eg. He went broke and he was down and out.
• Paragraph 6:
• to fool around:to
spend your time
doing nothing
useful
• eg.you shouldn’t
fool around with
such a guy.
• windbag: sb who
talks too much
About the Civil War
• The Civil War: it
refers to the war in the
war in the United
States between the
Union( north ) and he
Confederacy ( south )
from 1861 to 1865. It
is also called War
Between the States
• Grant :
• Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822~1885) was the Union
commander in the American Civil War. He outmaneuvered his enemy commanders many times, and
finally, in 1865, forced Robert Lee, the supreme
commander of the Confederate Army to surrender,
thus effectively ending the Civil War. When Lincoln
was assassinated, he was elected the 18th president of
the U.S. But as president, his two terms(1869 ~1877)
were marked by an astounding degree of corruption
carried on by his friends and associates.
Ulysses Simpson Grant(1822~1885)
• Sherman
• William Tecumseh Sherman(1820~1891) was one
of the most famous Civil War generals in the
Union Army. He fought many of the bloodiest
battles in the war. But he was probably best
remembered for his “march to the sea”---an
attempt to destroy the vital supply base of the
South. Sherman once said that “War is hell.” After
he retired, some Republicans intended to elect him
their presidential nominee, but he turned it down,
saying : “ If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I
will not serve.”
• Sheridan:
• Philip Henry Sheridan (1831~1888) was
another outstanding Union general of the
Civil War. He was best remembered for how
he carried out Grant’s order to lay waste the
Shenandoah Valley, the granary of the South.
Sheridan ravaged the place so much that, in
his own words, “A crow would have had to
carry its rations if it had flown across the
valley.”
Philip Henry Sheridan (1831~1888) (sitting in the middle)
• Lee
• Robert Edward Lee
(1807~1870) was
Confederacy’s
outstanding general
in the Civil War.
• He is considered
as the most
beloved general
in the history of
the U.S.”
• He truly was a
genuine American
hero who was
dearly respected in
the North and
adored in the South.
• As the principal of
the Washington
University in
Virginia , he once
said, “The
education of a man
is never completed
until he died.”
• Paragraph 12:
• orderly: n. a soldier who does unskilled jobs
for a commander.
•
adj. Arranged or organized in a
sensible or neat way
• eg. He has an orderly mind.
• Paragraph 13:
• slip off: to go off quietly or secretly without
being noticed or caught.
• eg. Just slip off the room while nobody is
looking.
• Paragraph 14:
• memoirs: a written record of a usually famous
•
•
•
•
person’s own life and experience
get word: receive the news or information
eg.So far there is still no word about the cause of
this air clash.
to call it quit: (infml) to agree that a debt or an
argument is settled; or to agree to stop doing
something
eg. Will you call it quits if I pay you twenty dollars?
• Paragraph 18:
• to lick: v. (infml) to defeat an opponent,
•
•
•
•
often in sports
eg. She has licked her weight problem.
Paragraph 19:
to be thick with sb: to be very friendly with
sb
eg. How are you thick with such a guy who
is always telling lies?
• Paragraph 23:
• down and out: (infml) having no job, no
money, and no place to live; destitute
• eg. Since my father was laid off, our family
were down and out, and that was really a
difficult time for us.
• to sympathize with: to feel or express
compassion, as for another's suffering;
commiserate.
• eg. After reading the Matches Girl, all of us
sympathize with the poor little girl.
• Maybe the woman had dared to sympathize
with her.
• P: Maybe the woman had been rude enough
or foolish enough to express sympathy for
my mother.
Questions for Discussion
• 1.Why was father different from what he
used to be?
• 2.Why did father ask son to go swimming
on such a wet night?
• 3.Do you think the change of son’s attitude
towards father was too sudden? Why or
why not?
A Brief Discussion on
Symbolism
• Symbol:
• A symbol, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is
“something that stands for something else by
reason of relationship, association, convention, or
accidental resemblance…a visible sign of
something invisible.” Symbols, in this sense, are
with us all the time, for there are few words or
objects that do not evoke, at least in certain
contests, a wide range of associated meanings and
feelings.
• For example, the word
home ( as opposed to
house ) conjures up
feelings of warmth
and security and
personal associations
of family, friends, and
neighborhood.
A nation’s flag
suggests country
and patriotism.
Human beings, by virtue of their
capacity for language and memory, are
symbol-making creatures. So you can
think of as many symbols as you can
such as key is the symbol of the answer
to question and river is the symbol of
mother of creatures, or whatever you
like.
• In literature, however, symbols--- in
the form of words, images, objects,
settings, events, and characters--- are
often used deliberately to suggest and
reinforce meaning, to provide
enrichment by enlarging and clarifying
the experience of the work, and to
help to organize and unify the whole.
• Symbolism:
• In broad sense symbolism is the use of one object to
represent or suggest another; or, in literature, the use
of symbols in writing, particularly the serious and
extensive use of such symbols.
• In America in the middle of the 19th century,
symbolism was the dominant literary mode. In this
symbolist movement, the details of natural world and
the action of people were used to suggest
philosophical ideas and themes.
Symbolic meaning used in this
text
• Settings: a wet night
• A wet night usually has
the symbolic meaning
to show sth unexpected
would happen.
• And here the wet night
or the darkness also
serves as the symbol of
the difficulties they
met in their life.
• The swimming:
• …he put my hand on his
shoulder and struck out into the
darkness.
• Father and son , striking out
into the darkness together, with
the boy’s hand on the father’s
shoulder. They are swimming
together in the pond, but in a
symbolic sense, they are also
getting ready to fight against
heavy odds in life together.
• Paragraph 41:
• He was a story-teller as I was to be.
• P: It means that looking back, the
author realized that he himself had
become a story writer because of his
father’s influence, because he had his
father’s genes of literary creation.
The Outline of the Passage
• The first part: ( paragraph1 ~ paragraph25 )
• In this part, the author gave a very vivid
character sketch of his father whom he
despised .
• The second part: ( paragraph 26 ~ the end )
• In this part, the author describes his
“discovery of his father” through the little
incident of his father’s swimming with him
on a wet night.
Conclusion of the text
• Mark Twain once said with his usual humor,
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father
was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have
the old man around. But when I got to be
twenty-one , I was astonished at how much
he had learned in seven years.”
• This passage is dedicated to the memory of
his father.
Homework
• Write out a passage entitled
• “Discovery of my father / my mother”
• Finish all the exercises of this unit.