Transcript The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
Slide 1
The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain
Slide 2
Background stories
• Mark Twain (1835-1910)’s life and
psyche
• Stories of “bad boys”
Slide 3
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Slide 4
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• Boyhood (Hannibal, Missouri, a slave
state)
- happy
- exposure to violence
- experience of family financial
uncertainty & psychological
instability (father died when Sam
was 12)
Slide 5
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• River Pilot – 4 years (a richly rewarding
occupation with wages set at $250 per
month, equivalent to $155,000 a year
today.)
• Soldier - serving for a Confederate guerrila
band briefly during the Civil War
• Miner & Prospector - heading west to
California in hopes of striking it rich in the
silver-mine bonanza
Slide 6
Mark Twain
• Journalist
• Lecturer: comic successful performances;
personally held demeaning
• Writer:
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- Life on the Mississippi (1883)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1884)
Slide 7
A deeply divided man
• Mark Twain – the public man of letters,
the beloved fun-maker, associated with
the comic stage
• S.L.C. – the private citizen, tormented by
insecurity, obsessed with making money,
convinced to be surrounded by business
rivals, tending toward the inexorable
decline of tragedy
Slide 8
Major Works
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Innocents Abroad (1869)
The Gilded Age (1873)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s
Court (1889)
• The Man That Corrupted Hadleydburg
(1900)
Slide 9
Stories of “bad boys” (1)
• Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist
• Youthful pranksters (mischief-maker) in
previous American fiction
- Ike Partington & his tormented aunt in
B.P. Shillaber’s story in the 1950s
- Tom Bailey of T.B. Aldrich’s The Story of
a Bad Boy (1870)
* avatars of misrule, boys whose mischief
calls into question the conformist rigidity
of village norms
• Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick (1867)
Slide 10
Stories of “bad boys” (2)
• The “bad boys” were represented against
the traditional “Good Boy / Bad Boy”
dichotomy of Victorian children’s literature
• The boys are not really “bad,” merely funloving, their pranks expressing the healthy
subversiveness of boyhood
• “bad” boys are really good at heart
• “bad” boys who reform and become a
responsible or decent or heroic citizen
Slide 11
Alger’s boys vs Tom Sawyer
• Alger’s boys achieved their reform
and success through hard work
• Tom’s success had less to do with
hard work than with good luck
abetted by a quick wit
- Gilded Age
Slide 12
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Slide 13
Why a successful and classic novel?
• Narration
• Characterization: Tom
• Arrangement of major and minor
characters: Tom vs. Aunt Polly, Becky,
Sid, Mr. Dobbins the headmaster, Mr.
Waters the Sunday-school superintendent
• Motifs of love, death, wealth, adventure
• Humor: funny scenes and stories
Slide 14
Narration (1)
• Many sub-stories
- fighting with the well-dressed newcomer (p.58, Chapt.I)
- whitewashing the fence (p.9-14, Chapt.II)
- trading cards for the prize (p.25-31, Chapt IV)
- engagement with Becky (p.52-56, Chapt.VII)
- pirate life on the island (p.88-117, Chapt.
XIII-XVI)
- treasure seeking …
• Good suspenses
- Tom’s changing emotions and fancies
- Tom & Huck witnessed Graveyard murder
- Injun Joe escaped from the court
Slide 15
Narration (2)
• Omniscient narration with use of many
dialogues in vernacular language: more
showing（展示） (characters’ words and
actions) than telling（讲述）, theatrical
effect – vivid, lifelike
e.g. dialogue between Tom and Becky in
Chapter 7 (about engagement) (line 2
from the bottom on p.52 to line 2 on
p.55)
Slide 16
谈好条件以后，他俩轮流嚼着口香糖，他们悬着腿，坐在
长凳上，高兴极了。
汤姆问：“你看过马戏吗？”
“看过。我爸说如果我听话的话，他以后还带我去看哩。”
“我看过三四次马戏——看过好多次。做礼拜和看马戏相
比，算不了什么。马戏团演出时，总是不停地换着花样。我打
算长大后到马戏团当小丑。”
“啊，真的吗！那倒不错。小丑满身画着点点，真可爱。”
“是的，一点也不错。他们能赚大把大把的钞票——差不
多一天赚一块，本·罗杰斯说的。嘿，贝基，你订过婚吗？”
“订婚是什么？”
“哦，订婚就是快要结婚了。”
“没有。”
“你愿意订婚吗？”
“我想是愿意的。我不知道。订婚究竟是怎么回
事？”“怎么回事？说不上怎么回事。你对一个男孩子说除了
他，你将永远永远，永远不和别人相好，然后你就和他接吻，
就这么回事。人人都能做到。”
Slide 17
“接吻？接吻干什么？”
“哎，那，你知道，就是——嘿，人家都是那样做的。”
“人人都这样？”
“哎，对，彼此相爱的人都这样。你还记得我在写字板
上写的字吗？”
“记——记得。”
“写的是什么？”
“我不告诉你。”
“那我告诉你。”
“好——好吧——还是以后再说吧。”
“不，现在说。”
“不行，现在不能说——明天再说吧。”
“不，不行，就现在说。求求你，贝基——我小声说，
我轻轻地说。”
贝基正在犹豫，汤姆认为她是默许了，于是用胳膊搂住
她的腰，嘴靠近她的耳朵，轻声细语地讲了那句话。接着他
又补充道：
“现在你也轻轻地对我说——同样的话。”
Slide 18
她先拒绝了一会，然后说：
“你把脸转过去，别看着我，我就说。但是你千万不要
对别人说，好吗？汤姆，你不对别人说吧！”
“不说，我保证，保证不说。来吧，贝基。”
他把脸转过去。她胆怯地弯下腰，一直到她的呼吸吹动
了汤姆的鬈发，才悄声地说：“我——爱——你！”
她说完就围着书桌和板凳跑起来，汤姆在后面追她；最
后她躲在拐角里，用白色围裙遮住脸。汤姆一把抱紧她的脖
子，求她：
“好了，贝基，现在一切都做了——就差接吻了。不要
害怕——没什么大不了的。求你了，贝基。”他使劲拉她的
围裙和手。
渐渐地她让了步，她把手放下来。刚才一阵折腾使她的
脸都红了，她抬起头，顺从了汤姆。汤姆吻了她红红的嘴唇，
说道：
“好了，贝基，该做的都做了。要知道，从今往后你只
能爱我不能跟别人好，只能嫁给我不能和别人结婚，永远、
永远、不变，好吗？”
Slide 19
“好的。汤姆，我只跟你相爱，不爱别人，我只嫁给你，
不和别人结婚——你也一样除了我不能娶别人。”
“对对，对对。还有，通常我们在上学或放学的时候，
要是没有旁人在场的话，你就和我一块走——开舞会的时候，
你选我做伴，我选你做伴，因为订了婚的人都是这样的。”
“真是太有意思了。我以前还从没听说过。”
“啊，这才有趣哪！嘿，我和艾美·劳伦斯——”
贝基睁大了两只眼睛望着他，汤姆这才发现自己已铸成
了大错，于是他住了口，有点不知所措的样子。
“啊，汤姆！那么，我还不是头一个和你订婚的呀！”
Slide 20
Major vs. Minor Characters
• Major character (protagonist, hero)
– Tom : round character（立体人物）
• Minor character: flat character（扁平人物）
- Aunt Polly，Becky, Mr. Dobbins, Mr. Waters
- Sid, Huck (foil, 陪衬人物）
- Injun Joe (antagonist, 主要对立人物）
Slide 21
Round vs. Flat character
• A round character usually has more than one
quality, grows in the course of the story
development, and changes his view of the
world or attitude to other people. He / She is
complex as a real person, not easy to
understand.
• A flat character is built around a single idea
or quality, does not develop in the course of
narration and is easy to describe.
Slide 22
Antagonist and Foil
• Antagonist is the rival or enemy of the
protagonist.
• Foil is a supporting character whose role in
the story is to highlight the protagonist by
presenting a comparison or a contrast to
him / her.
Slide 23
Supporting Characters
• Foil
– Sid (Sidney)
• Other supporting characters
- Aunty Polly, Becky, Mr. Dobbins, Mr.
Walters
• Function
- to highlight the theatrical effect of Tom’s
mischief and adventures
- to help with the characterization of Tom
- to help satirize the wrong education method
Slide 24
Sid (Sidney)
• Model Boy?
- seemingly obedient and well-behaved
- informer / squealer (inform on / against
Tom / Huck) (collar thread color “white” or
“black”, p.3-4; p.229-30)
- stealing sugar only to break the bowl
Slide 25
Mr. Waters
• The Sunday-school superintendent（主日学
校校长）(p. 26-31)
- rigid teaching method: reciting the Bible
- hypocritical / vainglorious: “showing off” (p.
28-29)
Slide 26
Mr. Dobbins
• The schoolmaster (p.135-146)
- severe and exacting（严厉，苛求）
- punishing small pupils frequently with
lashing / flogging / flaying（鞭笞，毒打）
Slide 27
Aunt Polly
• Supporting character to highlight the theatrical
effect of Tom’s mischief
• Object of satire: She seldom or never looked
through them for so small a thing as a boy, for
they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and
were built for ‘style’ not service; she could have seen
through a pair of stove lids as well (Tom Sawyer,
Chapter 1, p7)
- Aunt Polly’s vanity
- Aunt Polly’s underestimate of the difficulty and
importance of educating a smart and naughty boy like
Tom
- Aunt Polly’s rigid concept of a ‘good’ boy
Slide 28
Characterization of Tom
• Tom
- witty, adventurous
- a “bad” boy: play truant, cheat playmates
and teachers, run away from home, invovled in
fistfights and scuffles
- a good boy: having strong sense of honor and
self-respect (p. 26), protective, kind-hearted,
brave, responsible
Slide 29
Motifs of
• Love – that between Tom and Becky
• Death – Tom’s death desire
• Wealth – Tom and Huck’s digging for
treasure and final discovery of the box of
gold coins (“a little over twelve thousand
dollars)
• Adventure – unusual, exciting or dangerous
experience, e.g. hide-and-seek game with
Aunt Polly, playing truant, pirate life on the
island, pretending death, confronting the evil
criminal Injun Joe, seeking hidden treasure
Slide 30
Tom and death
• Tom’s understanding of death
- after Aunt Polly mistakenly beat Tom while
it was Sid who broke the sugar bowl (p. 19,
Chap. 3)
- when slighted by Becky, Tom… (p. 57-58,
Chap. 8)
- when the pirate boys realized the town
were mourning over their “death” (p. 100,
Chap. 14)
- the boys’ attending their own funeral (p.
116-119, Chap. 18)
• Did you ever think of death in your childhood?
Your understanding of death at present
Slide 31
Motif of Death in literature
• Death is in parallel with love, wealth,
adventure as a typical motif in
literature.
• Real death motif in some works, such as
Hemingway’s “The Snow of Kilimanjaros”,
Emily Dickinson’s poems, Faulkner’s “A
Rose for Emily”.
• Literature reading & research:
experiencing
Slide 32
Motifs of Adventure
Ex: Pirate life on the island
(the last two paragraphs on p. 97 and
the first paragraph on p. 98)
Slide 33
汤姆弄醒了另外两个强盗，他们大叫一声，嘻嘻哈哈地
跑开了；两分钟以后，他们就脱得赤条条的，跳进白沙滩上
那片清澈透底的水里互相追逐，滚抱嬉戏。宽阔的河流对面，
远远的地方，就是那个村庄，而他们并不想念。可能是一阵
湍流也可能是一股上涨的潮水，冲走了他们的小木筏。他们
却为此感到庆幸。因为没有了木筏，就像是烧毁了他们与文
明世界间的桥梁，斩断了他们回返的念头。
他们回到露营地时，神采奕奕，兴致勃勃，却也饥肠辘
辘；不久他们把那篝火又拨旺了。哈克在附近发现了一眼清
泉，孩子们就用阔大的橡树叶和胡桃树叶做成杯子，他们觉
得这泉水有股子森林的清香，完全可以取代咖啡。乔正在切
咸肉片做早餐，汤姆和哈克让他稍候片刻；他们来到河边，
相中了一个僻静之处，垂下鱼钩，不长时间就有了收获。还
没到让乔等得不耐烦的时候，他们就拿回来几条漂亮的石首
鱼，一对鲈鱼和一条小鲶鱼——这些鱼足够一大家人饱餐一
顿。他们把鱼和咸肉放到一块煮，结果让人惊讶的是：鱼的
味道竟然这么鲜美。他们不知道淡水鱼越趁活烧吃，味道越
鲜美；另外，他们也没有想到露天睡觉、户外运动、洗澡以
及饥饿会使食欲大增。他们并不明白饥者口中尽佳肴的道理。
Slide 34
Humor
• Tom’s naughty or childish and funny
behaviors
• Caricature of Aunt Polly, school teachers,
church minister
• Satire of traditional family and school
education
Slide 35
• Why can't Aunt Polly see the merits
of Tom? Is this a kind of writing
technique in order to emphasize the
mischievous trait of a child?
• Is there anyone Mark Twain satirizes
in this novel?
• Which point does the author focus on?
Humor or satire?
Slide 36
Satire of school education
1. The problem pupil like Tom should turn out
to be a great hero of the village.
2. Such a smart and moral child has been
driven out of school and home by rigidity.
3. A boy of German parentage who won four
or five Bibles by outstanding recitation of
Bible verses became an idiot for the
strain (p. 26, chapter 4) .
4. Good students are all without exception
trained to be so pretentious（虚伪的, 做作
的, 矫饰的）in their compositions and
speeches (pp. 142-146, chapter 22)
Slide 37
Prevalent features in good
compositions
•
•
•
•
a nursed and petted melancholy矫情；无病呻
吟，故作悲伤
a wasteful and opulent gush of ‘fine language’
堆砌华丽词藻
a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly
prized words and phrases until they were
worn entirely out偏爱陈词滥调
the inveterate and intolerable sermon that
wagged its crippled tail at the end of each
and every one of them机械性说教
Slide 38
密苏里少女告别阿拉巴马
再见，阿拉巴马！我爱你笃深，
离别虽短暂，难舍又难分！
想到你，往事历历燃胸间，
爱怜又悲伤。
曾记否，万花丛中留下我的足迹，
德拉波斯溪旁有我朗朗的读书声；
我听过德达西的流水犹如万马奔腾，
我见过库萨山巅晨曦的分娩。
我心系百事，无悔无怨，
含泪回首，心平气缓。
我告别的是我熟悉的地方，
见我叹息的也不是异乡他客；
来到该州，我宾至如归，
可如今我将远离高山大谷。
亲爱的阿拉巴马，一旦我心灰意冷，
那时，我真的告别人寰。
Slide 39
Humor
The last but one paragraph in
Chapter 21, para. 3 on p.146
Slide 40
那位老师这时醉得几乎是一副和蔼可亲的样子。他推开
椅子，背对着观众，开始在黑板上画美国地图，为考地理课
作准备。可他的手不听使唤，结果把图画得不象样，引得大
家暗地里忍俊不禁。他心里清楚大家在笑他画得不好，于是
就着手修改。他擦去一些线，然后又画上，结果画得比原来
的还差，大家更加肆无忌惮地笑话他。他孤注一掷，大有泰
山压顶不弯腰之势，全身心地投入，准备把地图画好。他觉
得大家全都盯着他看，想象着自己终于画成了一幅像样的美
国图，可是下面的笑声还是不断传来，并且明显地越来越大。
原来他头顶上是个阁楼，阁楼的天窗正对着老师的头顶。一
只腰部系着绳子的猫从上面悬空而下，它的头和嘴被破布扎
上了，出不了声。在下降的过程中，猫向上翘起身子用爪抓
住绳子，然后在空中乱舞一通后向下悠来。大家的笑声越来
越大。猫离那个专心作画的老师头部只有六英寸远。越来越
近，越来越低，猫终于在绝望中一下子抓住了老师的假发。
随即那猫连同假发一下子又窜回阁楼。老师的秃头光彩四射，
因为那个做招牌人的孩子已经给他头上上了一层光。考试就
此结束，孩子们报了仇，假期来临了。
Slide 41
Major themes
• Joy of childhood
• Growth of a boy
• Satire of conventional rigid education –
family, school, church
Slide 42
Why did Mark Twain choose a child as the
hero of the novel? Did Mark Twain have a
wonderful childhood that he wanted to
memorize or he didn't have it, so he wanted
to make up in his works?
• I am not Mark Twain. Go ask him.
- disillusionment with contemporary,
corrupt, adult society
vs
- recapturing the past of his boyhood
Slide 43
How can we understand Injun Joe? He
is the evilest soul in the whole story. Is
there any discrimination?
• Yes, it is a racial discrimination. According
to the white people (including Mark Twain),
the only American Indian in the novel is a
brutal murderer, the only criminal and evil
person to be wiped out of the town.
- alienated
- marginalized
Slide 44
why the author ended the story with
the image that Tom became a
"normal"child in the adult's eyes.
• a) Wasn’t Tom a “normal” child before in
the adult’s eye?
• b) Wasn’t Tom previous “Tom”?
Development of things isn’t straight linear.
It’s spiral rise.
• c) The former “normal” Tom was different
from the later “normal” Tom.
Slide 45
Where did Tom learn his
personal moral code?
• Tom did not go to church for nothing
though mostly he was not listening.
• His Aunt Polly’s religion was another way
for him to learn morality. He formed the
habit of praying to God, even if his aunt
was not around.
Slide 46
What does the role "Tom
Sawyer" stand for in that age?
• He does not stand for anything of that age.
• He just stands for the desire of innocence,
freedom and wealth.
• Or you may say Tom Sawyer stands for
the spirit of misrule
• Not a symbolic story like “Young Goodman
Brown”
Slide 47
We always say that people in
western countries value personal
rights high, then how can a
teacher beat a child?
• Physical punishment was widely
adopted in Western countries’ school
before the 20th century, e.g. Eton.
Slide 48
• Tom Sawyer is disobedient and thirsty
for adventures, and occasionally
naive like every ordinary child. But
during his adventures, we can trace
he moves away from his childlike
character to maturity. In what ways
does he grow up?
• That he has a strong sense of
responsibility and wants to conform to the
society.
Slide 49
Assignments for 20th-cent poems
• Review 序言 （period of realism, pp.5-7)
• i. Read Ezra Pound, W. C. Williams, and
Robert Frost’s poems in the textbook;
• ii. Write a poem of your own in English
imitating their poems or write a poem (English
or Chinese) to interpret one of their poems as
if you’re in converse with the poet;
• iii. Translate one of their poems into Chinese.
Slide 50
Assignement
• Read 序言（para. 4-5, p. 11)
• Read Sherwood Anderson's“The Triumph
of the Egg” closely.
• Write your literary journal（文学日记）
about the story.
• Choose one of the following topics to write
a short paper:
• 1) What does the egg symbolize?
• 2) Find out ironies used in the story and
explain their functions.
• 3) What are the themes of the story?
Slide 51
Assignments
• Read all of Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poems in
the textbook.
• Write your reading response journal.
• Imitate one of the poems to write your own poem
or
paraphrase a stanza of the poems and compare in
detail the different effects between the original
stanza and your paraphrase, such as the sound,
rhythm, image, tone, style, theme, etc.
Slide 52
Assignments for The Great
Gatsby’s background knowledge
• 1. Search for information about the
author’s personal life in relation to the
novel.
• 2. Search for the historical backgroundin
its relation to the book, such as Jazz Age,
Prohibition, Roaring Twenties, etc.
• 3. What is American Dream? How is it
reflected in the novel?
• 4. Introduce the major characteristics of
the Lost Generation and its reflection in
the novel.
The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain
Slide 2
Background stories
• Mark Twain (1835-1910)’s life and
psyche
• Stories of “bad boys”
Slide 3
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Slide 4
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• Boyhood (Hannibal, Missouri, a slave
state)
- happy
- exposure to violence
- experience of family financial
uncertainty & psychological
instability (father died when Sam
was 12)
Slide 5
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• River Pilot – 4 years (a richly rewarding
occupation with wages set at $250 per
month, equivalent to $155,000 a year
today.)
• Soldier - serving for a Confederate guerrila
band briefly during the Civil War
• Miner & Prospector - heading west to
California in hopes of striking it rich in the
silver-mine bonanza
Slide 6
Mark Twain
• Journalist
• Lecturer: comic successful performances;
personally held demeaning
• Writer:
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- Life on the Mississippi (1883)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1884)
Slide 7
A deeply divided man
• Mark Twain – the public man of letters,
the beloved fun-maker, associated with
the comic stage
• S.L.C. – the private citizen, tormented by
insecurity, obsessed with making money,
convinced to be surrounded by business
rivals, tending toward the inexorable
decline of tragedy
Slide 8
Major Works
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Innocents Abroad (1869)
The Gilded Age (1873)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s
Court (1889)
• The Man That Corrupted Hadleydburg
(1900)
Slide 9
Stories of “bad boys” (1)
• Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist
• Youthful pranksters (mischief-maker) in
previous American fiction
- Ike Partington & his tormented aunt in
B.P. Shillaber’s story in the 1950s
- Tom Bailey of T.B. Aldrich’s The Story of
a Bad Boy (1870)
* avatars of misrule, boys whose mischief
calls into question the conformist rigidity
of village norms
• Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick (1867)
Slide 10
Stories of “bad boys” (2)
• The “bad boys” were represented against
the traditional “Good Boy / Bad Boy”
dichotomy of Victorian children’s literature
• The boys are not really “bad,” merely funloving, their pranks expressing the healthy
subversiveness of boyhood
• “bad” boys are really good at heart
• “bad” boys who reform and become a
responsible or decent or heroic citizen
Slide 11
Alger’s boys vs Tom Sawyer
• Alger’s boys achieved their reform
and success through hard work
• Tom’s success had less to do with
hard work than with good luck
abetted by a quick wit
- Gilded Age
Slide 12
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Slide 13
Why a successful and classic novel?
• Narration
• Characterization: Tom
• Arrangement of major and minor
characters: Tom vs. Aunt Polly, Becky,
Sid, Mr. Dobbins the headmaster, Mr.
Waters the Sunday-school superintendent
• Motifs of love, death, wealth, adventure
• Humor: funny scenes and stories
Slide 14
Narration (1)
• Many sub-stories
- fighting with the well-dressed newcomer (p.58, Chapt.I)
- whitewashing the fence (p.9-14, Chapt.II)
- trading cards for the prize (p.25-31, Chapt IV)
- engagement with Becky (p.52-56, Chapt.VII)
- pirate life on the island (p.88-117, Chapt.
XIII-XVI)
- treasure seeking …
• Good suspenses
- Tom’s changing emotions and fancies
- Tom & Huck witnessed Graveyard murder
- Injun Joe escaped from the court
Slide 15
Narration (2)
• Omniscient narration with use of many
dialogues in vernacular language: more
showing（展示） (characters’ words and
actions) than telling（讲述）, theatrical
effect – vivid, lifelike
e.g. dialogue between Tom and Becky in
Chapter 7 (about engagement) (line 2
from the bottom on p.52 to line 2 on
p.55)
Slide 16
谈好条件以后，他俩轮流嚼着口香糖，他们悬着腿，坐在
长凳上，高兴极了。
汤姆问：“你看过马戏吗？”
“看过。我爸说如果我听话的话，他以后还带我去看哩。”
“我看过三四次马戏——看过好多次。做礼拜和看马戏相
比，算不了什么。马戏团演出时，总是不停地换着花样。我打
算长大后到马戏团当小丑。”
“啊，真的吗！那倒不错。小丑满身画着点点，真可爱。”
“是的，一点也不错。他们能赚大把大把的钞票——差不
多一天赚一块，本·罗杰斯说的。嘿，贝基，你订过婚吗？”
“订婚是什么？”
“哦，订婚就是快要结婚了。”
“没有。”
“你愿意订婚吗？”
“我想是愿意的。我不知道。订婚究竟是怎么回
事？”“怎么回事？说不上怎么回事。你对一个男孩子说除了
他，你将永远永远，永远不和别人相好，然后你就和他接吻，
就这么回事。人人都能做到。”
Slide 17
“接吻？接吻干什么？”
“哎，那，你知道，就是——嘿，人家都是那样做的。”
“人人都这样？”
“哎，对，彼此相爱的人都这样。你还记得我在写字板
上写的字吗？”
“记——记得。”
“写的是什么？”
“我不告诉你。”
“那我告诉你。”
“好——好吧——还是以后再说吧。”
“不，现在说。”
“不行，现在不能说——明天再说吧。”
“不，不行，就现在说。求求你，贝基——我小声说，
我轻轻地说。”
贝基正在犹豫，汤姆认为她是默许了，于是用胳膊搂住
她的腰，嘴靠近她的耳朵，轻声细语地讲了那句话。接着他
又补充道：
“现在你也轻轻地对我说——同样的话。”
Slide 18
她先拒绝了一会，然后说：
“你把脸转过去，别看着我，我就说。但是你千万不要
对别人说，好吗？汤姆，你不对别人说吧！”
“不说，我保证，保证不说。来吧，贝基。”
他把脸转过去。她胆怯地弯下腰，一直到她的呼吸吹动
了汤姆的鬈发，才悄声地说：“我——爱——你！”
她说完就围着书桌和板凳跑起来，汤姆在后面追她；最
后她躲在拐角里，用白色围裙遮住脸。汤姆一把抱紧她的脖
子，求她：
“好了，贝基，现在一切都做了——就差接吻了。不要
害怕——没什么大不了的。求你了，贝基。”他使劲拉她的
围裙和手。
渐渐地她让了步，她把手放下来。刚才一阵折腾使她的
脸都红了，她抬起头，顺从了汤姆。汤姆吻了她红红的嘴唇，
说道：
“好了，贝基，该做的都做了。要知道，从今往后你只
能爱我不能跟别人好，只能嫁给我不能和别人结婚，永远、
永远、不变，好吗？”
Slide 19
“好的。汤姆，我只跟你相爱，不爱别人，我只嫁给你，
不和别人结婚——你也一样除了我不能娶别人。”
“对对，对对。还有，通常我们在上学或放学的时候，
要是没有旁人在场的话，你就和我一块走——开舞会的时候，
你选我做伴，我选你做伴，因为订了婚的人都是这样的。”
“真是太有意思了。我以前还从没听说过。”
“啊，这才有趣哪！嘿，我和艾美·劳伦斯——”
贝基睁大了两只眼睛望着他，汤姆这才发现自己已铸成
了大错，于是他住了口，有点不知所措的样子。
“啊，汤姆！那么，我还不是头一个和你订婚的呀！”
Slide 20
Major vs. Minor Characters
• Major character (protagonist, hero)
– Tom : round character（立体人物）
• Minor character: flat character（扁平人物）
- Aunt Polly，Becky, Mr. Dobbins, Mr. Waters
- Sid, Huck (foil, 陪衬人物）
- Injun Joe (antagonist, 主要对立人物）
Slide 21
Round vs. Flat character
• A round character usually has more than one
quality, grows in the course of the story
development, and changes his view of the
world or attitude to other people. He / She is
complex as a real person, not easy to
understand.
• A flat character is built around a single idea
or quality, does not develop in the course of
narration and is easy to describe.
Slide 22
Antagonist and Foil
• Antagonist is the rival or enemy of the
protagonist.
• Foil is a supporting character whose role in
the story is to highlight the protagonist by
presenting a comparison or a contrast to
him / her.
Slide 23
Supporting Characters
• Foil
– Sid (Sidney)
• Other supporting characters
- Aunty Polly, Becky, Mr. Dobbins, Mr.
Walters
• Function
- to highlight the theatrical effect of Tom’s
mischief and adventures
- to help with the characterization of Tom
- to help satirize the wrong education method
Slide 24
Sid (Sidney)
• Model Boy?
- seemingly obedient and well-behaved
- informer / squealer (inform on / against
Tom / Huck) (collar thread color “white” or
“black”, p.3-4; p.229-30)
- stealing sugar only to break the bowl
Slide 25
Mr. Waters
• The Sunday-school superintendent（主日学
校校长）(p. 26-31)
- rigid teaching method: reciting the Bible
- hypocritical / vainglorious: “showing off” (p.
28-29)
Slide 26
Mr. Dobbins
• The schoolmaster (p.135-146)
- severe and exacting（严厉，苛求）
- punishing small pupils frequently with
lashing / flogging / flaying（鞭笞，毒打）
Slide 27
Aunt Polly
• Supporting character to highlight the theatrical
effect of Tom’s mischief
• Object of satire: She seldom or never looked
through them for so small a thing as a boy, for
they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and
were built for ‘style’ not service; she could have seen
through a pair of stove lids as well (Tom Sawyer,
Chapter 1, p7)
- Aunt Polly’s vanity
- Aunt Polly’s underestimate of the difficulty and
importance of educating a smart and naughty boy like
Tom
- Aunt Polly’s rigid concept of a ‘good’ boy
Slide 28
Characterization of Tom
• Tom
- witty, adventurous
- a “bad” boy: play truant, cheat playmates
and teachers, run away from home, invovled in
fistfights and scuffles
- a good boy: having strong sense of honor and
self-respect (p. 26), protective, kind-hearted,
brave, responsible
Slide 29
Motifs of
• Love – that between Tom and Becky
• Death – Tom’s death desire
• Wealth – Tom and Huck’s digging for
treasure and final discovery of the box of
gold coins (“a little over twelve thousand
dollars)
• Adventure – unusual, exciting or dangerous
experience, e.g. hide-and-seek game with
Aunt Polly, playing truant, pirate life on the
island, pretending death, confronting the evil
criminal Injun Joe, seeking hidden treasure
Slide 30
Tom and death
• Tom’s understanding of death
- after Aunt Polly mistakenly beat Tom while
it was Sid who broke the sugar bowl (p. 19,
Chap. 3)
- when slighted by Becky, Tom… (p. 57-58,
Chap. 8)
- when the pirate boys realized the town
were mourning over their “death” (p. 100,
Chap. 14)
- the boys’ attending their own funeral (p.
116-119, Chap. 18)
• Did you ever think of death in your childhood?
Your understanding of death at present
Slide 31
Motif of Death in literature
• Death is in parallel with love, wealth,
adventure as a typical motif in
literature.
• Real death motif in some works, such as
Hemingway’s “The Snow of Kilimanjaros”,
Emily Dickinson’s poems, Faulkner’s “A
Rose for Emily”.
• Literature reading & research:
experiencing
Slide 32
Motifs of Adventure
Ex: Pirate life on the island
(the last two paragraphs on p. 97 and
the first paragraph on p. 98)
Slide 33
汤姆弄醒了另外两个强盗，他们大叫一声，嘻嘻哈哈地
跑开了；两分钟以后，他们就脱得赤条条的，跳进白沙滩上
那片清澈透底的水里互相追逐，滚抱嬉戏。宽阔的河流对面，
远远的地方，就是那个村庄，而他们并不想念。可能是一阵
湍流也可能是一股上涨的潮水，冲走了他们的小木筏。他们
却为此感到庆幸。因为没有了木筏，就像是烧毁了他们与文
明世界间的桥梁，斩断了他们回返的念头。
他们回到露营地时，神采奕奕，兴致勃勃，却也饥肠辘
辘；不久他们把那篝火又拨旺了。哈克在附近发现了一眼清
泉，孩子们就用阔大的橡树叶和胡桃树叶做成杯子，他们觉
得这泉水有股子森林的清香，完全可以取代咖啡。乔正在切
咸肉片做早餐，汤姆和哈克让他稍候片刻；他们来到河边，
相中了一个僻静之处，垂下鱼钩，不长时间就有了收获。还
没到让乔等得不耐烦的时候，他们就拿回来几条漂亮的石首
鱼，一对鲈鱼和一条小鲶鱼——这些鱼足够一大家人饱餐一
顿。他们把鱼和咸肉放到一块煮，结果让人惊讶的是：鱼的
味道竟然这么鲜美。他们不知道淡水鱼越趁活烧吃，味道越
鲜美；另外，他们也没有想到露天睡觉、户外运动、洗澡以
及饥饿会使食欲大增。他们并不明白饥者口中尽佳肴的道理。
Slide 34
Humor
• Tom’s naughty or childish and funny
behaviors
• Caricature of Aunt Polly, school teachers,
church minister
• Satire of traditional family and school
education
Slide 35
• Why can't Aunt Polly see the merits
of Tom? Is this a kind of writing
technique in order to emphasize the
mischievous trait of a child?
• Is there anyone Mark Twain satirizes
in this novel?
• Which point does the author focus on?
Humor or satire?
Slide 36
Satire of school education
1. The problem pupil like Tom should turn out
to be a great hero of the village.
2. Such a smart and moral child has been
driven out of school and home by rigidity.
3. A boy of German parentage who won four
or five Bibles by outstanding recitation of
Bible verses became an idiot for the
strain (p. 26, chapter 4) .
4. Good students are all without exception
trained to be so pretentious（虚伪的, 做作
的, 矫饰的）in their compositions and
speeches (pp. 142-146, chapter 22)
Slide 37
Prevalent features in good
compositions
•
•
•
•
a nursed and petted melancholy矫情；无病呻
吟，故作悲伤
a wasteful and opulent gush of ‘fine language’
堆砌华丽词藻
a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly
prized words and phrases until they were
worn entirely out偏爱陈词滥调
the inveterate and intolerable sermon that
wagged its crippled tail at the end of each
and every one of them机械性说教
Slide 38
密苏里少女告别阿拉巴马
再见，阿拉巴马！我爱你笃深，
离别虽短暂，难舍又难分！
想到你，往事历历燃胸间，
爱怜又悲伤。
曾记否，万花丛中留下我的足迹，
德拉波斯溪旁有我朗朗的读书声；
我听过德达西的流水犹如万马奔腾，
我见过库萨山巅晨曦的分娩。
我心系百事，无悔无怨，
含泪回首，心平气缓。
我告别的是我熟悉的地方，
见我叹息的也不是异乡他客；
来到该州，我宾至如归，
可如今我将远离高山大谷。
亲爱的阿拉巴马，一旦我心灰意冷，
那时，我真的告别人寰。
Slide 39
Humor
The last but one paragraph in
Chapter 21, para. 3 on p.146
Slide 40
那位老师这时醉得几乎是一副和蔼可亲的样子。他推开
椅子，背对着观众，开始在黑板上画美国地图，为考地理课
作准备。可他的手不听使唤，结果把图画得不象样，引得大
家暗地里忍俊不禁。他心里清楚大家在笑他画得不好，于是
就着手修改。他擦去一些线，然后又画上，结果画得比原来
的还差，大家更加肆无忌惮地笑话他。他孤注一掷，大有泰
山压顶不弯腰之势，全身心地投入，准备把地图画好。他觉
得大家全都盯着他看，想象着自己终于画成了一幅像样的美
国图，可是下面的笑声还是不断传来，并且明显地越来越大。
原来他头顶上是个阁楼，阁楼的天窗正对着老师的头顶。一
只腰部系着绳子的猫从上面悬空而下，它的头和嘴被破布扎
上了，出不了声。在下降的过程中，猫向上翘起身子用爪抓
住绳子，然后在空中乱舞一通后向下悠来。大家的笑声越来
越大。猫离那个专心作画的老师头部只有六英寸远。越来越
近，越来越低，猫终于在绝望中一下子抓住了老师的假发。
随即那猫连同假发一下子又窜回阁楼。老师的秃头光彩四射，
因为那个做招牌人的孩子已经给他头上上了一层光。考试就
此结束，孩子们报了仇，假期来临了。
Slide 41
Major themes
• Joy of childhood
• Growth of a boy
• Satire of conventional rigid education –
family, school, church
Slide 42
Why did Mark Twain choose a child as the
hero of the novel? Did Mark Twain have a
wonderful childhood that he wanted to
memorize or he didn't have it, so he wanted
to make up in his works?
• I am not Mark Twain. Go ask him.
- disillusionment with contemporary,
corrupt, adult society
vs
- recapturing the past of his boyhood
Slide 43
How can we understand Injun Joe? He
is the evilest soul in the whole story. Is
there any discrimination?
• Yes, it is a racial discrimination. According
to the white people (including Mark Twain),
the only American Indian in the novel is a
brutal murderer, the only criminal and evil
person to be wiped out of the town.
- alienated
- marginalized
Slide 44
why the author ended the story with
the image that Tom became a
"normal"child in the adult's eyes.
• a) Wasn’t Tom a “normal” child before in
the adult’s eye?
• b) Wasn’t Tom previous “Tom”?
Development of things isn’t straight linear.
It’s spiral rise.
• c) The former “normal” Tom was different
from the later “normal” Tom.
Slide 45
Where did Tom learn his
personal moral code?
• Tom did not go to church for nothing
though mostly he was not listening.
• His Aunt Polly’s religion was another way
for him to learn morality. He formed the
habit of praying to God, even if his aunt
was not around.
Slide 46
What does the role "Tom
Sawyer" stand for in that age?
• He does not stand for anything of that age.
• He just stands for the desire of innocence,
freedom and wealth.
• Or you may say Tom Sawyer stands for
the spirit of misrule
• Not a symbolic story like “Young Goodman
Brown”
Slide 47
We always say that people in
western countries value personal
rights high, then how can a
teacher beat a child?
• Physical punishment was widely
adopted in Western countries’ school
before the 20th century, e.g. Eton.
Slide 48
• Tom Sawyer is disobedient and thirsty
for adventures, and occasionally
naive like every ordinary child. But
during his adventures, we can trace
he moves away from his childlike
character to maturity. In what ways
does he grow up?
• That he has a strong sense of
responsibility and wants to conform to the
society.
Slide 49
Assignments for 20th-cent poems
• Review 序言 （period of realism, pp.5-7)
• i. Read Ezra Pound, W. C. Williams, and
Robert Frost’s poems in the textbook;
• ii. Write a poem of your own in English
imitating their poems or write a poem (English
or Chinese) to interpret one of their poems as
if you’re in converse with the poet;
• iii. Translate one of their poems into Chinese.
Slide 50
Assignement
• Read 序言（para. 4-5, p. 11)
• Read Sherwood Anderson's“The Triumph
of the Egg” closely.
• Write your literary journal（文学日记）
about the story.
• Choose one of the following topics to write
a short paper:
• 1) What does the egg symbolize?
• 2) Find out ironies used in the story and
explain their functions.
• 3) What are the themes of the story?
Slide 51
Assignments
• Read all of Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poems in
the textbook.
• Write your reading response journal.
• Imitate one of the poems to write your own poem
or
paraphrase a stanza of the poems and compare in
detail the different effects between the original
stanza and your paraphrase, such as the sound,
rhythm, image, tone, style, theme, etc.
Slide 52
Assignments for The Great
Gatsby’s background knowledge
• 1. Search for information about the
author’s personal life in relation to the
novel.
• 2. Search for the historical backgroundin
its relation to the book, such as Jazz Age,
Prohibition, Roaring Twenties, etc.
• 3. What is American Dream? How is it
reflected in the novel?
• 4. Introduce the major characteristics of
the Lost Generation and its reflection in
the novel.