Unit 7 The Chaser综合英语3

Cultural Information
1. Proposal of Marriage • Often the proposal is a surprise. • In many Western cultures, the tradition has been for the man to propose to the woman. • In Ireland, there is a custom that on leap day woman can propose to the man.
Cultural Information
Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you, For where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. And where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord do with me and more if anything but death parts you from me.
Cultural Information
2. Engagement
• An engagement is a promise to marry, and also the period of time between proposal and marriage — which may be lengthy or trivial.
Detailed Reading
2 He pushed open this door, as he had been told to do, and found himself in a tiny room, which contained no furniture but a plain kitchen table, a rocking-chair, and an ordinary chair. On one of the dirty buff-coloured walls were a couple of shelves, containing in all perhaps a dozen bottles and jars. 3 An old man sat in the rocking-chair, reading a newspaper. Alan, without a word, handed him the card he had been given. “Sit down, Mr. Austen,” said the old man very politely. “I am glad to make your acquaintant marks the beginning of engagement.
It often has a ritual quality, sometimes involving the presentation of an engagement ring and a formalized asking of a question such as “Will you marry me?”
Detailed Reading
Cultural Information
3. Wedding ceremony • In western countries, most newly-married couples choose to have a wedding ceremony in the church with the presence and blessing of their families, friends, and the god.
Cultural Information
I, [Groom's name], take you [Bride's name], to be my wife, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever. I will trust you and honor you. I will laugh with you and cry with you. I will love you faithfully Through the best and the worst, Through the difficult and the easy. What may come I will always be there. As I have given you my hand to hold So I give you my life to keep So help me God
The title of this short story is somehow a pun. “A chaser” can be a person that pursues someone like in “a woman chaser”. In addition, it can refer to a weaker alcoholic drink taken after a strong one. A whisky, like the love potion, intoxicates. A beer chaser, like the “life cleaner”, mollifies the harshness of the spirits. The love potion and the poison go together like a strong alcoholic drink and a chaser.
Paragraphs 13-45: Alan Austen got to know about the love potion and bought it in the end.
Detailed Reading
The Chaser
John Collier 1 Alan Austen, as nervous as a kitten, went up certain dark and creaky stairs in the neighborhood of Pell Street, and peered about for a long time on the dim hallway before he found the name he wanted written obscurely on one of the doors.
Brain Teaser
• Why cannot the bride marry the best man? • The best man: 伴郎
Text Analysis
The short story is a fable of love with a strong sarcastic tone. The protagonist, Alan Austen, wants to find an easy solution to the problem of love by purchasing a love potion. However，it’s not the love potion that the old man intends to sell primarily, but “life cleaner”.
The theme of “The Chaser” is the cynicism of experience, portrayed through Alan’s youthful naivety and the old man’s pessimistic certainty.
Text Analysis
Unit Unit 7 7 The Chaser
Cultural Information
1. Proposal of Marriage • The proposal of marriage is an event where one person in a relationship asks for the other’s hand in marriage.
• Future brides and grooms are often referred to as fiancée or fiancés respectively (from the French word “fiancé”).
Cultural Information
2. Engagement • Long engagements were once common in formal arranged marriages. • In 2007, the average engagement time in the United States was 17 months, but the figure around the world varies greatly depending on culture and customs.
Structural Analysis
This short story, which combines elements of horror and love, is built almost entirely through dialogue between a young man, Alan Austen, who is deeply in love and wants to possess his lover entirely, and an unnamed old man who believes in a life free of romantic involvement.
Cultural Information
I, [Bride's name], take you [Groom's name], to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever I will trust you and honor you I will laugh with you and cry with you. I will love you faithfully Through the best and the worst, Through the difficult and the easy. What may come I will always be there. As I have given you my hand to hold So I give you my life to keep So help me God
Structural Analysis
Paragraph 1: In this part, the protagonist, Alan Austen, has been introduced. Paragraphs 2-12: The old man is trying to sell his mixture: the life-cleaner.