欧文 肖 的ppt报告

Today, I’ll introduce a short novel “the girls in their summer dresses”which is written by Irwin Shaw.
Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 -May 16, 1984) was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. During world war two, Shaw served in the US Army. So he is best known for two of his novels: The Young Lions(1948), about the fate of three soldiers during World War II, made into a film of the same name. The other one is Rich Man, Poor Man (1970). And it’s about the fate of three siblings after World War II. As a short story writer with the skill to create memorable characters, Shaw have been compared to Hemingway and John Cheever. He was a writer who paid more attention to the social problems and advocated art for life. He has said “In all my works, intensive conflicts always ran through them.” In other words, his works were closely related to social contradiction.
When you see these beautiful women and handsome men in the street, whether you will stare them all the time. And “the girls in their summer dresses” is a couple’s story. In the story the husband is a man who likes staring other women all the time. On Sunday, the couple refused their friend’s invitation in order to stay with each other and enjoy themselves. But when they went out the husband always looked at other women no matter what his wife said. It made his wife very angry. So they had a talk
about this issue. And finally, the husband admitted that he can’t help but looked at them and wanted them. They gave up this dating and then visited their friends.
Character analysis: compare with the man’s wife, the man is a round and complex person. First, the husband has obsession with the physical side of women , no matter if that woman was his wife or not. So we can say that the husband visually betrays his wife because he always looks at the women and wants them. He said, “ I got all this stuff accumulated in me because I've been thinking about it for ten years”. Even his wife knew his thinking and their marriage might be has been on the rocks, he did not feel the guilty. But little ironically, he first looks at his wife after they married and thinks that what a pretty girl she is and what nice leg she has. Therefore, the husband is visually oriented and essentially superficial. And to him, women are primarily sex objects.
Second, when the wife proposed to have a talk with his problem, the man honestly told his wife about his real thinking. He frankly said “If I pass them on the street and I don't look at them, I'm fooling you, I'm fooling myself." He is honest but also cruel to directly tell his wife that he sees and wants all the other women all the time. He cares more about his own pleasure than the feeling of his wife. So he is made into the dilemma of disgraceful self-exposition to his wife. And it hurts his wife deeply.
Third, he misses his lost youth. Superficially, the husband has obsession with the physical side of women. But on the other hand, the husband, Michael, always looks at other beautiful and young women because he knows that he is approaching the middle age. Although it’s in November, Michael recalls, among many other groups, the girls in their summer dresses who represent freshness, youth, and vitality as he himself is losing these qualities without being fully aware of what is happening. In conclusion, on the one hand, the husband has obsession with the physical side of women. On the other hand, he knows that he is approaching to middle age, and has a sense of loss he may experience in that women don't respond to him in the way they did when he was younger.。