Everyday Use
美国经典小说 Everyday Use
Everyday Useby Alice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree andwait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held lifealways in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned tosay to her.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weaklyfrom backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parentand child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table totell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am usheredinto a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that shethinks orchids are tacky flowers.In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls dur.ing the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog.One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of courseall this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up withmy quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. Shewould always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature. "How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door."Come out into the yard," I say.Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other houseto the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched thelast dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river ofmake-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself.Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in'49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just likethe one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding theshutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one.No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once thatno matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But shewill never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubblesin lye. She read to them.When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from afamily of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet—but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stayher with my hand. "Come back here, " I say. And she stops and tries to dig awell in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the firstglimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were alwaysneat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From theother side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head afoot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suckin her breath. "Uhnnnh, " is what it sounds like. Like when you see thewriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. "Uhnnnh."Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud ithurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light ofthe sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out.Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out ofher armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. Ihear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight uplike the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears."Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her tremblingthere and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin."Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You cansee me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of mesitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without mak' ing sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and shekeeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake handsbut wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie."Well," I say. "Dee.""No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!""What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know."She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named afterthe people who oppress me.""You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie ismy sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born."But who was she named after?" asked Wangero."I guess after Grandma Dee," I said."And who was she named after?" asked Wangero."Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as farback as I can trace it," I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carriedit back beyond the Civil War through the branches."Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are.""Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say."There I was not," I said, "before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so whyshould I try to trace it that far back?"He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head. "How do you pronounce this name?" I asked."You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero."Why shouldn't 1?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you.""I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero."I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told meto just call him Hakim.a.barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but Ididn't really think he was, so I didn't ask."You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt.lick shelters,throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to seethe sight.Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes.Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't effort to buy chairs."Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it crabber by now.She looked at the churn and looked at it."This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out ofa tree you all used to have?""Yes," I said."Un-huh," she said happily. "And I want the dasher, too.""Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me."Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.""Maggie's brain is like an elephant's," Wangero said, laughing. "I can use the chute top as a centerpiece for the alcove table," she said, sliding a plate overthe chute, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a treethat grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt ftames on the ftont porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny fadedblue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great GrandpaEzra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War." Mama," Wangro said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed."Why don't you take one or two of the others?" I asked. "These old things wasjust done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.""No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.""That'll make them last better," I said."That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them."Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her," I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged toher."Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom."The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas."She gasped like a bee had stung her."Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.""I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old~fashioned, out of style."But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!""She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt."Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not under.stand. Thepoint is these quilts, these quilts!""Well," I said, stumped. "What would you do with them7""Hang them," she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts. Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other."She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hiddenin the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear butshe wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts outof Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open."Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber."You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. "What don't I understand?" I wanted to know."Your heritage," she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it." She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin.Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.。
高级英语课文Everyday Useppt课件
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Detailed study of the text:
12. sledge hammer: large, heavy hammer for swinging with both hands, a large heavy hammer with a long handle, used for smashing concrete
• Sister has held life in the palm of
one hand
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Detailed study of the text
• have made it: if you make it, you are successful in achieving sth. Difficult, or in surviving through a very difficult period.
technique • Cultural difference between
nationalities in the US
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Detailed study of the text:
• 1. wavy: having regular curves
–A wavy line has a series of regular curves along it.
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Important & Difficult points
• The comprehension of the whole story • The understanding of colloquial,
slangy or black English expressions • The appreciation of the writing
艾丽斯·沃克作品《Everyday Use》赏析
In 1961, Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship and later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College near New York City, graduating in 1965. In early 1960s,Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. when she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta. Walker credits King for her decision to return to the American South as an activist for the civil rights movement. She marched with hundreds of thousands in August in the 1963 March on Washington. As a young adult, she volunteered to register black voters in Georgia and Mississippi.
Because the family had no car, the Walkers could not take their daughter to a hospital for immediate treatment. By the time they reached a doctor a week later, she had become permanently blind in that eye.
Lesson
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Everyday Use
高英everyday use 演示文稿
1.Alice Walker: Alice Walker is an American novelist,
short-story writer, poet, essayist, and activist. Her most famous novel, The Color Purple, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983. Alice Walker‘s creative vision is rooted in the economic hardship, racial terrorism, and folk wisdom of African American life and culture, particularly in the rural South. Her writing explores multidimensional(多面 的)kinship among women, among men and women, among humans and animals, and embraces the redemptive power of social, spiritual and political revolution.
2.Her famous works: The Color Purple
Introduction The Color Purple (1982) is Alice Walker's most magnificent and controversial literary achievement. The novel outraged African American male critics as well as a few female critics who argued that Walker's story did not reveal an accurate picture of African American life. One California mother was so insulted by the novel's content that she attempted to ban it from public school libraries. Others claimed that the novel was flawed because it defined a woman's identity in relationship to her sexual experiences.
Everyday-Use赏析
word格式-可编辑-感谢下载支持From the short story Everyday Use,the majority people seem to like Maggie,but look down upon Dee. In their eyes,M is a sweet,docile,considerate and almost everything she does is worth our tender love.D, on the contrary,epitomize evil,despite her fashionable appearance,being a good-for-nothing. Actually,the two sisters' attitude and behaviour just represent two different ways of how to preserve heritage and art. What way is better is still a question that deserve discussing. So it is not how to treat the quilt makes people like one instead the other,but their personality.I think the reasons why people prefer M to D are as follows. First, most people have the tendency to narcissism,which makes them think they are enough powerful and strong to protect others. Showing sympathy to the vulnerable in some way reflect they are superior and they have basic morality. Second,people are easily to hate the rich,especially the guys who like to show off. The cutup will never be welcomed wherever they go. Third ,people like to go with the crowd in order not to be isolated. We are social animals,which means we are just components of the society and we'd better not show strong individuality. Last but not least,in the traditional view towards women,more understanding,more welcomed. As a women,you'd better act as Lady Be Good,loving families and traditions. All these above decides M will be successful at last,not D.Actually, i appreciate D's courage and bravery against their traditional attitudes. She changes her name into an African one,though it is wrong spelling,showing her determination to pursue what she thinks to be her root,not the half-American one. She is well-educated,can spit lotus from mouth,and follows the step of fashion all the way. She stands out everywhere and seems to be gorgeous and successful. Why does she lose the trust and love of her mother and sister at last?As a matter of fact,both of the two sisters are quite successful,one in the material world,the other spiritual. D reminds me of a movie called The Devil Wears Prada,which tells us a story about a fashionable woman,strong and respectable in appearance but heartbreaking in her heart,for she has been abandoned by her beloved husband. Everyday she pretends to be gorgeous and shining in public,but the moment she goes back home,she weeps due to her loneliness . No one has seen her tears ,no one really understands her,and no one shows sympathy to her,but only loath and hatred . Dee somewhat likes that,from education,appearance to networks and business,she is too much better than M,but it is M wins finally. I think that is why people like snow-white instead her stepmother. It is not only the matter of kindness and evil,but the simple and emotional women are more beautiful in the worldly people's eyes.We can have a lesson from the story in this particular angle,which has been told by LaoTzu.Be as good as water, for Water conserve everything but indisputable. I think that is the philosophy of life:always be smart inside but keep a low profile outside .。
Everyday Use原文+译文
Everyday Use原文+译文Everyday UseAlice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is notjust a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as afloor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone cancome and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never comeinside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners,homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with amixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of onehand, that no is a word the world never learned to say to her.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has made it isconfronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly frombackstage. (A Pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and childcame on the showonly to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and childembrace and ile into each other's face. Sometimes the mother and father weep, thechild wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not hemade it without their help. I he seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together ona TV program of this sort. Out of a cark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into abright room filled with many people. There I meet a iling, gray, sporty man likeJohnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I he. Then we areon the stage and Dee is embracing me with tear s in her eyes. She pins on my dress alarge orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks or chides are tackyflowers.In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. Inthe winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill andclean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can workoutside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked overthe open tire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked abull calf straight in the brain betweenthe eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meathung up to chill be-fore nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. Iam the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin likean uncooked barley pan-cake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Car–son has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnsonwith a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in theeye? It seems to me I he talked to them always with one toot raised in flight, withmy head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She wouldalways look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.How do I look, Mama? Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin bodyenveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden bythe door.Come out into the yard, I say.He you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some carelessperson rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to bekind of him? That is the way myMaggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest,eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to theground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a womannow, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned?Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's armssticking to me, her hair oking and her dress falling off her in little black paperyflakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflect-ed in them.And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of;a look at concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of thehouse tall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around theashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money,the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us withoutpity, forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trappedand ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burnedus with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarilyneed to know. Pressed us to her withthe serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, weseemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation fromhigh school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebodyge me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelidswould not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her.At six she had a style of her own' and knew what style was.回答人的补充2009-09-30 1:43I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down.Don't ask me why. in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now.Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well.She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by.She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll befree to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was agood singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. 1 used tolove tomilk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don'tbother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I he deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like theone that burned, except the roof is tin: they don't make shingle roofs any more. Thereare no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, butnot round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutter s up on the outside. Thishouse is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will wantto tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we choose to live, she willmanage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thoughtabout this and Maggie asked me, Mama, when did Dee ever he any friends?She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school.Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turnedphrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read tothem.When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't he much time to pay to us, butturned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew tomarry a cheap city girl from afamily of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet -- but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay herwith my hand. Come back here, I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in thesand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse ofleg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as it Godhimself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes ashort, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin likea kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. Uhnnnh, is what it sounds like.Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your toot on the road.Uhnnnh.Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud ithurts my eyes. There are yel-lows and oranges enough to throw back the light of thesun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat wes it throws out. Earrings gold,too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises whenshe moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dressout of her armpits. The dress isloose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go Uhnnnh again.It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as nightand around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like all lizardsdisappearing behind her ears.Wa-su-zo-Tean-o! she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes hermove. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his nel is all grinning and he followsup with Asalamalakim, my mother and sister! He moves to hug Maggie but she fallsback, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I lookup I see the perspiration falling off her chin.Don't get up, says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You cansee me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing whiteheels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with aPolaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sittingthere in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shotwithout making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around theedge of the yard she snaps it andme and Maggie and the house. Then she puts thePolaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand.Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and shekeeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands butwants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, hesoon gives up on Maggie.Well, I say. Dee.No, Mama, she says. Not 'Dee', Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!What happened to 'Dee'? I wanted to know.She's dead, Wangero said. I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after thepeople who oppress me.You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicle, I said. Dicie iy sister. She named Dee. We called her Big Dee after Dee was born.But who was she named after? asked Wangero.I guess after Grandma Dee, I said.And who was she named after? asked Wangero.Her mother, I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. That's about as farback as I can trace it, I said.Though, in fact, I probably could he carried it back beyond the Civil Warthrough the branches.Well, said Asalamalakim, there you are.Uhnnnh, I heard Maggie say.There I was not, I said, before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why shouldI try to trace it that far back?He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting aModel A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.How do you pronounce this name? I asked.You don't he to call me by it if you don't want to, said Wangero.Why shouldn't I? I asked. If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you.I know it might sound awkward at first, said Wangero.I'll get used to it, I said. Ream it out again.Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice aslong and three times as hard. After I trippedover it two or three times he told me tojust call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't reallythink he was, so I don't ask.You must belong to those beet-cattle peoples down the road, I said. They saidAsalamalakirn when they met you too, but they didn't Shake hands. Always toobusy feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing downhay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night withrifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.Hakim-a-barber said, I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raisingcattle is not my style. (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee)had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork wasunclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greensand every-thing else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everythingdelighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for thetable when we couldn't afford to buy chairs.Oh, Mama! she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. I never knew howlovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints, she said, running her handsunderneath her and along the bench. Then she ge a sigh and her hand closed overGrandma Dee's butter dish. That's it! she said. I knew there was something Iwanted to ask you if I could he. She jumped up from the table and went over in thecorner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churnand looked at it.This churn top is what I need, she said. Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of atree you all used to he?Yes, I said.Uh huh, she said happily. And I want the dasher,too.Uncle Buddy whittle that, too? asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash, said Maggie so low you almostcouldn't hear her. His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.Maggie's brain is like an elephants, Wanglero said, laughing. I can use thechurn topas a center piece for the alcove table,”she said,sliding a plate over the churn,and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher.回答人的补充2009-09-30 1:56When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment inmy hands. You didn't even he to look close to see where hands pushing the dasherup and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were alot of all sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. Itwas beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee andStash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and startedrifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out cameWangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Deeand me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. Onewas in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both ofthem were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bitsand pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one y faded blue piece, aboutthe size ofa penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that hewore in the Civil War.Mama, Wangero said sweet as a bird. Can I he these old quilts?I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen doorslammed.Why don't you take one or two of the others?” 1 asked. These old things wasjust done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.No, said Wangero. I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders bymachine.That'll make them last better, I said.That's not the point, said Wanglero. These are all pieces of dresses Grandmaused to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine! She held the quilts securelyin her arms, stroking them.Some of the pieces, like those lender ones, come from old clothes her motherhanded down to her,” I said, mov ing up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) movedback just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.Imagine! she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom.The truth is, I said, I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when shemarries John Thomas.She gasped like a bee had stung her.Maggie can't appreciate these quilts! she said. She'd probably be backwardenough to put them to everyday use.I reckon she would, I said. God knows I been sage ’em for long enoughwit h nobody using 'em. I hope she will! ” I didn't want to bring up how I had offeredDee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me theywere old-fashioned, out of style.But they're priceless! she was saying now, furiously, for she has a temper.Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less thanthat! She can always make some more,”I said. Maggie knows how to quilt.Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. You just will not understand. Thepoint is these quilts, these quilts!Well, I said,, stumped. What would you do with them?Hang them, she said. As it that was the only thing you could do with quilts.Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feetmade as they scraped over each other.She can he them, Mama,” she said like somebody used to never winninganything, or hing anything reserved for her. I can 'member Grandma Dee withoutthe quilts.I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and itge her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee whotaught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in thefolds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't madat her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and randown to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of Godtouches me and I get happy and shout.I did something I never had done Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out ofMiss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there onmy bed with her mouth open.Take one or two of the others, I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber.You just don't understand, she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.What don't I under stand? I wanted to know.Your heritage, she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said,You ought to try to make some-thing of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new dayfor us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it.She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and herchin.Maggie iled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real mile, not scared. After wewatched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then thetwo of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.NOTES1) Alice Walker: born 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, America and graduated from SarahLawrence College. Her books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland ( 1970 ),Meridian ( 1976 ), The Color Purple(192), etc.2)made it: to become a success, to succeed, either in specific endeor or in general3) Johnny Carson: a man who runs a late night talk show4)hooked: injured by the horn of the cow being milked5) Jimmy T: 'T' is the initial of the surname of the boy Dee was courting.6)Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!: phonetic rendering of an African dialect salutation7) Asalamalakim: phonetic rendering of a Muslim greeting) Polaroid: a camera that produces instant pictures9) the Civil War: the war between the North and the South in the U. S.(161-165)10) branches: branches or divisions of a family descending from a common ances11) Ream it out again: Ream is perhaps an African dialect word meaning: unfold,display. Hence the phrase may mean repeat or say it once again12) pork was unclean: Muslims are forbidden by their religion to eat pork because it isconsidered to be unclean.13) Chitlins: also chitlings or chitterlings, the all inines of pigs, used for food, acommon dish in Afro-American households14) rump prints: depressions in the benches made by constant sitting15) sink: depressions in the wood of the handle left by the thumbs and fingers外婆的日用家当艾丽斯•沃克尔我就在这院子里等候她的到来。
ALICE WALKER 作者 Everyday Use 课文简介
Made by 少媚、瑞冰
Everyday Use
Biography
CHILDHOOD
born in Eatonton, Georgia , on February, 1944 youngest of eight children, grew up mostly with her 5 oldest brothers 1952-her brother shot her eye out with a BB gun blinding her one eye
Collision
Hope of preserving the black’s culture
✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Rape Sexism Racism Violence Isolation Troubled relationships Multi-generational perspectives
Walker’s publishing
1968 Once (poetry)
1970-The Third
Mom Maggie Dee
conflict
different views on the African culture
◈ narrator of the story ◈ a typical black woman
◈ little education, poor, strong ◈ hard-working, independent,
♦ short story, widely studied
♦ first published in 1973 as part of In Love and
高级阅读-Everydayuse(修辞)
谢谢观看
暗喻
总结词
暗喻是一种较为含蓄的比喻方式，通过暗示或间接的方式来表达意思，不使用比 喻词。
详细描述
在《everydayuse》中，作者使用了暗喻来表达主人公的内在品质和性格特点。例 如，“她是一颗璀璨的明珠，无论在哪里都能散发出耀眼的光芒”，这里将主人公 比喻为明珠，暗示她具有非凡的价值和光彩。
拟人
高级阅读-everydayuse(修辞)
目录
• 引言 • 修辞手法分析 • 文章内容解读 • 高级词汇与表达 • 阅读技巧提升 • 总结与反思
01
引言
主题介绍
主题概括
这篇文章的主题是对日常用品的重新 审视，通过使用日常用品来表达深层 的意义和价值。
主题重要性
在日常生活的快节奏中，我们往往忽 视了身边物品的价值和意义。通过对 日常用品的重新审视，我们可以更好 地理解生活的本质和价值。
复杂句型
长句
构造一些较长的句子，包含多个 从句、修饰语和嵌套结构，以增
加文本的复杂性和丰富性。
倒装句
故意打乱句子的正常语序，使用 倒装句来强调或表达某种特殊效 果，例如“不是水养人，而是人
养水”。
被动句
使用被动句型来表达动作或行为 的承受者，强调客观性和中立性
，例如“问题被解决了”。
修辞性表达
比喻
拓展知识领域
通过阅读不同类型的书籍，我希望能够不断拓展自己的知识领域，了解不同领域的前沿动态和思想观点，以保持对世 界的敏感度和好奇心。
实践与应用
将所学的知识和启示应用到实际生活中，通过写作、演讲、社交等方式表达自己的观点和情感，发挥阅 读对个人和社会的影响力。同时，我也希望能够在未来的学习和工作中运用批判性思维，解决实际问题 并创造价值。
高级英语第四课 Everyday Use
Date of Birth: Birthplace: Parents: Marriage:
Child:
February 9, 1944 Eatonton, Georgia Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, who were sharecroppers Mel Leventhal, a Jewish Civil Rights activist/ lawyer Rebecca born in 1969
Theme:
II. Discourse Analysis
Structure Para 1 – 2: Para 3 – 16: Maggie and I Are waiting for Someone Important The Relationship among Dee, Maggie and ―I‖ ―I‖: a large, big-boned woman with rough, manworking hands Dee: ―No‖ is a word the world never learned to say to her Maggie: a homely, weak and shy girl Para 17 – 82 Meeting with Dee Para 17 - 20 Dee came with her new boyfriend and new name Para 21 - 43 The Name: Dee Para 44 - 82 The Argument on Grandma‘s Quilts
I. Background
3. Career 1983 received the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple (1982) 1984 started her own publishing company, Wild Trees Press
Everyday Use
Background
The Main Idea The story begins with the narrator, a black woman, awaiting the homecoming of her daughter Dee, an educated woman who now lives in the city. Accompanying her is her younger daughter Maggie. As they wait, the narrator reveals details of the family history, specifically the relationship between her two daughters. To the mother‟s surprise, Dee, who has been scornful of the black, is now delighted by the old way of life, and she is even more interested in the old handmade quilts pieced by Grandma. However, these quilts have already been promised to Maggie. Although Maggie is intimidated enough to surrender the beloved quilts to Dee, the mother snatches the quilts form Dee and offers her instead some of the machine-stitched ones, which Dee does not want.
高级英语everyday use读后感
高级英语everyday use读后感"Everyday Use" is a short story by Alice Walker that explores themes of identity, culture, and tradition. Set in the rural South of the United States, the story centers around a family's interaction with their visiting cousin, Dee, who has embraced a more modern and urban lifestyle. Through Dee's visit, the story highlights the contrast between traditional African American culture and the allure of modernity, particularly as seen through Dee's desire to claim certain cultural artifacts as her own.The narrative is primarily told through the eyes of the story's protagonist, Maggie, a younger sister who finds herself caught between her older sister's aspirations and her mother's传统观念. Maggie's internal conflict reflects the tension that often exists within families when generational divides are exposed. Dee, with her newfound interest in African American heritage, wants to take possession of her ancestors' quilts, symbols of their hard work and craftsmanship. However, these quilts hold deeper cultural and emotional value for Maggie's mother, who madethem herself, and for Maggie, who identifies with them as a part of her heritage.Walker's exploration of the theme of identity is particularly poignant in this story. Dee's embrace ofAfrican American culture seems superficial, motivated more by a desire to fit in with a certain social group than by a true understanding and appreciation of the culture's deeper meanings. By contrast, Maggie's connection to her heritageis more authentic, rooted in her personal experiences and memories. This contrast highlights the importance of understanding one's identity not just as a product of external factors but also as a result of internal processes of self-discovery and self-understanding.The story also raises questions about the role of tradition in shaping individual and collective identities. Dee's rejection of her family's traditional way of life and her embrace of a more urban, modern identity reflect the influence of external forces on individual choices. However, Maggie's reluctance to give up the quilts, despite Dee's offers of more "practical" gifts, suggests that traditioncan also serve as a powerful anchor, grounding individuals in their cultural heritage.Walker's use of symbolism in "Everyday Use" is also noteworthy. The quilts, which Dee desires so eagerly, serve as symbols not only of craftsmanship but also of the older generation's wisdom and experience. By refusing to give up the quilts, Maggie's mother and Maggie herself are effectively rejecting Dee's shallow understanding of her heritage and affirming their own deeper connection to it. In conclusion, "Everyday Use" is a profound exploration of identity, culture, and tradition. Through the contrasting narratives of Dee and Maggie, Walker challenges readers to consider the complexity of identity formation and the role of tradition in shaping it. The story encourages us to question our own assumptions aboutidentity and heritage, and to embrace the rich tapestry of our cultural backgrounds with pride and respect.**《日常用品》读后感**《日常用品》是爱丽丝·沃克的一篇短篇小说，探讨了身份、文化和传统等主题。
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题［摘要］在Everyday Use中，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
本文着重分析了这两个人物的差异，并探讨了其主题。
［关键词］Everyday Use,人物,主题Everyday Use出自〈高级英语〉（第一册，张汉熙主编）第四课，其作者是美国现代著名女作家Alice Walker。
作者在课文中以第一人称（mother of Dee and Maggie）巧妙、含蓄地道出两代黑人（mother and her two daughters）或者说同一代黑人（Dee and Maggie，two sisters）之间在思想观念以及黑人文化遗产上所面临的两难抉择以及他们所持的复杂态度。
尤其是关于黑人母亲对自己两个女儿（Dee and Maggie）的评价的描写更加有力地彰显了这种抉择的艰难和态度的复杂。
可见，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
一、Maggie and Dee差异分析作为少数民族最大的群体，美国的黑人是在经过数百年的交叉影响和相互作用下，非洲文化同美国白人文化的共同交融而孕育出的一种新型黑人—美国黑人或称美国非洲裔黑人。
由于美国政府在南北战争前一直奉行白人至上的政策，因此，虽然在数量上作为少数民族最大的群体的美国黑人，他们在政治、经济、文化以及社会生活等各方面却一直处于无权和被压迫的境地。
Alice Walke生于1944年，此时的美国在政治上较之从前已经发生了天翻地覆的变化。
比如说，轰轰烈烈的、席卷全国的废奴运动业已结束，发端于20 世纪20年代纽约市黑人聚居区—哈莱姆的“黑人文艺复兴”也方兴未艾。
因此，她所耳闻目睹的美国黑人无论在政治、经济还是文化等方面都有了明显的改观。
事实上，Alice Walke时代的美国黑人正面临着这样一种两难抉择：一方面，他们要不失时机地与白人交流和融合；另一方面，他们又必须想方设法地保全自己的传统和文化。
everydayuse读后感
everydayuse读后感英文回答："Everyday Use" is a short story written by Alice Walker that explores the themes of heritage, identity, and the conflict between traditional and modern values. The story revolves around a mother and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. The mother, who is the narrator of the story, is torn between her two daughters and their different views on heritage.The story begins with the arrival of Dee, who has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, claimingthat she wants to embrace her African roots. Dee is portrayed as a modern, educated woman who values material possessions and sees her family's heritage as mereartifacts to be displayed. On the other hand, Maggie, who was scarred in a house fire, is depicted as shy and unassuming, but deeply connected to her family's history.As the story unfolds, the conflict between Dee and her mother becomes more apparent. Dee wants to take thefamily's quilts, which were made by her grandmother andgreat-grandmother, and hang them on the wall as a form of art. However, the mother decides to give the quilts to Maggie, who will put them to everyday use. This decision symbolizes the mother's choice to preserve her family's heritage and pass it on to the next generation.Through the characters of Dee and Maggie, Walker explores the different ways in which people can connectwith their heritage. Dee represents the superficial and materialistic approach, while Maggie represents a deeper, more personal connection. The story ultimately suggeststhat heritage should not be reduced to mere objects, but should be embraced and celebrated in everyday life.中文回答：《日常使用》是艾丽丝·沃克写的一篇短篇小说，探讨了传统、身份认同和传统与现代价值观之间的冲突。
Everyday Use原文+译文
Everyday UseAlice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yester day afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A Pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's face. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a cark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tear s in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks or chides are tacky flowers.In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open tire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill be-fore nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pan-cake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Car –son has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one toot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature."How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door."Come out into the yard," I say.Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind of him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflect-ed in them. And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of;a look at concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house tall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity, forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own' and knew what style was.回答人的补充 2009-09-30 18:43I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why. in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. 1 used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin: they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, butnot round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutter s up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them.When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet -- but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. "Come back here," I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as it God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. "Uhnnnh," is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your toot on the road. "Uhnnnh."Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yel-lows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears."Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin."Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around theedge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie."Well," I say. "Dee.""No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee', Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!""What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know."She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.""You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicle," I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born."But who was she named after?" asked Wangero."I guess after Grandma Dee," I said."And who was she named after?" asked Wangero."Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as far back as I can trace it," I said.Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches."Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are.""Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say."There I was not," I said, before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?"He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head."How do you pronounce this name?" I asked."You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero."Why shouldn't I?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you. ""I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero."I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I don't ask."You must belong to those beet-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakirn" when they met you too, but they didn't Shake hands. Always too busy feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee)had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens and every-thing else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't afford to buy chairs."Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it."This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?""Yes," I said."Uh huh, " she said happily. "And I want the dasher,too.""Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me."Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.""Maggie's brain is like an elephants," Wanglero said, laughing. "I can use the churn top as a center piece for the alcove table,”she said, sliding a plate over the churn, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."回答人的补充 2009-09-30 18:56When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bit sand pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War."Mama," Wangero said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed."Why don't you take one or two of the others?” 1 asked. "These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.""No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.""That'll make them last better," I said."That's not the point," said Wanglero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them."Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, movi ng up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her. "Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom."The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas."She gasped like a bee had stung her."Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.""I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been sav age ’em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will! ” I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style."But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously, for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!" "She can always make some more,” I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt. "Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!""Well," I said,, stumped. "What would you do with them?""Hang them," she said. As it that was the only thing you could do with quilts.Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other."She can have them, Mama,” she said like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open."Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber."You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car."What don't I under stand?" I wanted to know."Your heritage," she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "You ought to try to make some-thing of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin.Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real mile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed. NOTES1) Alice Walker: born 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, America and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Her books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland ( 1970 ), Meridian ( 1976 ), The Color Purple(1982), etc.2)"made it": to become a success, to succeed, either in specific endeavor or in general3) Johnny Carson: a man who runs a late night talk show4)hooked: injured by the horn of the cow being milked5) Jimmy T: 'T' is the initial of the surname of the boy Dee was courting.6)"Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!": phonetic rendering of an African dialect salutation7) "Asalamalakim": phonetic rendering of a Muslim greeting8) Polaroid: a camera that produces instant pictures9) the Civil War: the war between the North and the South in the U. S.(1861-1865)10) branches: branches or divisions of a family descending from a common ancestor11) Ream it out again: "Ream" is perhaps an African dialect word meaning: "unfold, display". Hence the phrase may mean "repeat" or "say it once again"12) pork was unclean: Muslims are forbidden by their religion to eat pork because it is considered to be unclean.13) Chitlins: also chitlings or chitterlings, the small intestines of pigs, used for food, a common dish in Afro-American households14) rump prints: depressions in the benches made by constant sitting15) sink: depressions in the wood of the handle left by the thumbs and fingers外婆的日用家当艾丽斯•沃克尔我就在这院子里等候她的到来。
Everyday_Use原文+译文
Everyday UseI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yester day afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A Pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's face. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a cark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tear s in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks or chides are tacky flowers.In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open tire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill be-fore nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pan-cake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Car –son has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one toot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature."How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin bodyenveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door."Come out into the yard," I say.Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind of him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflect-ed in them. And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of;a look at concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house tall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity, forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own' and knew what style was.回答人的补充 2009-09-30 18:43I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why. in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. 1 used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin: they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutter s up on the outside. Thishouse is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them.When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet -- but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. "Come back here," I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as it God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. "Uhnnnh," is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your toot on the road. "Uhnnnh."Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yel-lows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears."Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin."Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts thePolaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie."Well," I say. "Dee.""No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee', Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!""What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know."She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.""You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicle," I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born."But who was she named after?" asked Wangero."I guess after Grandma Dee," I said."And who was she named after?" asked Wangero."Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as far back as I can trace it," I said.Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches."Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are.""Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say."There I was not," I said, before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?"He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head."How do you pronounce this name?" I asked."You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero."Why shouldn't I?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you. ""I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero."I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I don't ask."You must belong to those beet-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakirn" when they met you too, but they didn't Shake hands. Always too busy feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens and every-thing else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't afford to buy chairs."Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it."This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?""Yes," I said."Uh huh, " she said happily. "And I want the dasher,too.""Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me."Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.""Maggie's brain is like an elephants," Wanglero said, laughing. "I can use the churn top as a center piece for the alcove table,”she said, sliding a plate over the churn, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."回答人的补充 2009-09-30 18:56When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bit sand pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War."Mama," Wangero said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed."Why don't you take one or two of the others?” 1 asked. "These old things wasjust done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.""No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.""That'll make them last better," I said."That's not the point," said Wanglero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them."Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, movi ng up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her. "Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom."The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas."She gasped like a bee had stung her."Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.""I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been sav age ’em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will! ” I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style."But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously, for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!" "She can always make some more,” I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt. "Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!""Well," I said,, stumped. "What would you do with them?""Hang them," she said. As it that was the only thing you could do with quilts.Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other."She can have them, Mama,” she said like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open."Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber."You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car."What don't I under stand?" I wanted to know."Your heritage," she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "You ought to try to make some-thing of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin.Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real mile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed. NOTES1) Alice Walker: born 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, America and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Her books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland ( 1970 ), Meridian ( 1976 ), The Color Purple(1982), etc.2)"made it": to become a success, to succeed, either in specific endeavor or in general3) Johnny Carson: a man who runs a late night talk show4)hooked: injured by the horn of the cow being milked5) Jimmy T: 'T' is the initial of the surname of the boy Dee was courting.6)"Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!": phonetic rendering of an African dialect salutation7) "Asalamalakim": phonetic rendering of a Muslim greeting8) Polaroid: a camera that produces instant pictures9) the Civil War: the war between the North and the South in the U. S.(1861-1865)10) branches: branches or divisions of a family descending from a common ancestor11) Ream it out again: "Ream" is perhaps an African dialect word meaning: "unfold, display". Hence the phrase may mean "repeat" or "say it once again"12) pork was unclean: Muslims are forbidden by their religion to eat pork because it is considered to be unclean.13) Chitlins: also chitlings or chitterlings, the small intestines of pigs, used for food, a common dish in Afro-American households14) rump prints: depressions in the benches made by constant sitting15) sink: depressions in the wood of the handle left by the thumbs and fingers外婆的日用家当艾丽斯•沃克尔我就在这院子里等候她的到来。
高级英语第一册Unit4 Everyday Use
to do it fancy: to do in an
ornamental, elaborate manner.
Phrases and expressions
blue steak: (colloquial) anything
regarded as like a streak of lightning in speed, vividness, etc. to talk a blue streak: to talk much and rapidly.
furtive: done or acting in a stealthy manner, as if to hinder observation; surreptitious, stealthy, sneaky.
New words
washday: a day, often the same day every week, when the clothes, linens, etc. of a household are washed.
Unit4 Everyday Use
Alice Walker
Alice Walker (1944-), poet, novelist and essayist, was born Into a poor rural family in Eatonton, Georgia. Her writing career began with the publication of a volume of poetry in 1968,with was followed by a number of novels, short stories critical essays and more poetry. Her works include The Life of Grange Copeland(1970), Meridian (1976), a biography of Langston Hughes (1973), a volume of poetry Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973), a collection of short stories In Love and Troubles: Stories of Black Women (1973) and a recent novel The Temple of My Familiar (1989). Her most significant novel is The Color Purple, published in 1982.
Everyday Use译文
外婆的日用家当艾丽斯•沃克尔我就在这院子里等候她的到来。
我和麦姬昨天下午已将院子打扫得干干净净，地面上还留着清晰的扫帚扫出的波浪形痕迹，这样的院子比一般人想象的要舒服，它不仅仅是一个院子，简直就像一间扩大了的客厅。
当院子的泥土地面被打扫得像屋里的地板一样干净，四周边缘的细沙面上布满不规则的细纹时，任何人都可以进来坐一下，一边抬头仰望院中的榆树，一边等着享受从来吹不进屋内的微风。
麦姬在她姐姐离去之前将会一直心神不定：她将会神情沮丧地站在角落里，一面为自己的丑陋面孔和胳膊大腿上晒出的累累疤痕而自惭形秽，一面怀着既羡慕又敬畏的心情怯生生地看着她姐姐。
她觉得她姐姐真正是生活的主人，想要什么便能得到什么，世界还没有学会对她说半个“不”字。
你一定从电视片上看到过“闯出了江山”的儿女突然出乎意料地出现在那跌跌撞撞从后台走出来的父母面前的场面。
（当然，那场面必定是令人喜悦的：假如电视上的父母和儿女之间相互攻击辱骂，他们该怎么样呢？）在电视上，母亲和儿女见面总是相互拥抱和微笑。
有时父母会痛哭流涕，而那发迹了的孩子就会紧紧地拥抱他们，并隔着桌子伸过头来告诉他们说若没有他们的帮助，她自己就不会有今日的成就。
我自己就看过这样的电视节目。
有时候我在梦里梦见迪伊和我突然成了这种电视节目的剧中人。
我从一辆黑色软座垫大轿车上一下来，立刻被人引进一间宽敞明亮的屋子里。
屋里有许多人，其中一个身材高大威武，满面微笑，有点像著名电视节目主持人约翰尼.卡森的美男子迎上来和我握手，并对我说我养了个好女儿。
然后，我们来到台前，迪伊热泪盈眶地拥抱着我，还把一朵大大的兰花别在我的衣服上，尽管她曾对我说过兰花是很低级的花。
在现实生活中，我是一个大块头、大骨架的妇女，有着干男人活儿的粗糙双手。
冬天睡觉时我穿着绒布睡衣，白天身穿套头工作衫。
我能像男人一样狠狠地宰猪并收拾干净。
我身上的脂肪是我在寒冬也能保暖。
我能整天在户外干活儿，敲碎冰块，取水洗衣。
我能吃从刚宰杀的猪体内切下来、还冒着热气、而后在明火上烧熟的猪肝。
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题［摘要］在Everyday Use中，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
本文着重分析了这两个人物的差异，并探讨了其主题。
［关键词］Everyday Use,人物,主题Everyday Use出自〈高级英语〉（第一册，张汉熙主编）第四课，其作者是美国现代著名女作家Alice Walker。
作者在课文中以第一人称（mother of Dee and Maggie）巧妙、含蓄地道出两代黑人（mother and her two daughters）或者说同一代黑人（Dee and Maggie，two sisters）之间在思想观念以及黑人文化遗产上所面临的两难抉择以及他们所持的复杂态度。
尤其是关于黑人母亲对自己两个女儿（Dee and Maggie）的评价的描写更加有力地彰显了这种抉择的艰难和态度的复杂。
可见，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
一、Maggie and Dee差异分析作为少数民族最大的群体，美国的黑人是在经过数百年的交叉影响和相互作用下，非洲文化同美国白人文化的共同交融而孕育出的一种新型黑人—美国黑人或称美国非洲裔黑人。
由于美国政府在南北战争前一直奉行白人至上的政策，因此，虽然在数量上作为少数民族最大的群体的美国黑人，他们在政治、经济、文化以及社会生活等各方面却一直处于无权和被压迫的境地。
Alice Walke生于1944年，此时的美国在政治上较之从前已经发生了天翻地覆的变化。
比如说，轰轰烈烈的、席卷全国的废奴运动业已结束，发端于20 世纪20年代纽约市黑人聚居区—哈莱姆的“黑人文艺复兴”也方兴未艾。
因此，她所耳闻目睹的美国黑人无论在政治、经济还是文化等方面都有了明显的改观。
事实上，Alice Walke时代的美国黑人正面临着这样一种两难抉择：一方面，他们要不失时机地与白人交流和融合；另一方面，他们又必须想方设法地保全自己的传统和文化。
高级英语第一册Unit4-Everyday-UsePPT课件
sidle up: move up sideways, especially in a shy
or stealthy manner.
-
16
第十六页，共五十四页。
Phrases and expressions
stand off: stand away,
in a distance
stare down: to stare back at another
ornamental, elaborate
manner.
-
19
第十九页，共五十四页。
Phrases and expressions
blue steak: (colloquial) anything
regarded as like a streak of lightning in speed, vividness, etc. to talk a blue streak: to talk much and rapidly.
until the gaze of the one stared at is
turned away.
-
17
第十七页，共五十四页。
Phrases and expressions
not round and not square:
irregular in shape.
in style: in a fashionable and
Moment when Dee, the elder daughter, wants the old quilts only
to be refused flatly by the mother, who intends to give them to Maggie, the younger one. The old quilts, made from pieces of clothes worn by grand- and great-grand parents and stitched by
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“Everyday Use for Your Grandmama”
Alice Walker
Free-talk:
• What is the story about? • What do you think of the three characters, the
mother, Dee and Maggie?
1) In real life what kind of woman is the mother?
In real life the mother was a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands... (Para. 5 p.389)
After graduation
Walker worked for the New York welfare system and learned about Blacks who were evicted from their homes for attempting to register to vote.
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the movements in the United States
aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and ren states.
4. Awards
The Color Purple 《紫色》 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 (the first black woman winner) National Book Award
Kindred Spirits 《血缘》 O. Henry Award in 1986
characters
The mother, the two daughters (Dee and Maggie) There is a sharp contrast between the two daughters.
Questions:
1) In real life what kind of woman is the mother? 2) What kind of woman would Dee like her mother to be?
2. Education
•With the help of her great mother, Walker enrolled at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1961, where she quickly became involved in the
1. Early life
Born on Feb. 9, 1944, in a small rural town of Georgia.
In 1952, her brother Curtis accidentally shot Alice in the eye with a BB gun.
The physical result was that Alice lost the sight in her right eye, which developed a disfiguring white scar. Psychologically, she grew more introspective, contending with feelings of sadness, alienation, and betrayal.
“Everyday Use for Your Grandmamma” a short story (1973)
? What’s a short story
Short story is a tale that is short enough to be read at a single sitting and that is constructed to leave a vivid, uninterrupted impression upon the reader.
are sitting in the yard waiting for the arrival of Dee, Maggie’s talented sister who left home for freedom.
Rising action: while affecting to despise virtually everything
“Humanist of the Year”honored by the American Humanist Association in 1997
The Color Purple《紫色》,
published in 1982, which won all the three major book awards in America-the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Climax
Rising Action Introduction
Falling Action Final Outcome
Plot Structure
2 1
3
4 5
The Plot of Everyday Use
Situation: two black women, a mother and her daughter Maggie,
• Who can even imagine me looking a strange white
Climax: the climatic moment comes when the narrator
snatches the quilts away from Wangero, and “dumps” them into the astounded Maggie’s lap.
Denouement: Wangero, followed by Hakim-a-barber, leaves
poor, oppressed African American women in the early 1900s.
Walker’s novels place more emphasis on the
inner workings of African American life
than on the relationships between blacks and whites.
2) What kind of woman would Dee like her mother to be?
Dee like her mother to have a slender figure and a fair skin, glistening hair and a quick and witty tongue. (Para. 5)
in her old home, Wangero (Dee) still wants to take things like the hand-carved churn, and benches and the quilts as heirlooms or examples of ‘primitive’ art, which can be shown to her acquaintances back in the city.
Structural elements of a short story :
plot, character, point of view, setting, tone and style, theme, symbol, etc
Plot
•Plot is the sequence of events in a story and refers to their relation to each other.
Married a lawyer (whom she later divorced); (inter-racial marriage) one daughter, Rebecca Grant born in 1969;(political symbol)
3. Walker’s works
The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) Meridian (1976) The Temple of My Familiar (1989) Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998)
Major Contents
Alice Walker “Everday Use” Brief Analysis
Alice Malsenior Walker (born
February 9, 1944) is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fictions and essays about race and gender.