Unit 9 The Pearl(Book4)

1. Unit 9 The Pearl(Book4) 郧阳师专综合英语教研室

2. Contents • I Background • II Questions • III The Writing style • IV Language points • V Discussion • VI Organization and development • VII Homework

3. I Background • About the author: • John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American novelist, story writer, playwright, and essayist. John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He is best remembered for THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1939), a novel widely considered to be a 20th-century classic.

4. About the author He was born in Salinas, California. In The Pastures of Heaven (1932), a group of short stories depicting a community of California farmers, Steinbeck first dealt with the hardworking people and social themes associated with most of his works. His other early books include In Dubious Battle (1936), and Of Mice and Men (1937).

5. About the author Steinbeck's most widely known work is The Grapes of Wrath (1939; Pulitzer Prize, 1940), the stark account of the Joad family from the impoverished Oklahoma Dust Bowl and their migration to California during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A major literary figure since the 1930s, Steinbeck took as his central theme the quiet dignity he saw in the poor and the oppressed. Although his characters are often trapped in an unfair world, they remain sympathetic and heroic, if defeated, human beings. Steinbeck was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature.

6. II Questions • How do people usu. Think of pearl? As an ordinary piece of jewellery? A thing of great value? A useless ornament?Give reasons for your answer. • What might happen if a very poor person came into possession of a very large pearl of great value? Think of two or three possibilities.

7. III Text Structure • The text can be divided into three parts: • Part one(Line1—5): Kino, a poor fisherman,has just found a very large and valuable pearl. • Part two(Line6—35):before Kino had come to his brush house, the nerves of the town were pulsing and vibrating with the news. • Part three(Line 36– 45): all manner of people grew interested in Kino.

8. IV The Writing style • This excerpt is a good example of creativity in writing. • It describes the psychology of various kinds of people just before Kino, and goes to the town to sell the pearl. • The writer,through his excellent use of language, sets the scene for Kino’s arrival in town and • The reader is likely to anticipate with interest the meeting between him and the pearl buyers.

9. Language points • 1. scramble: v. move quickly in a hurried awkward way ( always + adv/prep. ) • e.g. Alan scrambled out of the way. • Micky scrambled to his feet and hurried into the kitchen. • 2. dart: v. to move suddenly and quickly in a particular direction • e.g. Jill darted forward and pulled him away from the fire. • 3. strangle: v. to limit or prevent the growth or development of something. • e.g. Mills argues that high taxation strangles the economy.

10. Language points • 4. judicious: adj. done in a sensible and careful way. • e.g. This is really a judicious choice. • 5.hammock: n a large piece of clock that is hung between two trees or posts so that you can sleep in it. • 6.alms: n. (plural) money, food etc given to the poor people in the past.

11. Language points • 7.cackle: v. to laugh in a loud and unpleasant way, making short and high sounds. • liquid by chemical action or to be separated in this way. • 8.residue: n. the part of something that is left after the rest has gone or been taken away. • e.g. The residue of the stork was sold. • 9.precipitate: v. to separate a solid substance from a liquid by chemical action or to be separated in this way.

12. Language points • 10. speculation: n. the guesses that you make. • e.g. There is a speculation that the president is ill. • The witness’s speculation was pure speculation. • 11. venom: n. a liquid poison that some snakes, insects etc produce when they bite or sting you. • e.g. The viper paralyses its prey by injecting it with venom. • 12.puff: v. to breathe quickly and wit difficulty after the effort of running, carrying something heavy etc e.g. • George puffed and panted and tried to keep up. • He caught up with Gary, puffing for breath.

13. Language points 13.aged 1 very old my aged parents 2 the aged [plural] old people the care of children and the aged cf. aged 5/25 etc aged 5/25 etc between Police are looking for a man aged between 30 and 35. The course is open to children aged 12 and over.

14. VI Discussion • 1.At what point in the story is the scene of this extract set? • 2.What personal details do we know about Kino? • 3.Who do “the people with things to sell” and “the people with favours to ask” include?

15. Organization and development • 1. His close contact with and awareness of different types of people. • 2. His thorough and profound understanding of “human nature” • 3. His keen power of observation and active imagination. • 4. His effective use of language.

16. Figures of speech • Both the metaphor and the smile are figures of speech. They are stylistic device in writing which allow one thing to be described in terms of another. They can thus not only make writing more vivid, they may help the writer to achieve clarity of meaning as well. They can make the abstract concrete; the elusive comprehensible, and the unfamiliar familiar. • A smile makes a brief, explicit and direct comparison between two unlike things, usually brought together by the words like or as.

17. Figures of speech • A metaphor is an implied, indirect comparison between two things again seemingly quite different; but the wording identifies the two items with each other. • The freshness and power of metaphor lies in the often surprising shared factor that the writer has noticed and utilized. The effect is often to enable the reader to see things in a new light.

18. Homework • Finish the exercise in the workbook. • Surf on line and find out the author’s autobiography. • You are given the title “Kino and the Pearl Buyers”for a story.Give full play to your imagination to write what is in fact a follow-up to the passage.

19. The End Thank You!