Advanced English

1. Advanced English 《 高 级 英 语 》 (第三版） 第一册 主编：张汉熙 外语教学与研究出版社

2. Lesson 3Blackmail by Arthur Hailey

3. Teaching Points • I. Background information • II. Introduction to the passage • III. Text analysis • IV. Rhetorical devices • V. Questions for discussion

4. I. Background Information • 1. Arthur Hailey • 2. Hotel

5. 1. Arthur Hailey

7. Arthur Hailey is the author of a number of bestselling novels. Born in Luton, England, in 1920, he was educated in English schools until age fourteen. After a brief career as an office boy, he joined the British Royal Air Force in 1939 and served through World War II, rising through the ranks to become a pilot and flight lieutenant.

8. In 1949 Hailey immigrated to Canada, where he was successively a real estate salesman, business paper editor and a sales and advertising executive .He became, and still is a Canadian citizen. He makes his home at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas. In 1956 Arthur Hailey scored his first writing success with a TV drama, Flight into Danger, which later became a motion picture and a novel, Runway Zero-Eight (1958).

9. His works • The Final Diagnosis (1959) • In High Places (1962) • Hotel (1966) • Airport (1968) • Wheels (1971) • The Moneychangers (1975)

23. Though a Canadian himself, he set the scene of most of his works in the United States. Each of his books deals with one particular field of society. This is made clear by the titles of his books. It is this peculiarity of his that is value to those who are eager to learn about contemporary American society.

24. Hotel is a 1965 novel by Arthur Hailey. It is the story of an independent New Orleans hotel, the St. Gregory, and its management's struggle to regain profitability and avoid being assimilated into the O'Keefe chain of hotels. The St. Gregory is supposedly based on the Roosevelt Hotel.

25. The novel was adapted into a movie in 1967, and in 1983 Aaron Spelling turned into a television series, airing for five years on ABC. However, in the TV series, the St. Gregory Hotel was moved from New Orleans to San Francisco.

26. Hotel • The St. Gregory Hotel is the largest in New Orleans, Louisiana. For 4 days from Monday evening to Friday, the hotel goes through a succession of dramatic events. With the hotel’s mortgage due by the weekend and with no chance of getting further renewal, the owner, Warren Trent, reluctantly makes up his mind to sell his hotel to a chain hotel owner, Curtis O’Keefe.

27. Peter McDermott, the assistant general manager, has to tackle several other knotty problems: handling an attempted rape which has occurred in one of the hotel’s rooms; catching a professional thief operating in the hotel; pacifying a whole convention of several hundred dentists to putting up a member of the convention--a black doctor. Then there is the Duke of Croydon.

28. The Duke is an internationally famous statesman and the newly-appointed British ambassador to Washington. He and his wife occupy the best suite in St. Gergory. On Monday evening while driving back with his wife from a gambling house, the Duke and the Duchess, however, drive away. The hit-and-run becomes top sensational news in New Orleans. The hotel’s chief house detective Ogilvie notices the battered car when it comes back. Instead of reporting this to the police, he goes to see the Duke and the Duchess. He promises to keep quiet about what he knows and asks for a large sum of money in return for the favour.

29. The Duke, now totally at a loss as to how to act, hides behind the skirt of her wife. The Duchess understands that to get themselves out of this mess, the car has to be driven out of the south where people are alerted about the hit-and-run. So she offers to pay Ogilvie more than he has asked on condition that he drives the car to Chicago up in the north. The greedy detective agrees. At one o’clock Thursday morning Ogilvie gets the car out of the garage. He is seen leaving by one person only, by Peter McDermott, the assistant general manager.

30. Though it strikes him as odd, Peter does not link this up with the hit-and-run until late that afternoon when he witnesses the funeral of the two victims of the accident. He contacts police headquarters right away. By this time, Ogilvie has crossed Louisiana and Mississippi, driving by night and concealing the car by day. He thinks that everything is going smoothly, little knowing that he is already being followed by the Highway patrol cruisers. In Tennessee, he is caught and sent back to New Orleans.

31. At first the Duchess tries to deny everything, but doesn’t succeed in convincing the police. The Duke then decides to go over to police headquarters before they come for him, wishing to save the little shreds of decency left in him. He takes an elevator to go down. This elevator which has been out of order for some time and badly in need of repair breaks down. As it goes down, one set of clamps holds and the other fails. The elevator car twists, buckles and splits open, throwing the Duke nine floors down to the cement ground. He dies instantly.

32. However, the novel ends with a pleasant surprise. A sick, old eccentric man staying in the hotel turns out to be an extremely wealthy man from Montreal, Canada. Earlier, he fell seriously ill and was saved by Peter and his girl friend. To show his gratitude and repay their kindness, he buys the hotel from its former owner and makes Peter the new executive vice-president, with complete authority to run the hotel as he thinks fit.

33. Characters • The Duke and Duchess of Croydon, guests in the Presidential Suite • Ogilvie, house detective

34. Story of Duke and Duchess of Croydon • The Duke and Duchess of Croydon are hiding out in the hotel from their responsibility for a gruesome hit-and-run accident which had been the highlight of the newspaper as the famous hit-and-run case. The duke had gone to a night club and the duchess reaches the club to find her husband. On their way back the duchess hits a woman and her daughter and both the woman and her daughter died on the spot.

35. However in the accident the headlight and the trim ring of the car had damaged. Anyhow the duke and duchess reached back the hotel and try to find way out, so that there is left a slightest print of them being involved in an accident. When the waiter arrived in the presidential suite with dinner, the duchess intentionally hit the waiter so that her dress gets spoiled. The duchess created a big issue over this, just to make her presence felt in hotel so that it can be interpreted that she was in the hotel. But the chief house officer Ogilvie gets hint of it and tries to blackmail the duke and duchess.

36. They finally reach an agreement that Ogilvie would drive their jaguar to Chicago and a total of twenty five thousand dollars would be paid to him. Further by the time the police identifies that the broken headlight and trim pieces would be identified as pieces of which car, Ogilvie would be out of New Orleans. The travel was supposedly on Thursday night at 1 am.Oglivie gets a written note from duchess asking for permission to drive the car out of garage in case the garage officer asks for.

37. The moment he was driving the car out of hotel Peter was entering the hotel and they had eye contact, though peter did not think much of it. However recollecting all the events….a jaguar being driven by Ogilvie which belonged to duke and duchess….the broken headlight of the jaguar.… the fuss created by duchess on waiter all established a link towards the involvement of the duke and duchess. Peter enquired from garage officer and he informed that Ogilvie had a written note from the duchess and so was allowed to drive the car away, but somehow the note got misplaced.

38. Peter informed the police, captain Yolles of the incident but they could not prove it without any evidence. After working hard, the incinerator officer, responsible for garbage recycling managed to find the note. When the note was produced before duchess she frowned. The Duke then decided to admit his crime and decided to leave and stepped into elevator no 4 of the Hotel.

39. General History of British Nobility • The nobility of the four constituent home nations of the United Kingdom has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although in the present day even hereditary peers have no special rights, privileges or responsibilities, except for residual rights to stand for election to the House of Lords and the right to certain titles.

40. The British nobility consists of two entities, the peerage and the landed gentry. Members of the peerage are titled (duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron), and frequently referred to as peers or lords. The rest of the nobility is referred to as the landed gentry.

41. The Peerage • The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system. The term is used both collectively to refer to the entire body of noble titles, and individually to refer to a specific title. The holder of a peerage is termed a peer。

42. Landed gentry • Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands.

43. Before the twentieth century, peerages were generally hereditary and (with a few exceptions), descended in the male line. The eldest son of a Duke, Marquess or Earl frequently has a courtesy title - often one of his father's subsidiary titles. For example, the elder son of the Earl of Snowdon is called Viscount Linley.

44. In 1958 the government introduced (non-hereditary) life peers and from then on the creation of hereditary peerages (except for members of the Royal Family) rapidly became obsolete, almost ceasing after 1964. This, however, is only a convention and was not observed by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher who had the Queen create three hereditary peerages (two of them, however, to men who had no heirs) and whose husband also received the hereditary non-peerage rank of baronet.

45. Until 1999 possession of a title in the English peerage entitled its holder to a seat in the House of Lords, once of age. The Scottish (since 1707) and Irish (since 1801) peerages elected some of their members to sit in the Lords. Since 1999 only 92 hereditary peers are entitled to sit in the House of Lords, chosen by ballot. A member of the House of Lords cannot be a member of the House of Commons.

46. Titles of Peerage • 1 Dukes • 2 Marquesses • 3 Earls • 4 Viscounts • 5 Barons / Lords of Parliament of Scotland

47. Titles of the Landed Gentry • 1 Baronets • 2 Knights • 3 Scottish Barons • 4 Lairds • 5 Untitled Classes

48. Etymology • Duke comes from the Latindux, leader. Created in 1337. (female:Duchess) • Marquess comes from the French marquis, which is a derivative of marche or march. This is a reference to the borders ("marches") between England, Scotland and Wales, a relationship more evident in the feminine form: Marchioness. Created in 1385.

49. Earl comes from the Old English or Anglo-Saxon eorl, a military leader. The meaning may have been affected by the Old Norsejarl, meaning free-born warrior or nobleman, during the Danelaw, thus giving rise to the modern sense. Since there was no feminine Old English or Old Norse equivalent for the term, "Countess" is used (an Earl is analogous to the Continental count), from the Latin comes. Created circa 800–1000. • Viscount comes from the Latin vicecomes, vice-count. Created in 1440. (female: Viscountess) • Baron comes from the Old Germanic baro, freeman. Created in 1066. (female: Baroness)

50. Detailed study of the text and language points: • 1. chief house officer: chief detective (employed by the hotel) in charge of hotel security. • 2. Bedlington terrier: a blue or liver-colored, woolly-coated terrier resembling a small lamp. • 3. Ogilive: The author depicts him a coarse, vulgar and uneducated person. Hence his language is ungrammatical and slangy, e.g.