现代大学英语精说读5 Lesson 5 love is a fallacy.ppt

Love is a fallacy,Max Shulman,pre-reading questions,what does the narrator think about himself? To exchange for the girl he wanted, what did he have to give? Is Polly a perfect candidate for his future wife? How did his lesson on logic work with Polly? Did he succeed in winning Polly? Why not?,On love,If to give an individual definition to love, what will your definition be?,Max Shulman,Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953),Authors note,What does the author think of his own essay compared to those of the Charles Lambs? What is this essay like according to the author? And compared with those written by Carlyle and Ruskin?,Charles Lamb,Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia (Elia was his penname) and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced along with his sister, Mary Lamb.,Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881),British historian and essayist The French Revolution (1837), On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841) and Past and Present (1843).,John Ruskin(1819-1900),artist, scientist, poet, environmentalist, philosopher, and the pre-eminent art critic of his time.,that logic, far from being a drypassion, and trauma.,Metaphor and hyperbole. Its a metaphor comparing logic to a living human being. It is a hyperbole because it exaggerates for the sake of effect. Logic is not at all a dry, learned branch of learning. It is like a living human being, full of beauty, passion and painful emotional shocks.,Hyperbole,A figure of speech with the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis. Eg. Hamlet: I love Ophelia: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. Shakespeare: Hamlet IBM ThinkPad: Where the worlds most innovative people choose to think. (2003 Ad.),Words and expressions,Month of Sundays: a long time To unfetter Memorable Limp, flaccid, spongy Without doubt Far from=not at all Discipline Trauma,Paras 4-6 cool I Vs dumb Petey,What does “I” think of himself? Is it common to have a 18-year-old so brilliant, according to himself? What does the narrator think of his roommate, Petey, comparing to himself? Why does he consider Petey dumb as an ox?,Keen, calculating, I was all of these.,Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute all refer to unusual mental agility or perceptiveness. Keen suggests a vigorous and forceful ability to grapple with complex or obscure problems, e.g. a keen mind for distinctions. Sometimes by analogy with good vision, the word may suggest an ability to observe details and see them as part of a larger pattern, e.g. a keen understanding of the problems facing the conservation movement.,Acute suggests a fine sensitivity or receptivity to nuances that might escape others. e.g. an acute awareness of the slightest ambiguity in each statement made by his opponent; it might also imply a high-keyed state of nervous attention that is not sustainable for long,; e.g. an acute alertness, heightened by the strange silence in the enemy trenches.,Astute suggests a thorough and profound understanding, stemming from a scholarly or experienced mind that is in full command of a given field, e.g. an astute assessment of the strengths and weakness of the plans for reorganizing the department; an astute evaluation of the gaps on our knowledge of how life evolved.,Perspicacious is the most formal of these words; it stresses intensity of perception, e.g. a perspicacious remark that illuminated the whole problem for all of them. Calculating means shrewd or cunning.,My brain was as powerful as a dynamo,a scalpel.,Simile and Hyperbole The narrator use 3 similes to praise himself, which shows his pomposity.,Hyperbole,A figure of speech with the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis. Eg. Hamlet: I love Ophelia: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. Shakespeare: Hamlet IBM ThinkPad: Where the worlds most innovative people choose to think. (2003 Ad.),Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox.,Ellipsis. He and I are the same age and have the same background but he is as dumb as ox. The use of elliptical sentences, together with short sentences and dashes help maintain the speed of the narration. dumb as an ox: Simile, as stupid as an ox; very stupid. This kind of simile reflects differences in culture because the Chinese would not consider an ox dumb but would link dumbness to a donkey.,nothing upstairs,nothing upstairs: (American slang) empty-headed; a nitwit The corresponding British slang is “unfurnished in the upper storey”.,Fads, negation of reason.,I believe following passing crazes shows a complete lack of sound judgment. Submit: to offer as an opinion; suggest, propose Very negation: the complete (absolute) lack or opposite of some positive character or quality Reason: sound thought or judgment; good sense,Words and expressions,keen, calculating, perspicacious Acute and astute A giant intellect Dumb as an ox Nothing upstairs Impressionable To sweep away/to be swept away To surrender oneself to The acme of ,Paras 7-59 the deal,“I” came back to the dormitory to find petey all depressed? Why? Why does he want to have a raccoon coat so badly? With what purpose did I help him to get the coat? what kind of girl was Polly? Where did I get the coat?,Raccoon and raccoon coat,She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions.,She was beautiful and attractive enough to arouse the desires and passions of men.,But I was not oneentirely cerebral reason.,but I would not let feelings or emotions get the upper hand of reason or good sense. Im guided in my actions by reason and good sense and not by feelings and emotions. to let my heart rule my head: metonymy. “Heart” stands for “feelings and emotions” and “head” for “reason and good sense”.,shrewd: clever; sharp in practical affairs calculated: undertaken or accepted after the probable results have been estimated cerebral: (humorous) requiring the use of the intellect; intellectual rather than emotional,With one omission, Polly fitted the specifications perfectly.,Specification: (usu. plural) a statement or enumeration of particulars, as to actual or required size, quality, performance, terms, etc. Notice the use of “specifications”. The narrator wanted to sound exactly like somebody talking about a serious business transaction.,Pin-up: (American colloquialism) designating a girl whose sexual attractiveness makes her a subject for the kind of pictures often pinned up on walls proportion: lines, shapes of the body supply the lack: supply what is wanting He implies that time will give her a perfect figure. But he deliberately avoids using those explicit words describing female physical attractions.,She already had the makings.,Makings: the material or qualities needed for the making or development of something She already had all the physical qualities needed for developing into a very beautiful woman.,Carriage, bearing, poise,Synonymous “bearing” ,in the context, denotes manner of carrying or conducting oneself and refers to characteristic physical and mental posture. “Carriage”, also applies to posture, specifically stresses the physical aspects of a persons bearing, e.g. an erect carriage.,pot roast: meat, usually a large cut of beef, cooked in one piece by braising without even getting her fingers moist: (showing her dainty and refined table manner) Her fingers didnt even get slightly wet. The implied humor is that the woman had an usually good appetite. She wolfed down everything.,In fact she veered in the opposite direction.,veer: to change direction; to shift; to turn or swing around. In fact, she went in the opposite direction. This is a sarcastic way of saying that she was rather stupid.,I mean are you going steady or anything like that?,to go steady: (American colloquialism) to date someone of the opposite sex regularly and exclusively; be sweethearts I mean are you two sweethearts?,I said with a mysterious wink,A transferred epithet. He said mysteriously with a wink (the wink was not mysterious).,Stutz Bearcat斯图兹勇士,He was a torn man.,He was agitated and tormented, not knowing what was the right thing to do?,Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely.,Set his jaw: he put his jaw in a fixed or rigid position. This action shows his fixed, unyielding determination.,he just stood and stared with mad lust at he coat.,Hyperbole. Its an exaggeration to describe his longing for the coat as “mad lust”. He stood there, looking with great longing at the coat. Mad lust: frantic, insane, overmastering desire,Its just been a casual kick-just a few laughs, thats all.,Casual kick: (American slang) an occasional pleasure; a casual relationship; a passing affair; not a serous commitment A final reason that eases Peteys conscience. We occasionally went out for a bit of fun, thats all.,Words and expressions,Incredulous/incredible Be in the swim It so happened that To covet To smarten up Reverent To set ones jaw To go steady with sb.,Paras 60-61 the first date,How did the narrators first date go with Polly? From the language Polly used, what kind of girl is she? With Polly's disheartening stupidity, did the narrator intend to give her up?,Pollys language,The writer deliberately makes Polly use a lot of exclamatory words like” Gee, O, wow-dow” and clipped vulgar forms like “delish, marvy, sensaysh”, etc. to create the impression of a simple and rather stupid girl. Pollys language strongly contrasts with that of the narrators, thus increasing the force of satire and irony.,Language in Para 61,Formal. The narrator felt depressed after the first date with Polly. To bring this feeling out, and to create a humorous effect, the writer uses formal phrases such as “with a heavy heart”, “gravely underestimated the size of the task”, “ lack of information”, “a project of no small dimensions”, etc.,This loomed as a project of no small dimensions,To teach her to think appeared to be a vey big task, and at first I even thought of giving her back to petey. No small dimensions: understatement or litotes,Understatement (Litotes &meiosis),a figure of speech with deliberate use of understating a fact, impressing the listener or the reader more by what is mere implied or left unsaid than by bare statement. Litotes: understatement by the use of negative He was a man of no mean wealth. Its no laughing matter. Meiosis: understatement without the use of negation,But then I got to think about her abundant physical charmsknife and fork,The way she entered a room: her carriage and poise of bearing The way she handled a knife and fork: her refined table manners In this sentence, the narrator recapitulates Pollys good points or those qualities which made him choose Polly as his prospective wife.,Words and expressions,A heavy heart Be tempted to Abundant,Paras 62-98 the first logic lesson,Why did the narrator want to teach Polly logic? Did the first logic lesson go very well with Polly? Was “I” ready to give up yet?, you would go far to find another so agreeable.,Its not that easy to find a girl so agreeable.,It will be better if you stop tugging my sleeves,It will be better: a request showing displeasure Its quite brusque for the narrator to say things to Polly in this way, showing his disrespect for Polly.,I was getting nowhere with this girl.,Get nowhere: to make no progress; accomplish nothing. I was making no progress with this girl.,This girl simply had a logic-proof head.,-proof: resistant to, unaffected by. E.g. logic-proof, fireproof, waterproof, etc. Polly had a head that was resistant to logic.,Who knew?,A rhetorical question, expressing some doubt or some hope. He might succeed in teaching Polly some logic. Nobody could tell for sure.,Maybe somewhere in the a few embers still smoldered.,Metaphor. comparing Pollys mind to the extinct crater of a volcane, and “embers” to some sparks of intelligence. Perhaps there is still some intelligence left in Pollys empty (or stupid) mind. 也许在她死火山般的脑袋里，还有一点余火仍在闪烁冒烟。,Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope.,Admittedly: by general admission, everyone will admit that To be fraught with: to be filled , charged, or loaded with One must admit that the outcome does not look very hopeful.,Words and expressions,Have all the facts at ones finger tips Trysting place Earnestly It will be better if Exasperation To plunge ahead To be fraught with,Paras 99-123 the second logic lesson,Did the narrator finally succeed to make Polly understand some logic on the second logic lesson?,it just knocked me out.,Knock (oneself) out: (American slang) to elicit enthusiasm or an emotional response, especially deep sympathy or laughter I was excited and filled with pleasure by the movie.,That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy.,That: adjective, designating someone not described but well known or easily recognizable. Dreamy: (American slang) a general term of approval; excellent, wonderful, delightful, etc. That well-known actor Walter Pidgeon is so wonderful,There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear.,Flesh and blood: synecdoche, material for the thing made There is a limit to what any human being can bear.,Poisoning the well,The logical fallacy “ ad hominem” or speaking “against the man” rather than to the issue. The writer compares “ the personal attack on a person holding some thesis” to “poisoning the well”a metaphor.,I watched her closely as she knit in concentration.,Knit the brow: to draw the brows together (as when thinking very hard) Creamy: soft, white color ( of Pollys complexion. I watched her as she thought very hard.,a glimmer of intelligence came into her eyes,A glimmer of intelligence: 一丝智慧的闪光 From her eyes I could see that for the first time she was beginning to understand the problem.,with an airy wave of her hand,She waved her hand in a vivacious or gay manner. This showed that she was pleased with the praise she received from her boyfriend.,Over and over and over again I without let-up.,To hammer away (at): to keep emphasizing or talking about Let-up: stopping, relaxing Over and over again I gave examples and pointed out the logical mistakes involved. I kept emphasizing all this without stopping.,Words and expressions,To appeal to sth Blubber Brief To knock oneself out Hamstring/to hamstring To hammer away at To persist,Para 124- the proposal,Did the narrator love Polly? How did Polly respond to the narrators arguments for going steady with her? Why did he reject him?,I had made a logician out of Polly.,I had turned Polly into a logician. To make a logician out of polly: 把波莉培养成了逻辑学家。,She was a fit wife for mefor my well-heeled children.,Mansion: a large, imposing house; stately residence Well-heeled children: (American slang) rich, prosperous Here the narrator describes the role, which he thinks, a wife should play. First she should be a proper hostess of a rich man who owns many mansions. In ot