The Richer, the Poorer

1. The Richer, the Poorer Presented Suzy

2. The Richer, the Poorer • About the text • Structure • Cultural Note • Language Point • Sentence Paraphrases • Usage • After-class Discussion • Keys to the Exercises

3. Comparison and Contrast The story is a good example of comparison and contrast. It concentrates on the differences of the two sisters’ lifestyles and experiences from childhood to old age. The focus is on Lottie’s life while Bess’s is briefly touched upon in contrast.The story opens with the two sisters’ contrasting financial conditions in old age. Then point-to-point method of organization is employed. One aspect of Lottie’s, usually narrated in detail, is followed by a brief account of the same aspect of Bess’s. The climax is their reunion in old age, when they, for the first time, seem to share similar opinion on life.

4. Point of View The story is written from Lottie’s point of view. Much of the space is devoted to description of Lottie’s opinions, views and reflections. The reader can enter her mind and learn what goes on there. So when we read such descriptions, we should not be satisfied with their surface meaning but should go deeper and find out what they imply.

5. The Use of Both Formal and Informal Expressions We find informal words and expressions are used alongside formal ones. But toward the end of the story when Lottie’s lifestyle of “all work and no play” begin to change, she speaks in a very colloquial style. Her speech at the end of the story is a good example. But in the first half of the story and much of the second when Lottie is working wholeheartedly to prepare for her old age, the writer uses more formal words and expressions.

6. Structure Part One ( Para 1-Para18 ) : The different lifestyles of the two sisters Lottie : all work and no play ; Bess : all play and no work . Part Two( Para 18 – End ) : The two sisters’ reunion in old age, when they, for the first time, seem to share similar opinion on life

7. Cultural Note Gypsies : A nomadic people believed to have originated from India in the 14th century who later moved westward first to Egypt, then to North America. Gypsies typically do not live in one place, but travel from place to place while living in caravans. Gypsies do various jobs to make a living, but traditionally they are thought of as horse traders, musicians, basket makers and fortune tellers. In the U.K., some people do not trust Gypsies treat them with disapproval, because the gypsy way of life is so different from the way most British people live.

8. Gypsies Gypsies have been traditionally treated with little kindness wherever they go. Many European Gypsies were killed by the Nazis during the Second World War. However, the Gypsies have inspired many musicians, artists and writers with their great tradition of folklore, legends and songs as well as their unique way of life featured by independence and mobility. In the U.S., people imagine that Gypsies have a very interesting life, traveling, and not worrying about money.

9. Cultural Note In the U.S. and Canada, a dime is a coin worth ten cents. Other coins that are commonly used are quarter, worth 25 cents, nickel, 5 cents, penny, one cent. There are also coins worth 50 cents and 100 cents that are called half dollar and dollar.

10. Language Point worldly of the material world one’s worldly possessions/goods things a person owns

11. water (esp. of the eyes and mouth ) to form or let out water or water liquid, esp. tears or saliva (唾液). e.g. 1) At the sight of roast duck, my mouth watered. 2)Whenever I pass that factory, my eyes water.

12. sensegood and especially practical understanding and judgement to do sth., often used in the phrase “ have the sense to do sth.” e.g. You should have had the sense to turn off the gas before you left. He had the sense to take a taxi instead of waiting in the snow for a bus.

13. light(= white meat ) the very light-colored meat from part of a cooked bird, such as the breast of a chicken ; dark(= dark meat ) the darker meat from some part of a cooked bird, such as that of the leg.

14. count ( the years ) to say the number ( the days that ) count to be important or to have value

15. Lean (adj.) small in amount or quantity ; Clerk ( v.) to keep records or accounts, or to do general office work ; Wardrobe a collection of clothes especially of one person or for one activity ; Marriage license an official document which people must get before they are allowed to marry ;

16. Terms the stated conditions concerning payment, prices, etc. Blood tie family relationship ; Redo ( a room ) to fix and decorate it ; Play house a children’s game in which children pretended to be mom and dad housekeeping ; here it is used figuratively to show that Lottie enjoyed working on her house as children enjoy playing games.

17. Specialty shop a shop that sells particularly fine or excellent goods ; Beauty salon/ parlor ( AmE also beauty shop) a shop where women are given beauty treatment for the face, hair, nails, etc. Smart to cause or to feel a painful stinging sensation, usually in one part of the body and not last long ;

18. Onrush a strong movement forward ; Top-heavy not properly balanced because of too much weight at the top, here the word indicates that the turkey is disproportionately too big and lavish a dish for two old ladies ; The end ( euphemism ) a person’s death

19. Go on/ run errands for sb. to go somewhere for other people to take a message, to buy sth., or to deliver goods, etc. e.g. 1)When I was a child, I liked to run errands for my parents. 2)Sorry, at the moment I have no time to go on errands for anybody.

20. Put one’s mind to sth./ set one’s mind on sth. to concentrate on sth. Or to be determined to achieve sth. e.g. 1) She’s put her mind to improving her pronunciation. 2) I’m sure you can do anything if you set your mind on it.

21. Straight out of high school immediately after graduating from high school Straight + adv./ prep. directly, esp. without delay e.g. 1) He went straight home without stopping at his favorite saloon. 2) He met the director straight after the lunch break.

22. In rags wearing very old torn clothes Here, “in rags” is used figuratively (meaning “poverty”) as the antithesis (direct opposite) to “in riches”. “Riches” (esp. in written English) : large amount of money and valuable or beautiful possessions. (from) rags to riches from being extremely poor to being extremely rich.

23. Dump sth./ sb. (on sb.) to get rid of sth./sb. Or leave them for someone else to deal with. e.g. 1) Some young couples dump their children on their grandparents. 2) She never dumps her problems on her parents.

24. Be through (with sth./sb.) (informal. Esp.AmE) to finish ; to have no further relationship. e.g. 1) I’m through with all the painting. 2) We hope you are through with drugs.

25. Waste sth. (in) doing sth./ on sth. to use more of sth. Than necessary or useful. e.g. You are just wasting your time trying to talk him out of the idea.

26. Kick up one’s heels (AmE, informal) to be relaxed and enjoy oneself e.g. 1) She’s a workaholic and doesn’t know how to kick up her heels. 2) He plans to kick up his heels and go on a trip to Europe when he finishes his book.

27. land on one’s head to result in an unpleasant situation; this is a perversion of the idiom to “land on one’s feet”, which literally means “ (of a cat) to land on its paws safe and sound after falling from a great height”.

28. Be better off : to have more money (the phrase is used ironically here) Peace of mind : the state of being without worries; calmness Feel giddy : to feel so happy and excited that one can’t behave normally. Warm over : to reheat cooked food for eating

29. Sentence paraphrases Over the years Bess had lived each day as if there were no others. Over the years in spite of her sister’s urge to prepare for her old age, Bess seized every minute to enjoy herself as if she would die the next day.

30. She decided to keep her money for clothes. When she entered high school, she would wear a wardrobe that no one else would be able to match. She decided to keep her money to buy clothes when she started high school.Then no other girls in her school would have more and better clothes to wear than she did.

31. Lottie expected to be settled with a home and family while Bess was still waiting for Harry to earn enough money to buy a marriage license. With her savings in the bank, Lottie wanted to get married and settled down for a comfortable life while Bess’s boyfriend couldn’t even earn enough money to get a marriage license. Or : When Lottie was financially ready to get married and settle down, Bess’s boyfriend couldn’t even earn enough money to get a marriage license.

32. Two or three times she was halfway persuaded, but to give up a job that paid well for a homemaking job that paid nothing was a risk she was incapable of taking. Two or three times, urged by others, she thought seriously about marrying. But she didn’t because that would mean she had to give up a well-paying job and become a housewife/ homemaker who didn’t get paid for all the work she did. This was something she couldn’t make herself accept.

33. That Lottie had a doorstep was only because her boss, having bought a second house, offered Lottie his first house at a price so low and terms so reasonable that it would have been like losing money to refuse. When Lottie’s boss bought a new house, he offered his old house at a very low price and very generous terms, which made Lottie think that it would be foolish not to accept this offer. So it was because her boss’s kindness that Lottie now had a home of her own. (Probably the terms were to pay the house over a long period of time.)

34. Passing her gleaming mirrors, at first with vague awareness, then with painful clarity, Lottie saw herself as others saw her, and couldn’t stand the sight. When she walked past her shiny mirrors, Lottie noticed, at first dimly, then clearly, how old and worn she looked. She came to know, painfully, exactly how she looked to others. She disliked her appearance and couldn’t bring herself to look into the mirrors any more.

35. She went on a spending spree from the specialty shops to beauty salon, emerging transformed into a woman who believed in miracles. Then she began visiting specialty shops and beauty salons, spending money lavishly and wastefully to improve her looks. She marveled at result and came to believe that impossible could happen if a person set her mind on it.

36. Her face reflected the joys and sorrows of her remembering, and above all, the love she lived by that enhanced the poorest place, the humblest person. As she talked, Lottie could see that the years she had lived with Harry was full of both joys and sorrows, and that the most important thing was his love for her. This love had made her poorest place a paradise and the second-rate player, her husband, a perfect man to her.

37. Usage • In English, a part of an object is often used to stand for the whole. “a doorstep” refers to “a house” wheels : (informal) a car engine : a vehicle that pulls a train Parts of the body, esp. in colloquial English, are sometimes used to refer to a particular type of people. Here are a few examples: mind : an intelligent person hand : a person who does physical work

38. As soon as anyone would hire her, Lottie put herself to work. Here “would” means “be willing to do”. More examples : He said he would do everything possible to save her life. She said she would wait for him no matter how long it might take.

39. Very likely she would have dumped them on Lottie’s doorstep. “would have done sth.” expresses an action that might but did not occur in the past. Often, a condition is implied. Here the implied condition is : if Bess had had children. More examples : Lottie would gladly have worked for nothing, to have some place to go, something to do with her day. She would have come (if she had been invited).

40. Harry died abroad, in a third-rate hotel, with Bess weeping as hard as if he had left her a fortune. “As + adverb/ adjective + as if” introduces an adverbial clause of comparison. More examples : He looked as innocent as if he had never heard about it. When they saw him, they all ran as quickly as if they had seen the ghost.

41. Comparison & Contrast Between Lottie & Bess • Lottie :has one simple aim in life: to work hard, save hard, and prepare for her old age. She tried hard to earn money even when she was a little girl. She looked after babies, ran errands for the old, worked as a clerk after school in a store, and finally got a job in a restaurant. She never stopped working and she never spent money if she could help it. She never married and lived all alone. Now when she reached her sixties, she had a house, a bank account, but she obviously had not enjoyed life.

42. Bess: Lottie’s sister, was a entirely different story. She liked to go outside & play when she was a child. She never worried about the future. She married young to a second-rate horn player. They were always poor and lived like Gypsies. But they loved each other and obviously enjoyed life. By the time she reached her sixties, she had lost her husband and she had no children and she had nothing in the world she could call her own. But she had no regret about her life.

43. Discussion • When the two sisters met at their old age, the contrast was very interesting. Lottie had a house and money in the bank, but had had no fun in life whereas her sister had had a lot of fun in life but had no house, no money, no property of any kind except the shirt on her back. And it was the rich sister Lottie who envied the poor sister Bess. 1) Who is richer and who is poorer? 2)Would you rather be Lottie, who has not much fun in life, but is financially secure in her old age or Bess, who has had a full exciting life but is alone and penniless at the same age, or neither of them? How should we spend our life? A wise man once said that happiness is somewhere between too much and too little. Do you agree?

44. Keys to Exercises • Complete the sentences based on the Chinese in the brackets. (1)transportation (2)transplant(3)transitional (4)transform (5)dramatize (6)enlarged (7)sweeten (8)endangered (9)lighten (10)transferred (11)summarize

45. Complete the sentences with the expressions listed below in their proper terms. 1)are better off 2)had put your mind to 3)go about 4)added up to 5)save for 6)marveled at 7)above all 8)by comparison 9)have anything to do with 10)adds up to 11)go about

46. Give the meaning of the underlined parts in the sentences below. Note how the meaning are different in different contexts. 1) Race 比赛 2)hard on sb. 对某人过于为难3)hard cash 现金 4)hard 很难的 ; terms 条件 5)passage 通道 6)passage 通道 7)passage文章的一段 8)race 种族 9)race 跑步比赛

47. Give the verb pattern of the underlined part in the sentences below and then put the Chinese into English. Verb pattern : vi + prep. + n./ pron.+ to-infinitive (phrase) 1) I think you will have to depend on your own efforts to overcome the difficulties. 2) We have arranged for you to speak to university students during your visit. 3) The conference called on us to pay special attention to the growing gap between the poor and the rich. 4) The students appealed to the school authorities to improve their living conditions. 5) You can rely on her to find the best solution. 6) More and more people are pleading with their government to stop the bombing.

48. Put in right prepositions. by 2) by, from 3) with, since, in 4)from, without, out of, with/ of 5) In, In, for, like 6) for, with, at, into 7) about, as, about 8) in, by, Because of, for, for