Unit 9

1. Unit 9 • The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas • By Ursula Le Guin

2. Teaching Aims • 1. Improving Reading Skills • 2. Enriching Vocabulary • 3. Improving Writing skills

4. Teaching Points I. Background knowledge II. Introduction to the passage III. Text Analysis IV. Writing Skills V. Rhetorical devices • Questions

5. I. Background Knowledge • 1. Ursula K(roeber) Le Guin (1929-)

7. American writer of science fiction and fantasy, poet and critical essays. Le Guin has examined large ethical, moral, and social issues in her work and her fame has extended beyond the genre boundaries.

8. Her writings force us to re-examine many of the things that we once took for granted, like our cities, our political and social structures, etc. She began writing during the 1950s, but not until the ‘60s did she begin publishing.

9. Her fourth novel, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) won her both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The Tombs of Atuan (1971) won the Newbery Honor Book Citation and The Farthest Shore (1972) won the National Book Award for Children’s Literature.

10. In The Word for World is Forest (1972) she uses science fiction to explore contemporary issues like colonialism and the Vietnam War. In an interview with Larry McCaffery the author explains why she likes the science fiction form. She says: “Science fiction allows me to help people get out of their cultural skins and into the skins of other beings.

11. In that sense science fiction is just a further extension of what the novel has traditionally been. In most fiction the author tries to get into the skin of another person; in science fiction you are often expected to get into the skin of another person from another culture.”

12. Ursula Kroeber: • --- born on October 21, 1929. • --- Her father, Alfred Kroeber, was an anthropologist, her mother, Theodora, a writer of children's stories • --- She has three children and two grandchildren. • ---She is considered a great author, but not a particularly tall one

13. She studied literature • --- Bachelor of Arts degree at Radcliffe • --- M.A. from Columbia university, in 1952. • --- awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study in France • --- there she met Charles Le Guin, whom she later married • --- Mrs. Le Guin now lives in Portland, Oregon.

14. Background Knowledge • The works: • A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) • The Tombs of Atuan (1971) • The Farthest Shore (1972) • The Dispossessed (1974) • The Beginning Place (1980)

15. Background Knowledge • LeGuin said she has studied very little hard science. "My science fiction tends to be social science fiction," she said. "But I try not to make mistakes."

16. Background Knowledge • Her writing force us to re-examine many of the things that we once took for granted. • --- cities • --- political structures • --- social attitudes • --- conventional ideas about life

17. Background Knowledge • She uses science fiction to explore contemporary issues. • She explains why she likes the science fiction form. • She says: “ Science fiction allows me to help people get out of their cultural skins and into the skins of other beings…in science fiction you are often expected to get into the skin of another person from another culture.”.

18. 2. William James (1842--1910) • William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy.

19. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as “the stream of thought” and the baby's impression of the world “as one great blooming, buzzing confusion”

20. It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America

21. James made some of his most important philosophical contributions in the last decade of his life. In a burst of writing in 1904–5 (collected in Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)) he set out the metaphysical view most commonly known as “neutral monism,” according to which there is one fundamental “stuff” that is neither material nor mental.

22. In “A Pluralistic Universe” he defends the mystical and anti-pragmatic view that concepts distort rather than reveal reality, and in his influential Pragmatism (1907), he presents systematically a set of views about truth, knowledge, reality, religion, and philosophy that permeate his writings from the late 1870s onwards.

23. James’s fascinating style and his broad culture and cosmopolitan outlook made him the most influential American thinker of his day. His philosophy has three principle aspects---his voluntarism (唯意识论), his pragmatism (实用主义), and his “radical empiricism (经验主义)”.

24. James’s other philosophical writings include The Will to Believe (1897), Pragmatism (1907), A Pluralistic Universe (1909), The Meaning of Truth (1909), Some Problems in Philosophy ( 1911 ), and Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912).

25. 3. Allegory (寓言) • in literature, is a symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments (化身、体现) of moral qualities and other abstractions.

26. The allegory is closely related to parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. Although allegory is still used by some authors, its popularity as a literary form has declined in favor of a more personal form of symbolic expression.

27. II. Introduction to the Passage • Type of Writing: • A piece of allegorical description

28. Introduction to the Passage • The theme: • What is the nature of happiness and on what it depends ?

29. Introduction to the Passage • Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive.

30. Introduction to the Passage • What is destructive? • Monarchy • Slavery • Stock exchange • Advertisement • Secret police • Bomb

31. Introduction to the Passage • What is neither necessary nor destructive? • Central heating • Subway trams • Washing machines • Beer • Drug---droop • Devices not yet invented

32. Introduction to the Passage • What is necessary? • Beautiful city with avenues, green meadows • Houses with red roofs gardens • Citizens were not simple but happy • Lives were not wretched • Contentment of life • Based on the suffering of the child

33. Introduction to the Passage • --- The terrible justice of reality • --- People accept it

34. Introduction to the Passage • --- In the last para. The writer seems to have some doubts about this. • --- A few young boys and girls do not accept Omelas and walk away from it.

35. Introduction to the Passage • The last para. • The writer puts forward the problem but does not supply the answers.

36. Introduction to the Passage • Why are they leaving Omelas? • Who are these people? • Where are they going? • Are they frightened or dissatisfied with Omelas? • Are they going to found a new utopian city not based on any misery or suffering?

37. Words and expressions • a clamor of bells • n.喧闹, 叫嚷, 大声的要求 • v.喧嚷, 大声的要求 • clamorous • adj. 大喊大叫的 • clamorously • adv.吵闹地, 鼓躁地

38. Words and expressions • swallow • n.[鸟]燕子, 吞咽, 喉 • vt.咽, 淹没, 吞没, 取消, 忍受, 轻信, 压制, 耗尽 • vi.吞下, 咽下 • swallow-tail • n. 1.凤蝶 2.燕尾 3.燕尾服 • swallow-tailed coat • n.燕尾服

39. Words and expressions • swallow a camel • 默忍难于置信[容忍]的事 • swallow an insult • 忍受侮辱, 忍辱含垢 • swallow down • 吞下 • swallow the bait • v.上钩, 上当

40. Words and expressions • Puritanical • adj.清教徒的, 严格的 • Puritan • n.清教徒 adj.清教徒的 • puritanic • adj.清教徒的, 严格的 • Puritanism • n.清教, 清教徒主义 • puritanize • v.(使)成清教徒, 象清教徒般地行动, (使)举止严谨

41. Words and expressions • in communion with • 与...有联络， 有共同利害关系

42. Words and expressions • seep[si:p] • v.渗出, 渗漏 • seep in 渗入

43. Words and expressions • Cobweb • n.蜘蛛网, 蛛丝 • cobwebbed • 布满蛛网的； 蛛网状的 • cobwebbery • n.蜘蛛网之形成, 蜘蛛网之结构 • cobwebby • adj. 蛛网似的, 蛛网密布的

44. Words and expressions • imbecile • adj.低能的, 愚笨的, 虚弱的 • n.低能者, 痴呆, 愚蠢的人 • imbecilic • adj.低能的, 愚笨的 • imbecility • n.低能

45. III. Text Analysis • 1. The Ones Who Walk Awayfrom Omelas may be called a piece of allegorical description. Omelas is a fictional city of happiness envisaged (正视) by the writer. She describes emotionally and colorfully the city of Omelas and its citizens but it is a piece of allegorical description.

46. In reality, however, she discourses on a rather provocative (煽动性的) theme---the nature of happiness and on what it depends. She states her views very clearly in one sentence: “Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive”. What the citizens of Omelas do not have or do not wish to have may be classed as things, which the writer thinks, are destructive of happiness.

47. They did without monarchy and slavery; they got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police and the bomb; there would be no cars or helicopters; one thing there is none of is guilt; and they do without the clergy and soldiers.

48. In the middle category---that of the unnecessary but undestructive---the writer lists the following: central heating, subway trams, washing machines, beer, and even a not habit forming drug like drooz, and all kinds of marvelous devices net yet invented, floating light sources fuelless power, a cure for common cold.

49. As for things in the first category that of the necessary the writer doesn’t mention them specifically. We may, however, make a list of the following: a bright-towered beautiful city by the sea surrounded by snowy peaks, a city with shady avenues, lush green meadows, houses with red roofs, painted walls and moss grown gardens.

50. The citizens were not simple but happy; they were not naive and happy children but mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched (可怜的、肮脏的、悲惨的). They have a feeling of a boundless and generous contentment and the victory they celebrate is that of life. The most important thing on which the happiness of the people of Omelas is based is the misery and suffering of the child in the basement cellar.