海明威英文赏析

Part I. The Appreciation of《An Alpine Idyll》

This article is listed as one of the horror fictions by Ma Yuan, and is regarded as the most horrible one in Hemingway’s works. It described a story about a peasant who buried his wife from the perspective of a spectator “I”.

At the beginning, two skiers came down into the valley,” It was spring in the valley but the sun was very hot”, and when they passed the churchyard they saw a burial. As we all know, spring should be a season that full of vitality. But they saw the death in such a hot day. So it said that “In the bright May morning the grave-filling looked unreal”. The scene seems have nothing to do with the title “An Alpine Idyll”, and bring a depressive, terrorist color of it. Taking about the word “Idyll”, we may think of stunning landscapes, a great number of animals and plants and good people, but this article didn’t mention these things.

The narrator of this article “I” and John entered the inn in the town, and the roles in the article: innkeeper, cook, girl, sexton and peasant were come on stage in turn. In this part, Hemingway use a lot words depicted a stifling picture. The description is really good but the tempo is too slow.

Then, by the mouth of the sexton it told a story about a peasant who disposed his dead wife’s body in an unreasonable way. It seems that the peasant is really a “beast”, very outrageous, but is it true? After carefully reading we can find that, there is no word coming from the peasant, the hero of the story. The story was propagated by the sexton.

Watching the performance of the peasant: ①After his wife dead, because of the cold weather, her body would not decay, the peasant move his wife’s body to the shed and put her up against the wall when he cut up the big wood. That maybe because the peasant want to spend more time with his wife just like she was alive, and he could get along with her for a winter. ②When spring came, the peasant had to bring his wife to be buried. He “spread ing the earth evenly as a man spreading manure in a garden”, with the description we can see that how meticulous and soft of the peasant when he filled his wife’s grave. And although the sun is hot, the peasant still wearing high leather boots and old army clothes. He dressed very formal and we can see his solemn attitude to his wife’s funeral. ③Meanwhile, “There were patches on the elbows”, the patches must be made by peasant’s wife, he wore his old army clothes may also show his missing to his wife.

Such an affectionate man who deeply loved his wife, how can he be the “beast” in the mouth of the innkeeper?

The sexton was gossip and hypocritical, he and innkeeper were sinister partners, they slandered the peasant together. When the sexton talked about the story, his description was misleading, he wanted to defame the peasant and make people misunderstand him. In the sentence “Her mouth was open and when I came into the shed at night to cut up the big wood, I hung the lantern from it.” The last word “it” means “shed”, not “her mouth”. However, the peasant was not very good with words, and the sexton misinterpreted his meaning in order to lead listeners to believe that the peasant was a “beast” as the innkeeper said.The innkeeper just said “Those peasants are beasts.”But he even did not know the correct date of the peasant’s wife’s death. He just talked a lot of nonsense and defamatory words.

At the end of this article, the innkeeper asked “me” did “I” understand it all, all about his wife, “I” said “I heard it”, but immediately expressed my doubts, that means “I” was not really believe what the sexton said. The sexton and the innkeeper both said “He didn't want to drink with me”, that means they don’t had friendship with the peasant. Then John, the one who was more sophisticated than “I”, didn’t want to know more about the story and insisted to urged me to eat impatiently. Thus it can be seen that the truth of the story is questionable. Hemingway just told reader a story, leaving people thinking.

Part II. Comment on any five of the following in English.

1.Uncle George in 《印第安人营地》.

On the one hand, Uncle George had an affair with the Indian puerperal. Firstly, he was neither a man-midwife nor a relative of the Indian woman, but he came with the doctor to deliver a baby of the puerperal. When they went into the shanty, Uncle George was the front one. We know that one person’s natural behavior is reasonable. It shows the urgent attitude of Uncle George that he wanted to see his lover. Secondly, “She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father and Uncle George into the shanty.” This Indian woman jus t screamed to convey her emotion to Uncle George with an implicit way that only they can understand. When doctor did the operation, the Indian woman bit Uncle George only, maybe she wanted to show her

lover how painful she was, and Uncle George said “Damn squaw bitch!”The word “squaw” has the meaning of “wife”, Uncle George’s words revealed the intimacies. Thirdly, the doctor and “the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over” may also know the thing between Uncle George and the Indian woman. Before the operation, the doctor asked Uncle George to “Pull back that quilt”, it was a special thing that only close people could do. After the operation, the doctor also said “Ought to have a look at the proud father. They’re usually the worst sufferers in these li ttle affairs”, it was an irony and the doctor thought Uncle George should show his kindness to the Indian woman’s husband. The young Indian always rowed Uncle George over, he may knew he was the woman’s lover, so he laughed at him when he was bit by the wo man.

On the other hand, Uncle George may be the killer who killed the Indian woman’s husband. He was at the scene all the time and he had the time and motivation to kill the husband. We can draw the conclusion of it from Hemingway’s description of the husband’s death.

2.Nick’s father in 《印第安人营地》.

Firstly, he was a good doctor without racial discrimination. Although he was called while his free time of fishing, he still abide by the doctor integrity and came to help the Indian woman immediately. Before the op eration, “his father washed his hands very carefully and thoroughly”, he asked to boil the water and “Into the water left in the kettle he put several things he unwrapped from a handkerchief”. He made careful preparation and did a successful operation. And also, he said “The nurse should be here from St. Ignace by noon and she’ll bring everything we need.”, which can made sure that the Indian woman should be fine after the rough operation.

Secondly, he was a good father. He wanted to cultivate Nick as an intern, so he explained to Nick about the situation of the Indian woman and showed every step of the operation to his son. However, he did not force Nick, “You can watch this or not, Nick, just as you like”. When he saw the death of the husband, he firstly a sked Uncle George to “Take Nick out of the shanty”, and he regretted to bring Nick along and let Nick viewed the cruel death. He explained to Nick about the Indian woman and her husband with while lies, in order to protect him.

Thirdly, he knew Uncle George and the Indian woman had an affair, he thought George was wrong and pitied the husband.

3.Roger in 《男同性恋者的母亲》.

Roger was a cheater and he was parasitic on matador Paco. He thought Paco had earned a lot of money and wanted to get money from him. Roger insisted on taking money to deal with Paco’s mother’s grave in order to cheat Paco’s money tactfully. But he did not succeed. Then he quibbled that Paco owed his money. Actually, the money was the necessary expenditure Roger must paid by himself when he lived in Paco’s house. Roger wasn’t Paco’s manager and he should bear the cost of himself. When he failed again, he left Paco and talked against him in public. When talked about Paco’s mother, Roger said “his mother’s body” instead of “remains”, leading people to misunderstand Poca. Roger said Poca was “just tight”, but Paco helped “a paisano who needs money to go home” even though he did not have so much money. Roger “say all sorts of unjust things” about Paco, and slandered that Paco was a queen. At last, Roger not only abused Paco, but insulted all the matadors, which totally exposed his ugly face as a scoundrel and riffraff.

4.Liz Coates in《在密西根北部》.

At the beginning, Liz liked Jim very much. But Jim “didn’t seem to notice her very”. Liz was thinking about Jim all the time, her heart was full of Jim, so “When she saw the wagon coming down the road she felt weak and sick sort of inside”. The “sick” and “weak” mean that she really loved Jim very much and she wanted to be intimate with him.

And then, although Jim drank a lot of wine and behaved unusually to Liz, she still followed Jim “for a walk”. When Jim try to seduce Liz, she just said “don’t” and “mustn’t” without fierce resistance. “She was frightened but she wanted it”, so things still happened, Liz was raped by Jim.

At last, after Liz was raped, she found that “Jim was asleep”, left her uncomfortable and camped. She pushed him, lifted his head and shook it, but Jim still asleep. “She was cold and miserable and everything felt gone”, she knew things were wrong. She couldn’t wake Jim up, she just cried but still took care of Jim, the man she really loved, and then she left. Liz Coates showed her grace under pressure and she would be the new one to start her new life toughly.

5.The types of women characters in Ernest Hemingway’s short stories.

There are two types of women characters in Ernest Hemingway’s short stories.

The one type is traditional female image. They oppressed under male dominance and suffer it. For example, the wife in the article Cat in the Rain. The couple travelled abroad and they were stuck in an Italian hotel, the wife saw a cat sheltered from the rain under the table, she wanted to catch it and have it but she couldn’t find t he cat. Then she thought about several abhorrent things in her life and complained. However, her husband was indifferent and arbitrary, she couldn’t make these changes by herself, and could only relied on and listened to her husband. She received the cat they gave to her instead of looking for the first cat she wanted.

Another type is new female image. They had sense of independence in the world that under male dominance, and they were courageous to against men. For instance, Liz Coates in Up in Michigan, when she found she loved the wrong man, she went back alone and sturdily to start a new life. Margaret in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber was also a new female. She was beautiful and she married with the old Mr. Macomber, she always betrayed her husband and looked down upon him. Her female consciousness was extreme and even killed her husband.