2014. 05.08 note:“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (week 12)

Note

1. The Rocking Horse Winner
(full text)

*character:

Paul: A young boy who notices that his mother doesn’t love him and his sisters, even though she “adores” them.^[1] When he receives a rocking horse for Christmas, he rides it often and comes to find that he can predict what horse is going to win the next big horse race.

Hester: Paul's mother. She becomes “dissatisfied with her marriage” when she finds that her husband is not lucky and doesn't make enough money.^[2]

Bassett: The family gardener and friend. Is the one who gets Paul into horse racing, and later becomes “betting partners”.^[2]

Oscar Creswell: Paul's uncle and his mother's brother. Provided the money that Paul used to make his first win at the horse race. Signed the lawyer papers in order for Paul's mother to receive “one thousand pounds at a time, on the mother's birthday, for the next five years”.^[1] Oscar becomes partners with Paul and Bassett.

*some excerpts:

• They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. 
• The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram.→ smirk:傻笑、pram:搖籃床
• Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it. Just as no one ever says: "We are breathing!" in spite of the fact that breath is coming and going all the time. 
  
•  "Filthy lucre does mean money," said the mother. "But it's lucre, not luck."(pun) lucre錢財←→luck
• staring fixedly into its lowered face→ fixedly 死盯住
• But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big, rather close-set eyes. He would speak to nobody when he was in full tilt. His mother watched him with an anxious expression on her face. →blue eyes: sense of innocence and ignorance
• I wish he'd leave off. →停下來

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2. Hester (the name of Paul's mom):為具有負面形象的女子名

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3. Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over forty novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award,^[1] for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

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4.By the North Gate

By the North Gate is a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. It was the author's first book, first published by Vanguard Press in 1963.

It was last published in 1971 by Fawcett. Two stories in the collection, "Edge of the World" and "The Fine White Mist of Winter", were later collected in her book Where are you Going, Where have you Been?: Selected Early Stories (1993).

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5.Bob Dylan 

Blown in the Wind (MUSIC LINK)

How many roads most a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

→ anti-war (反越戰)
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Word

1.She racked her brains.
→腦袋整理一下、整理思緒

2. deep line=wrinkle(印記)

3. keep
*keep promise
*keep diary

4.vague不確定
   vogue 時尚

5.furious / madly/frenzy 震怒、瘋狂

6.jockey 賽馬騎師


7. DJ= Disk Jockey