Passage 4 A White Heron L1215

I. Warm Up

1.1 Vocabulary

Vocabulary　Definition

plod [plɑːd]

v. 辛勤工作；沉重地走

to work slowly and perseveringly; to walk slowly with heavy steps, especially because you are tired

dilatory [ˈdɪlətɔːri]

adj. 缓慢的；拖拉的

not acting quickly enough; causing delay

provoke [prəˈvoʊk]

v. 激怒；煽动；惹起

to anger or infuriate; to cause to act or behave in a certain manner; incite or stimulate

prank [præŋk]

n. 恶作剧，玩笑；戏谑

a trick that is played on somebody as a joke

zest [zest]

n. 风味；热心；强烈的兴趣

enjoyment and enthusiasm

torment [ˈtɔːrment]

n. 痛苦；苦恼

physical or mental pain

v. 使痛苦；使苦恼

to make someone suffer a lot

wade [weɪd]

v. 跋涉

to walk with an effort through something, especially water or mud

quaint [kweɪnt]

adj. 古雅的；奇怪的

attractive in an unusual or old-fashioned way

premonition [ˌpriːməˈnɪʃn]

n. 预告；征兆

a feeling that something is going to happen, especially something unpleasant

traverse [trəˈvɜːrs]

v. 横越

to cross an area of land or water

1.2 Passage Introduction

Background Information

A White Heron（《一只白色的苍鹭》）于1886年收录在Sarah Orne Jewett的文集 A White Heron and Other Stories中。Sarah Orne Jewett的作品因体现地域色彩和风格而颇负盛名。Regionalism（local color）风格作品以还原某区域的风俗、语言以及自然环境为特征，在19世纪80年代达到顶峰。代表作家还有马克·吐温。

19世纪末也是美国女性意识觉醒独立的时代。随着工业化的发展，已婚女性也开始追求自己的事业，女性可以拥有独立意识，并可以通过工作而自食其力，不再是传统男权社会下的附属物。

Significance of Writer’s Works

Sarah Orne Jewett（1849~1909），美国小说家、诗人，以其体现地域风格的作品闻名于世，被认为是美国地域文化文学的主要代表作家之一。Jewett对家乡新英格兰的描绘充满感恩和热情。在小说里，她努力维护已经开始消失的生活方式和已开始改变的地域风貌。文笔温润细腻地描绘新英格兰的风貌，而不注重情节本身。

1.3 Reading Skills

1.3.1 Skimming

Steps in skimming an article：

● Read the title

● Read the first paragraph completely

● Read the first sentence of each remaining paragraph. The first sentence usually sets the tone of the paragraph. And if there is a question or anecdote, you may find the sentence after it more valuable.

● Find keywords that might lead the story:

Names and roles of characters;

Clue words that answer who, what, when, why, how;

Proper nouns;

Qualifying adjectives （best, worst, most, etc.）.

● Read the final paragraph completely. Final paragraph, resolution or denouement, tells you the way the story turns out.

1.3.2 Find the Keywords

The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for all that. They were going away from whatever light there was, and striking deep into the woods, but their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.

Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s-whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever sad fate might await her, and stepped discreetly aside into the bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy had discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and persuasive tone, “Halloa, little girl, how far is it to the road?” and trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, “A good ways.”

She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush and again followed the cow, while he walked alongside.

“I have been hunting for some birds,” the stranger said kindly, “and I have lost my way, and need a friend very much. Don’t be afraid,” he added gallantly. “Speak up and tell me what your name is, and whether you think I can spend the night at your house, and go out gunning early in the morning.”

Sylvia was more alarmed than before. Would not her grandmother consider her much to blame? But who could have foreseen such an accident as this? It did not seem to be her fault, and she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken, but managed to answer “Sylvy,” with much effort when her companion again asked her name.

Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway when the trio came into view. The cow gave a loud moo by way of explanation.

The young man stood his gun beside the door, and dropped a lumpy game-bag beside it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good-evening, and repeated his wayfarer’s story, and asked if he could have a night’s lodging.

“Put me anywhere you like,” he said. “I must be off early in the morning, before day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You can give me some milk at any rate, that’s plain.”

“Dear sakes, yes,” responded the hostess, whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened.

“So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?” he exclaimed, as he looked round at the little girl who sat, very demure but increasingly sleepy, in the moonlight. “I am making a collection of birds myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy.” （Mrs. Tilley smiled.） “There are two or three very rare ones I have been hunting for these five years. I mean to get them on my own ground if they can be found.”

“Do you cage ’em up?’” asked Mrs. Tilley doubtfully, in response to this enthusiastic announcement.

“Oh no, they’re stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them,” said the ornithologist, “and I have shot or snared every one myself.”

“I can’t think of anything I should like so much as to find that heron’s nest,” the handsome stranger was saying. “I would give ten dollars to anybody who could show it to me,” he added desperately, “and I mean to spend my whole vacation hunting for it if need be. Perhaps it was only migrating, or had been chased out of its own region by some bird of prey.”

Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still watched the toad, not divining, as she might have done at some calmer time, that the creature wished to get to its hole under the door-step, and was much hindered by the unusual spectators at that hour of the evening. No amount of thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for treasures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy.

The next day the young sportsman hovered about the woods, and Sylvia kept him company, having lost her first fear of the friendly lad, who proved to be most kind and sympathetic. He told her many things about the birds and what they knew and where they lived and what they did with themselves. And he gave her a jack-knife, which she thought as great a treasure as if she were a desert-islander. All day long he did not once make her troubled or afraid except when he brought down some unsuspecting singing creature from its bough. Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love.

She grieved because the longed-for white heron was elusive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as speaking first.

Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation.

All night the door of the little house stood open and the whippoorwills came and sang upon the very step. The young sportsman and his old hostess were sound asleep, but Sylvia’s great design kept her broad awake and watching. She forgot to think of sleep.

There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself.

She crept out along the swaying oak limb at last, and took the daring step across into the old pine-tree. The way was harder than she thought; she must reach far and hold fast, the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made her thin little fingers clumsy and stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great stem, higher and higher upward. The sparrows and robins in the woods below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed much lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and the child knew she must hurry if her project were to be of any use.

The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships out at sea, and the clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to fade away. Where was the white heron’s nest in the sea of green branches, and was this wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only reward for having climbed to such a giddy height? Now look down again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him again; look, look! A white spot of him like a single floating feather comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! Wait! Do not move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and consciousness from your two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest and plumes his feathers for the new day!

“Sylvy, Sylvy!” called the busy old grandmother again and again, but nobody answered, and the small husk bed was empty and Sylvia had disappeared.

The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s pleasure hurried to dress himself that it might sooner begin. He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must really be made to tell. Here she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is torn and tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the sportsman stand in the door together and question her, and the splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.

But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind, appealing eyes are looking straight in her own. He can make them rich with money; he has promised it, and they are poor now. He is so well worth making happy, and he waits to hear the story she can tell.

No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake? The murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away.

Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away disappointed later in the day that could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog loves! Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his whistle haunting the pasture path as she came home with the loitering cow. She forgot even her sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and the sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground, their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood. Were the birds better friends than their hunter might have been, —who can tell? Whatever treasures were lost to her, woodlands and summer-time, remember! Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely country child!

II. Text Structure

Fill in the blank based on the context.

III. Character Analysis

Multiple Choice

Choose the best answer for the following questions.

1. Which of the following statements about the story is not correct?

A. Sylvia is a shy, happy young girl.

B. Mrs. Tilley is a lonely, very poor old woman on welfare.

C. The family cow, mistress molly, is secretive and troublesome.

D. The young visitor is kindly, enthusiastic, and well-to-do.

2. When Sylvia accompanies the young visitor on his hunts, Sylvia especially wonders why he

A. finds the country interesting.

B. kills the birds he admires so much.

C. finds birds so interesting.

D. should think any bird is worth 10 dollars.

3. The young man spends several nights at Mrs. Tilley’s cottage because

A. it is clean and convenient.

B. it is far from the dirty city.

C. he is fascinated by Sylvia.

D. he hopes to find the white heron.

4. Sylvia’s decision not to give away the nesting place to the white heron involves all of the following except

A. an act of courage.

B. a shift of values.

C. a distaste for killing.

D. an attempt to keep or build a friendship with the young visitor.

5. At the end of the story, Sylvia is called a “lonely country child,” meaning that she

A. will return to her family in town.

B. has chosen nature rather than human society.

C. will soon lose her grandmother.

D. is still frightened by people.

Fill in the Blanks

Analyze the characters of Sylvia, the hunter and Mrs. Tilley.

Sylvia

Nine-year-old Sylvia is a true child of nature. Her name, “Sylvia,” and her nickname, “Sylvy,” come from the Latin word “silva” meaning “wood” or “forest.” She lives with her 　6　 on an isolated farm in rural Maine, and she rarely sees other people. She remembers the early years of her life, when she lived in a 　7　 as a frightening time, and she never wants to return. When a 　8　 comes looking for a white heron, she enjoys the company of another person for the first time and is puzzled by the conflicting emotions he stirs in her. He offers desperately needed money and also represents her first chance at 　9　 . She alone can give him the bird he seeks. What she must decide is whether what he can give her is worth the betrayal of her relationship with nature. In the end, she 　10　 reveal the heron’s nesting place.

The Hunter

The hunter is heard before he is seen, whistling in a 　11　 manner, in contrast to the birdsong that fills the air. He carries a gun and a heavy sack full of dead birds. He is an ornithologist proud of his collection of birds: “stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them.” Still, he is friendly and kind, if somewhat smug about his wealth and sophistication, and Sylvia is both attracted to and somewhat afraid of him. He is so eager to collect a white heron that he offers Sylvia 　12　 （a sum that means little to him but a great deal to her） if she will lead him to the bird. As they walk through the woods together, the two seem to take equal pleasure in the birds they see—Sylvia for their living beauty, and the hunter for their rarity and usefulness to him as trophies. Not much is known about the young man, who, appropriately, is never named. It is not his individuality, but what he represents: masculinity, acquisitiveness, 　13　 —that matters.

Mrs. Tilley

Mrs. Tilley is Sylvia’s maternal grandmother. A year before the story opens, she traveled to the city to bring one of her daughter’s children back to help her on the farm. That child was Sylvia, who has grown to love the forest. Mrs. Tilley has lost 　14　 children, and her two remaining adult children live 　15　 . She appreciates Sylvia’s help and company and lets her wander freely.

IV. Theme

Discuss the theme of the story.

A White Heron can be thought of as a starting point for both ecological and nature-ethical literature in the US, and it questions the undoubted positive development of the US. The author explores a number of ecological themes, including the　　1　　of nature, a return to nature, 　　2　　 from materialism and 　　3　　. Other themes explored include the hesitation of actions that might counteract the proceeding 　　4　　 and the recollection of the 　　5　　 as the important actor in society.

V. Rhetorical Analysis

Read the sample exercise, complete the rhetorical analysis and translate the sentences below.

Sample

“Dear sakes, yes,” responded the hostess, whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened.

修辞 personification

分析 awaken将hospitality拟人化。

翻译 “亲爱的，当然可以了，”女主人回答道，她沉睡已久的热情似乎很容易就被唤醒了。

1. The way was harder than she thought; she must reach far and hold fast, the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made her thin little fingers clumsy and stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great stem, higher and higher upward.

2. There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself.

3. Now look down again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him again; look, look! A white spot of him like a single floating feather comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and outstretched slender neck and crested head.

4. Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his whistle haunting the pasture path as she came home with the loitering cow.

VI. Language Analysis

Read the sample exercise, complete the language analysis and translate the following sentences.

Sample

it did not seem to be her fault, and she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken, but managed to answer “Sylvy,” with much effort when her companion again asked her name.

语法标签 虚拟语气

翻译 这似乎并不是她的错。她垂着好像脖子断了一般的脑袋，努力地挤出她的回答 “Sylvy”。不过她的同伴又问了一遍她的名字时，她稍微多用了点力气。

1. not far beyond were the salt marshes just this side the sea itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed much about, but never had seen, whose great voice could sometimes be heard above the noise of the woods on stormy nights.

2. more than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child.

3. Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still watched the toad, not divining, as she might have done at some calmer time, that the creature wished to get to its hole under the door-step, and was much hindered by the unusual spectators at that hour of the evening.

4. everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.

VII. Exercises

7.1 Vocabulary

Fill in the Blanks

Choose one of the following words to complete the sentences below. Use each word only once. Be sure to pay close attention to the context clues provided.

Sylvia was driving home her cow, a 　1　 creature in her behavior, but a valued companion 　2　 that. Sometimes in pleasant weather it was a 　3　 to look upon the cow’s pranks as an intelligent attempt to play hide and seek, and as the child had no playmates she lent herself to this amusement with a good deal of 　4　 . Mrs. Tilley had chased the horned 　5　 too many summer evenings herself to blame anyone else for lingering. But one day, Sylvia met a young hunter, who followed her to her home. Mrs. Tilley welcomed him warmly and talked to him. He listened eagerly to the old woman’s 　6　 talk, and told her that he would offer 10 dollars for information about white heron. Sylvia grieved because the longed-for white heron was 　7　 .

The short summer night seemed as long as the winter darkness, and at last when the whippoorwills 　8　 , and she was afraid the morning would after all come too soon, she stole out of the house and followed the pasture path through the woods, 　9　 toward the open ground beyond, listening with a sense of comfort and companionship to the drowsy twitter of a half-awakened bird, whose 　10　 she had jarred in passing.

7.2 Text Comprehension

True or False

Indicate whether each statement is true or false by writing T or F in the blank provided.

1. ______ Sylvia had lived in a noisy, manufacturing town and had enjoyed living there.

2. ______ She now lives with her grandmother on a small farm and feels lonely and depressed.

3. ______ A young man offers Sylvia 10 dollars to show him a white heron’s nest.

4. ______ Sylvia refuses because she dislikes him and is frightened of him.

5. ______ At the end of the story, Sylvia watches the young man leave and feels happy.