高級英語（第三版）第一冊第十一課TheWaytoRainyMountain.ppt

1、Lesson 11 The Way to Rainy Mountain,Scott Momaday,A Short Introduction,“The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969)” is a book by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday. It is about the journey of Momadays Kiowa ancestors from their ancient beginnings in the Montana area to their final war and surrende

2、r to the United States Cavalry at Fort Sill, and subsequent resettlement near Rainy Mountain, Oklahoma. The book is divided into three main parts: The Setting Out, which consists of early Kiowa legends and anthropological studies on the Kiowa people. The second part, The Going On, continues with the

3、 theme of Kiowa mythology, and discusses the origins of Tai-me and the Sun Dance Ritual. The last section, The Closing In, describes the end of the Kiowa golden age has a lot to do with the death of the Kiowa culture.,Teaching Objectives,1. To understand the authors special racial identity 2. To lea

4、rn the history of his Kiowa, to widen our knowledge of the Native Americans. 3. To appreciate this prose.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 1,The topic sentence: The hardest weather in the world is there. In summer the prairie is an anvils edge In summer, the earth of the prairie is extremely h

5、ot and hard. Anvil: a metaphor. An anvil is an iron on which metal objects are hammered into shape.,The grass turns brittle and brown “brittle” and “brown” begin with the letter “b.” alliteration. great green-and-yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the

6、 flesh, and tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in the plenty of time. The grasshoppers on the plain are large and everywhere. When a grasshopper hops, it pops up like the growing corn in the fields, making a sudden, explosive movement to sting the flesh. Tortoises crawl about the

7、red earth aimlessly in no hurry for they have all the time to themselves.,Loneliness is an aspect of the land Loneliness is a major quality of this landscape. The author emphasizes loneliness, perhaps because this quality enables one to concentrate ones mind on the earth. There is no confusion of ob

8、jects in the eye “eye” is used in the singular not to mean the concrete organ of the sight, but the power of seeing or observing. One hill or one tree or one man: The use of “one” instead of an indefinite article “a” emphasizes the fact that there is only one hill, only one tree or only one man.,To

9、look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. When you look upon the landscape in the early morning with the rising sun at your back, the objects you see may seem larger (or smaller) than they really are. And the sense of proportion is

10、about life, creation, and so it is a philosophical comment, not just about the physical.,Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation began. The landscape makes your imagination vivid and lifelike, and you believe that the creation of the whole universe was begun right here

11、. Here the author capitalizes the word but omits the article “the,” perhaps to show that he is talking about the creating of the universe as a Kiowa imagines.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 2,The author explains his purpose of his visit to Rainy Mountain: to be at his grandmothers grave. Thi

12、s paragraph serves as a transitional link between the description of the land in Paragraph 1 and the narration of his grandmothers and his peoples stories in the following paragraphs.,I was told that in death her face was that of a child In death, she was peaceful and free from all earthly worries a

13、nd miseries. Her face looked like that of a child. Only in death can one return to childhood innocence and peacefulness. The word “child” is repeated in the next sentence of the next paragraph: I like to think of her as a child. Structurally the two paragraphs are smoothly connected. In meaning, the

14、 author seems to say that life is but a cycleone begins as a child and ends like a child, and in death one returns to where one begins.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 3,Paragraph 3 sums up the history of the Kiowa as a Plains Native tribethe golden time and the decline in their history. I li

15、ke to think of her as a child. His grandmother was born (around 1880) at a time when the Kiowa were still living in their golden time or to be more exact, the last moment of their golden time. Starting from Paragraph 3, the author links his grandmother with the history of the Kiowa.,Warfare for the

16、Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival. The Kiowa often fought just because they felt that war was sacred because it could demonstrate their courage and strength, because they were good warriors, because they fought out of habit, character, nature, not because they n

17、eeded extra lands or material gains for the sake of surviving and thriving. They never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. The Kiowa never figured out why the U.S. Cavalry kept advancing toward them so cruelly and relentlessly.,Wars were common among different Indian tribes

18、. The cause of war was simple. They fought either for the simple necessity of survival or to display their bravery. When one side won a battle, they would typically stop advancing upon their defeated enemy but would celebrate their victory. Yet, the U.S. Cavalry seemed different. They never gave up

19、advancing even when they won. This puzzled the Indians. The truth is that the U.S. Cavalry was sent to accompany and protect the non-Indian, mostly white, settlers.,My grandmother was spared the humiliation of those high gray walls by eight or ten years, but she must have known from birth the afflic

20、tion of defeat, the dark brooding of old warriors. Luckily, my grandmother did not suffer the humiliation of being put into a closure for holding animals, for she was born eight or ten years after the event. But she must have heard what had happened from her parents and grandparents. Therefore she m

21、ust have known the great pain and distress brought by defeat, and she must have seen how they had kept thinking about their defeat in a gloomy and hopeless way.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 4,Paragraph 4 is mainly about how the Kiowa migrated from western Montana and how the migration tran

22、sformed the Kiowa. Like Paragraph 3, this part uses the authors grandmothers story as a focal point, but quickly moves on to the story of the Kiowa people. The use of words like “she belonged to the last culture” and “her forebears” smoothes the transition. The last culture to evolve in North Americ

23、a Before the arrival of the Europeans, numerous native Indian cultures had existed for a long time in North America.,Whose language has never been positively classified The native Indian languages are classified mainly geographically, not linguistically. Perhaps because of the migration of the Kiowa

24、, their language has never been definitely classified in any major group of the Native Indian languages. It was a long journey toward the dawn and it led to a golden age. They moved toward the east, where the sun rises, and also toward the beginning of a new culture, which led to the greatest moment

25、 in their history. Dawn has two meanings: the beginning of daylight; daybreak and the beginning of something. The Kiowa people not only moved toward the sun from a sunless mountain area, but also toward the beginning of a new era in their history.,Along the way the Kiowas were befriended by the Crow

26、s Indian wars were frequent in history. Yet, in the process of their migration, the Crow helped the Kiowa by giving them horses and introducing them to the religion of the Great Plains, both of which were essential for the transformation of the Kiowa from a mountain people to a plain people. And the

27、ir ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground. As a nomadic people, they had no permanent home and were constantly on the move. When they lived in the mountains in Montana, they had no horses and therefore they had to walk on foot all the time. In a sense, they were tied to the ground.,T

28、hey acquired Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, from that moment the object and symbol of their worship, and so shared in the divinity of the sun. They came into possession of Tai-me, the object and symbol of their worshipthe Sun Dance religion. This object was worshipped by all tribes that regarded

29、 the sun as deity. They entered the world through a hollow log. In the first chapter of his book The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday writes, “everything had to begin, and this is how it was: The Kiowas came one by one into the world through a hollow log.” “There were many more than now, but not all o

30、f them got out. There was a woman whose body was swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the log. After that, no one could get through, and that is why the Kiowas are a small tribe in number.”,From one point of view, their migration was the fruit of an old prophecy, for indeed they emerged from

31、a sunless world. In a sense, their migration confirmed the ancient myth that they entered the world from a hollow log, for they did emerge from the sunless mountain forests. Those mountains were so high and forests so dense that the sunlight could not penetrate them.,Detailed Analysis of the TextPar

32、agraph 5,This paragraph explains the purpose of the authors journeys to places where his ancestors lived.,Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountain, the immense landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blood. Although my grandmother never lef

33、t Rainy Mountain in her long life, the immense landscape of the Great Plains existed clearly in her memory as if she had lived there herself. I wanted to see in reality what she had seen perfectly in the minds eye, and traveled fifteen hundred miles to begin my pilgrimage. In the minds eye: in imagi

34、nation For Momaday, the journey is indeed aimed at a holy place, a place where his ancestors lived and thrived in their golden age.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 6,There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the badger and the bear. I admit there is

35、 a perfect freedom in the mountains, but only animals can enjoy this freedom thoroughly. The Kiowa people did not feel free at all. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness. As hunters, it was very important for the Kiowa to be

36、able to see long distances. So if a Kiowa could see a long way, he would be respected by his fellow Kiowa.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 7,It is a depiction of the landscape which they came upon when they got out of the highlands in Montana. This new landscape is open, limitless and sunlit,

37、 allowing them a new vision into unknown distances. This forms a sharp contrast with the sunless mountain landscape of Yellowstone. The sense of confinement and limitation in the mountain gave way to a sense of freedom in the plains.,Ranging after the solstices The sun plays the dominant role after

38、summer and winter solstices. We notice the movement of the sun more after the solstices because the days lengthen or shorten. Nor yet would they veer southward to the caldron of the land that lay below; they must wean their blood from the northern winter and hold the mountains a while longer in thei

39、r view. They would not yet change the direction southward to the land lying below which was like a large kettle, implying the idea of heat as well as the bowl shape. Wean:斷奶 metaphor. The Kiowa paused on their way, not in a hurry to go on toward the southeast because they wanted to give their bodies

40、 some time to get accustomed to the change of weather and other physical conditions.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 8,The author describes Devils Tower and tells the Kiowa legend about it. Devils Tower,Two centuries ago, because they could not do otherwise, the Kiowas made a legend at the ba

41、se of the rock. Two centuries ago, because the Kiowas could not explain how Devils Tower was formed in scientific terms, the only thing they could do was to make up a story at the base of the rock. Directly there was a bear the boy had been. The boy had turned into a bear. It reared against the tree

42、 and scored the bark all around with its claws. The bear rose upright on its back legs and scratched the bark of the tree around with its sharp claws. In this legend, Devils Tower was that tree, and the marks on the rock were scratches left by the bear.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 9,The s

43、ymbolic meaning of the legend In the legend the seven sisters are immortalized. With this legend, the Kiowa established a kinship with the stars. They were already allied with the sun through Tai-me. Whatever they were in the mountains, they could be no more. They had been a mountain people in Monta

44、na, and now they had been completely transformed into a plains people.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 10,The author tells about the last days of the Sun Dance culture by using his grandmother as a witness.,My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy regard that now is all but gone out

45、 of mankind. The author is criticizing modern humans who, almost without exception, have no holy regard for nature. She had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. She had experienced a lot before becoming a Christian but she never forgot her cultural heritage as a Kiowa.,They co

46、uld find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree. As they were unable to find any buffalo, they had to substitute the head of a buffalo with an animals skin. This shows how the Kiowa culture was weakened by the disappearance of buffalo. Forbidden without cause the essential act

47、 of their faith, having seen the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground. They were forbidden to perform the most important part of their religion and no reason was given for abolishing the Sun Dance religion.,Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a vision of deic

48、ide. deicide: the killing of a god. Why without bitterness? Maybe the Kiowa had suffered too much to feel bitter, or maybe they accepted this as their fate.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 11,For the first time, the author concentrates only on his grandmothers story rather than mixing it with

49、 the history of the whole Kiowa tribe. Also for the first time, the author shifts the focus of depicting the landscape to describing a personhis grandmother Aho as an old woman.,That was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again. That she was timeless is a false idea, not in acco

50、rdance with the fact of life. The fact was that I realized that this was going to be my last time to see her. The implied meaning is that she would die soon.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 12,It is about the old houses at Rainy Mountain, in which the authors grandmother and other Kiowa used

51、to live, but which are now empty. This paragraph serves as a transition between the depiction of Grandma Aho and the reunions at her house in the past.,Wood takes on the appearance of great age. Wood will look as if it were very old because of the wind and rain. The windowpanes are black and opaque;

52、 you imagine there is nothing inside, and indeed there are many ghosts, bones given up to the land. For an outsider, the old house looks empty; but for someone who knows and cherishes the history of the Kiowa, the house reflects the undying spirit of the Kiowa people, who gave their lives to the lan

53、d.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 13,Once there was a lot of sound in my grandmothers house, a lot of coming and going. Once: a transitional device to link up the present and the past. A lot of coming and going:人來人往 The Kiowas are a summer people The Kiowa are active in summer. They feel at

54、home in summer. Bore themselves upright: carried themselves upright 腰板挺得很直 They rubbed fat upon their hair They used fat as hair lotion.,They were an old council of warlords, come to remind and be reminded of who they were. They held these reunions to remind themselves and other people of who they w

55、ere, to remember the past. The women might indulge themselves The women, who usually stayed and served their men, now could make good use of these gatherings with other women and do what they liked to do or what they normally could not do, such as gossiping, making loud and elaborate talk among them

56、selves, joking. Fright and false alarm The women might be telling ghost stories so that they were frightened, but there was no real danger.,Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 15,My line of vision was such that the creature filled the moon like a fossil. I happened to glance in that direction, and there the cricket was perfectly framed by the full moon as if it were a fossil.,Det