Министерство образования Республики Беларусь

Минский государственный лингвистический университет

Т.В. Поплавская Т.А. Сысоева

Читай и обсуждай

Учебно-методическое пособие к курсу «Практикум по культуре речевого общения»

В двух частях

Часть первая

Минск 2004

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УДК 802.0-06 (075.8)ББК 81.2 Ан

П 577

Р е ц е н з е н т ы : кандидат филологических наук, доцент С.А. Дубинко (БГУ); кандидат филологических наук, доцент С.А. Хоменко (БНТУ).

Р е к о м е н д о в а н о Редакционным советом Минского государственного лингвистического университета

Поплавская Т.В., Сысоева Т.А. П577 Читай и обсуждай = Read and Talk: Учеб.-метод. пособие. В двух частях.

– Мн.: МГЛУ, 2004. Ч.1. – 129 с.

Пособие по чтению и устной практике «Read and Talk» относится к курсу «Практикум по культуре речевого общения». Авторы рассматривают чтение как предпосылку дискуссии, а не как методический прием обучения пониманию. Книга является универсальным пособием по развитию речи на базе чтения на продвинутом этапе обучения иностранному языку. Тексты в ней принадлежат к различным жанрам, стилям, типам и видам (это и неадаптированные рассказы, и отрывки из крупных художественных произведений, публицистические произведения, инструкции, искусствоведческие тексты и др.). Тексты сформированы в четыре тематических блока, каждый из которых состоит из трех–пяти разделов.

УДК 802.0-06 (075.8) ББК 81.2 Ан

© Т.В. Поплавская, Т.А. Сысоева, 2004© Минский государственный лингвистический университет, 2004

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Contents

Section 1. Education…………………………………………………………..4

Unit 1. How to Handle Problems……………………………………………….4

Unit 2. School…………………………………………………………………..8

Unit 3. University……………………………………………………………..19

Unit 4. The British Waste Line (by Cyril Northcote Parkinson)………………29

Section 2. Family Relations………………………………………………….35

Unit 5. Theatre (By W. S. Maugham)…………………………………………35

Unit 6. The Square Root of Wonderful (by McCullers)………………………39

Unit 7. The Unicorn in the Garden (by James Thurber)………………………46

Unit 8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (by James Thurber)…………………..50

Unit 9. Bridget Jones’s Diary (by Helen Fielding)…………………………….56

Section 3. Crime………………………………………………………………73

Unit 10. The Inspiration of Mr Budd (by Dorothy L. Sayers)………………...73

Unit 11. Crime…………………………………………………………………80

Unit 12. Terrified (by C. B. Gilford)…………………………………………..88

Unit 13. “Take the Witness!” (by Robert Charles Benchley)…………………98

Section 4. The Arts………………………………………………………….105

Unit 14. William Hogarth……………………………………………………105

Unit 15. Modernism………………………………………………………….112

Unit 16. The Eloquence of Silence (by Julia Marlowe)……………………..120

Bibliography………………………………………………………………….128

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Section 1. Education

Unit 1. How to Handle Problems

I 1.Imagine that you are studying at a University abroad and staying with a family there. What problems will you have? Will you try to solve them on your own or will you ask for help? Who will you ask?

2.Look at the title of the text and the sub-titles. What is the text about? What is the aim of this text?

3.Are these word combinations familiar to you? What do they mean?exchange studentsto talk behind smb’s backto change one’s way on account of smbsmth will never go past smbto step up one’s activitiesnot to do one’s share

to fight backnatural parentssqueaky cleana taboo subjectconservation-minded (people)

II 1. Read the text and say, whom it was written for and with what aim.

How to Handle ProblemsWe expect exchange students to handle problems in a mature, adult way. P.I.E.

(Pacific Intercultural Exchange) representatives are here to help you when needed. When confronted with a problem, an immature person will discuss the problem with everyone, except the people who are actually involved. Exchange students do this because:

(a)They think that they will hurt the person’s or family’s feeling if they mention their problem to the people directly involved, or

(b)They have a real problem and they do not know how to handle it themselves, so they talk to everyone else about it.

When you have a problem, talk to the person or persons involved. If you need help, ask the P.I.E. representative for assistance.

For example, think for a moment what would happen if your own family invited a foreign student into their home and you were providing the student with a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and a family atmosphere. The student becomes bothered by something in your home, perhaps he is not used to the food or some family customs, so he tells neighbors or friends at school about it. The neighbors and friends are concerned about the student, and they proceed to tell their friends and neighbors. The entire community eventually knows about the “strange food” and “strange customs”. The story would come back to your own family and you would feel hurt and disappointed. The exchange student did not come to you first because he was afraid that he would hurt your feelings or embarrass you.

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A variation of this story happens every time you “talk behind the family’s back”. If the student in this case did not feel comfortable discussing the problem with the family, he should have asked his area representative for help. This is the one person whose job it is to see that you and your family are getting along together.

What if you cannot expect your family to change their ways on account of you, but they have some “strange behavior” that you need to talk about? Tell your representative. After you discuss it, you will feel much better and what you have told him or her will never go past that one person. Remember that many of your own family’s customs would seem “strange” in another country.

Problems You Can ExpectHomesickness

If you find yourself going to bed early, getting up late, writing long letters daily, feeling melancholic, and thinking about your home, you will know that you have reached the homesick stage. You must do something to bring yourself out of it. The wrong thing to do is to give way to your feelings and sit around the house brooding about home. The right thing to do is to step up your activities, assay to speak English to your family, make friends, and spend more time studying. The homesickness is real and you should not brush it aside. Acknowledge it, become more restless, and enjoy your experience as an exchange student. The homesickness will soon pass.

JealousyThe children in your host family will probably be jealous of you at some point

during your homestay. Younger children will be very excited to have a new brother or sister but when they notice that their parents are paying attention to the newcomer, they become resentful, which is normal behavior in any family. Think how you would feel if your own mother and father started to pay that much attention to a new member of the family. You are now sharing the parental affection that was formerly given only to them. Jealousy is expressed in different ways by children of different ages; you will be able to sense their feelings or resentment to you. When your host brothers or sisters make remarks about you, or complain that you “do not do your share”, the wrong thing to do is to “fight back”.

The situation was caused by the attention you received, or the fact that you seem “too special”. The right thing to do is to slow down and observe yourself and your family. Turn your host parents’ attention toward their own children’s achievements, and do not talk too much about your own accomplishments. You may want to discuss the problem with your host parents so that they can handle the children. This situation will not persist if you do not compete with the other children for attention. Let them have it if they need it, and remember that anything they may have said about you while they were feeling jealous of you was not really meant. They will soon forget it and you should too.

MoneyYour natural parents are responsible for providing you with the spending money

that you need during your homestay. At first, you will probably need some assistance

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from your host parents in working out a budget. You are used to different currency and prices for goods, so it is best to have some help until you are thoroughly familiar with our dollar and its value. Let your natural parents know well in advance when you are running out of money so that you will not have to live on borrowed funds until your money arrives. It is a very bad idea to borrow money from your host family. Plan ahead so the need will not arise.

When you arrive in your host city, find a bank which has a corresponding branch in the city where your parents live. Your parents can then wire money directly into your account. Sending money through the mail or through non-corresponding banks can cause considerable delays.

If your natural parents have provided you with large amounts of money, you should spend it conservatively, and in accordance with the customs and habits of the other children in your family. If you spend extravagantly throughout your homestay, your American family may resent it. On many occasions they have to reduce their spending in order to provide certain things for you. Please be sensitive to this.

HygieneEvery culture and every family within that culture have its own customs

regarding personal hygiene and cleanliness. It is up to you to learn and observe the habits of your host family, and adapt yourself accordingly.

In general, the people of the United States are fanatics when it comes to keeping their bodies clean. It is customary in most families to take a shower or bath daily. We keep our hair “squeaky clean” and use deodorizers under our arms, in our mouths, and on our feet. Any body odor is generally considered offensive, and despite numerous television and magazine advertisements, it is a “taboo” subject for person-to-person discussion. If you are used to bathing only once a week, and if you are not used to washing your hair very often, you should change your habits so that you are not offensive to your new friends and family.

On the other hand, Americans are also conservation-minded. If you take several showers a day, or stay in the shower until the water runs cold, your host parents will most likely ask you to curtail your showers. You will have to keep clean and free of odors while using a moderate amount of water. Observation and imitation of your host family’s personal habits should be your guide.

2.Go back to Ex. I 3. and see if you were right.

3.In the text find derivatives from these words: mature, assist, homesick, resent (two words).

4.Complete the sentences with the necessary prepositions.a)Exchange students are often confronted __ a problem.b)Exchange students might be bothered __ something when staying with a host family.c)If you have any problems, ask your area representative __ help.

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d)The children in your host family might be jealous __ you.e)I can’t bear their resentment __ me.f)Don’t compete with other children __ attention.g)Try to avoid living __ borrowed funds.

5.In the text the word ’homesickness’ is used. It’s an example of a compound word. How many compounds can you make by combining a word on the left with a word on the right?

homehouse

work made trained wife sick plant proud town coming less grown bound keeping warming

6. Fill in the gaps with a compound from the chart below.a)-Aah! He’s gorgeous! Look at those big, golden paws. When did you get him?

-Yesterday. It’s a she actually.-Oh, right. What kind is she?-A Labrador.-She’s so cute. Is she __ yet? -No, of course not. She’s only seven weeks old.

b)-Do you think you could possibly water my __ for me? I’m away on business for two weeks.-No problem. I’ll be glad to. I’ll keep an eye on your whole flat if you like. -That would be great. -Don’t worry, I know how __ you are. I’ll make sure everything stays clean and tidy. -I’ll do the same for you any time, you know.-Thanks.

c)-Julie, have you heard? Anna’s just been made managing director of the UK branch of her firm, so she’s coming back from the States!-Oh, Mum, that’s wonderful news. Let’s give her a spectacular __ party when she gets back. Hmmm. She’s certainly the career girl of the family. -My love, you don’t envy her, do you? -Not me. I’m the original happy __, remember? Four kids, __ cakes, __ vegetables! -And how are my fabulous grandchildren?

d)-We’re having a __ party on the 12th. Can you come? -Yes, you bet. We’d love to! But I didn’t know you’d moved. -Yeah, two weeks ago. It’s much bigger than the old one. A huge kitchen and three big bedrooms. -It sounds wonderful. -Yeah. Mind you, there’s much more __ to do!-That’s a drag!

e)-Mum? Mum, I want to come home. I don’t like it here. -Oh, Simon. Come on now. You were so looking forward to scout camp.

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-But…but…oh, Mum, I hate it here. Why won’t you and Dad come and get me?-Simon, we can’t. I never thought you’d be so __, and you’ll be home in two days.-Two more days! Oh, no!

house-trained homesick house-plants housework house-proud house-warming house-coming home-grown housewife home-made

7.Read the second paragraph of the text (“Homesickness”) once again and find words that are inadequately used. Replace them with more suitable words.

8.In the text you have read there is no concluding paragraph. Write a short paragraph to finish the text and think of a suitable sub-heading for it.

9.The text you have read is a guide for exchange students. If this text were written as a newspaper article about the problems exchange students face, would the vocabulary, grammar and the composition of the text be different?

III 1.You are an exchange student living with a family in the USA. Write a letter to your parents complaining of the problems you have. Ask your parents for advice.

2.Make up a dialogue between an exchange student and his/her representative. Discuss the problems and possible ways out.

3.Speak of the importance of observing ’strange customs’ if you are an exchange student. Refer to the following aphoristic poem:

That is the QuestionHamlet Anno Dominy

Co-existenceor no existence.

4.Write a guide for foreign students living with Belarusian families. Describe possible problems and give advice on how to handle them.

Unit 2. School

Text 1. Alice in Wonderland

I 1.You must have read the book “Alice in Wonderland” when a child. Did you like it? If yes, what exactly? What characters of the story do you remember?

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2.Study the words.Mock Turtle – Фальшивая Черепахаledge – выступ, крайturtle – морская черепахаtortoise – черепахаreel – крутиться, вертетьсяextras – необязательные предметы

conger-eel – угорьwrithe – корчитьсяderision – высмеивание, насмешкаflappers – ластыdrawl – говорить медленно

II 1.Read the chapter about the Mock Turtle.

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!”

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your history, she do.”

“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “Sit down both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.”

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.” But she waited patiently.

“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real Turtle.”These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional

exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sighing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story”, but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle - we used to call him Tortoise -“

“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily;

“really you are very dull!”“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,” added

the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!” and he went on in these words:

“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it -““I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice.“You did,” said the Mock Turtle.

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“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.

“We had the best of educations – in fact, we went to school every day –““I’ve been to a day-school too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so proud as all

that.”“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.”“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle.“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly.“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of

great relief. “Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing - extra’.”

“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.”

“I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”

“What was that?” inquired Alice.“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied: “and

then the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

“I never heard of ’Uglification’,” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “Never heard of uglifying!” it

exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose. Don’t you?”“Yes,” said Alice, doubtfully: “it means – to – make – anything – prettier.”“Well then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are

a simpleton.”Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned

to the Mock Turtle, and said, “What else had you to learn?”“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on

his flappers – “Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling – the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.”

“What was that like?” said Alice.“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too stiff. And

the Gryphon never learned it.”“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classical master, though. He

was an old crab, he was.”“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught us Laughing

and Grief, they used to say.”“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures

hid their faces in their paws.“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to

change the subject.

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“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they

lessen from day to day.”This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she

made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?”“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle.“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly.“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone:

“Tell her something about the games now.”

2.Go back to the text and write out the subjects that the Mock Turtle learnt at school. Can you guess what “real” subjects taught at school they correspond to?

3.Explain the reason for the “lessons” being called so.

4.Read the text once again paying attention to the speech of the three characters. Are there any peculiar lexical and grammatical features in their speech? How do these features characterize Alice, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle? Give examples from the text and comment on them.

5.Things people say give an idea about their attitudes, views and behaviour. Who might have made the following statements? Can any of these names be applied to the characters of the story you have read?

sadist agnostic racist patriot cynic idealist fatalist

romantic optimistnationalist activist atheist pessimist masochist

anarchist perfectionist disciplinarian philanthropist fanatic realist nonconformist

1)I don’t believe in God.2)I don’t think I believe in God.3)I don’t believe that anyone really believes in anything.4)Love makes the world go round.5)Face facts: love doesn’t make the world go round – the sun does.6)Any player not on time for training will be fined $10 for every minute he’s late.7)Me, emigrate? You must be joking. It would break my heart.8)I’m not a bad sort of person. I just happen to believe that my country is superior to and more important than any other.9)I’ll concede that 99.9% is a good examination result. I just want to know why you failed to get 100%.

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10)Honestly, I’ve nothing against foreigners, as long as they don’t come and live next door to me or try and marry my daughter.

11)What will be will be.12)I don’t know why you bother to talk about the next World Cup. There will

probably have been a nuclear war by then.13)It’s no good just sitting and talking about social injustice. The time has

come to do something about it.14)We shall achieve our aims by any means available; if that includes

bloodshed and suffering for innocent people, that’s the way it’ll have to be.15)I ran fifty kilometers in the midday sun today. Every kilometer hurt more

than the last, so I feel really good about it. It must have done me good.16)You might not enjoy this, but I’m certainly going to enjoy watching you

suffer.17)What did those politicians, lawyers and priests ever do for me? We should

all follow our own ideas on government, law and church.18)Just because you’re losing 0-6, 0-6, 0-5 and 0-40 doesn’t mean you’re

necessarily going to lose.19)I don’t care what they say – palace or not, royalty or not, hundredth

anniversary or not, I am not going to wear a tie.20)It’s the moral duty of all of us to do what we can to reduce the amount of

human suffering in the world. At least, that’s the way I look at things.21)I am convinced that we are capable of creating paradise here on earth.

6.Recall the situations from the text in which the following sentences were used, identify the speaker (Try to avoid looking in the text).

a)Drive on, old fellow!b)You couldn’t have wanted it much.c)Really you are very dull!d)You needn’t be so proud of all that.e)You are a simpleton.f)What a curious plan!g)It’s all his fancy.h)I couldn’t afford to learn it.i)I went to the classical master.j)You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question.

7.In the story the Gryphon says “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it”. These are colloquial phrases. Moreover, the second is an exaggeration. Here are some more examples of the kind. Match a line in A with the line in B.

A Ba)I’m starving. I could eat a horse. b)I’m absolutely dying for a drink. c)His family are pretty well off, aren’t

1)Yes, it was a nice little break, but all good things must come to an end. 2)You’re not kidding. He’s as thick

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they? d)You must have hit the roof when she told you she’d crashed your car. e)I think Tony was a bit tipsy last night. f)I can’t stand the sight of him. g)He isn’t very bright, is he? h)Look at the weather! It’s bright again. i)What a fantastic holiday! j)I’m knackered. Can we stop for a rest? k)He invited quite a few friends to his party. l)Well, that journey was absolute hell! m)They’ve got this huge great dog called Wizzer. I’m terrified of it.

as two short planks. 3)Yes, my throat’s a bit dry, I must say. 4)What! He was totally smashed out of his brain! 5)What? That little thing wouldn’t hurt a fly! 6)I know. It is a bit wet, but we mustn’t grumble, must we? 7)I’ll say. We had to fight our way through millions of people to get to the drinks. 8)OK. I feel a bit out of breath, too. 9)Well, yes, I was a bit upset. 10)I suppose it did take rather a long time to get here. 11)You can say that again. They’re absolutely loaded! 12)I must admit, I’m not too keen on him, either. 13)Yes, I’m a little peckish, too.

III 1.Read the following jokes based on the play upon grammatical and phonetic structures. Find a similar example in the text.

1)T e a c h e r (paying a visit). Are your Father and Mother in, Morton?M o r t o n . They was in, but they is out.T e a c h e r . Why, Morton! ‘They was in!’ ‘They is out!’ Where’s your

grammar?M o r t o n . She’s upstairs taking a nap.2)The professor rapped on his desk and shouted: “Gentlemen, order!” The entire class yelled: “Beer!”3)P r o f e s s o r . Take this sentence, ‘Let the cow be taken to the pasture.’ What mood?S t u d e n t . The cow.

2.Compare the schools the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon and Alice went to. What are the similarities and differences?

3.The Mock Turtle describes a very peculiar system of organizing lessons – each day you study less and less. In the following article another idea is expressed – children actually don’t have time to study. How so? Read the story and try to spot the lie.

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No Time to Go to SchoolNine-year-old Susie refuses to go to school. She says she hasn’t got time. This is

how she proved it:“There are 365 days in a year. I sleep eight hours a day so we have to subtract

122 days for sleeping. I eat three times a day and it takes about an hour each time, so we have to subtract 45 days for that. From the remaining 198 days, take away 90 for summer holidays and 21 for Christmas and Easter holidays. That leaves only 87 days for going to school but we haven’t yet talked about Saturdays and Sundays.”

4.Act out the dialogue between Alice, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle (beginning with “When we were little…”). Be ready to justify your choice of intonation patterns and comment on the behaviour of the characters.

5.Prepare to describe the course you took at school, its advantages and disadvantages.

Text 2. School

I 1.Study the words.secular – светский, мирскойstaple – основнойprovision –положение, условие, мера предосторожностиconvent – монастырьcram – впихивать, переполнятьconfined – ограниченныйherald – предвещатьscrutiny – внимательное изучениеto pull smb up to scratch – подготовить к сдаче экзаменовtwo-tier – состоящий из двух слоев, ярусов, классов

II 1.Read the following text.

From Monks to Modern SchoolsIn the Middle Ages only a privileged few were taught —by the Church. Progress

through the ages has been slow.The principle that the state should provide education for all boys and girls,

regardless of family circumstances and ability to pay, is relatively new in Britain.It resulted from a 19th-century belief that the state had a responsibility to give

every child the chance to learn the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Some people thought limited schooling might help control a potentially unruly population; others thought that it was essential to educate youngsters to cope with increasingly complex technology. In 1870, faced with growing pressure, Parliament passed an Elementary Education Act. This was the first step towards a national system of state schools.

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Before this, education had not been seen as a general right for all children. Schooling beyond the basics had been the privilege of the wealthier classes.

In the early Middle Ages, the Church played the leading role in formal education. It was mainly for boys who were going to become monks and priests. During the 12th century, many cathedrals set up schools which concentrated on teaching boys Latin grammar — the language of the Church.

Gradually “grammar schools” became more secular — that is, they were not staffed exclusively by clergymen. Many were founded by guilds, the associations of craftsmen and merchants.

The Renaissance encouraged the emergence of a new pattern of teaching in the early 16th century. This concentrated on the classics, the languages and literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. This curriculum was to remain the staple diet in grammar schools for more than three centuries. It would also be the focus of learning in “public schools”. These were exclusive institutions, some of them formerly grammar schools, mainly for the sons of the upper and professional classes.

Until the 20th century, grammar schools and public schools were virtually male preserves. In the Middle Ages, there was practically no provision for the education of girls outside the home, except in convents.

Educational provision for the poor was patchy for centuries. The Reformation of the 16th century gave new encouragement to the poor to learn to read, and to read the Bible for themselves. Some learnt at home; some went to women — “dames” — who ran small schools in their homes. This was more common than attendance at a place identifiable as a school.

Charity schools, which gave free teaching and clothing to children of the poor, emerged in the 18th century. Scattered throughout the country, usually in urban areas, these schools were supported by private contributions, often run by religious organizations. These efforts expanded greatly at the beginning of the 19th century.

Many adopted the so-called “monitorial” teaching method, in which the older students (monitors) learned their lessons from the adult teacher and passed them on to the younger children. This developed into a more formal system in which boys and girls were apprenticed for five-year periods as “pupil-teachers” to a school.

The 1870 Act aimed to plug the gaps in this patchy system for children of the poor and labouring classes. It provided for “elementary schools” to be set up in areas which were not adequately covered by voluntary institutions. The term “elementary” referred to the basic nature of the teaching.

But many children did not go to school, often because their families needed them to earn money. In 1880 elementary education was made compulsory across England and Wales. By 1900, in theory at least, free education existed for all children — including girls — to the age of 11. The curriculum, however, was still largely confined to the three Rs.

In 1902, local councils were given control of state schools and encouraged to expand secondary education. They could set up their own schools and they could give cash to existing grammar schools, which continued to be selective in the pupils they

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accepted.Shortly before the end of the first world war in 1918, state education was

expanded and the school-leaving age raised to 14. From now on education authorities had to provide education up to this age to pupils who could not afford the fees at grammar schools or failed to pass their entry examinations.

State education was expanded again during the second world war. The 1944 Education Act raised the leaving age to 15 and encouraged the development of a system of grammar and “secondary modern” schools, with a small number of technical schools. At the age of 11, children sat an examination called the “11-plus”. The successful few went to grammar schools or occasionally to a technical school. The rest went to the secondary modern.

For the next 30 years a debate raged over selection. Many agreed that to make a decision at 11 which would drastically affect a child’s future was unfair and flawed.

The 11-plus exam largely disappeared over the 1960s and 1970s as more education authorities replaced grammar and secondary modern schools with comprehensive schools. These state schools did not select their pupils but accepted children of all academic capabilities. But selection at 11 has not entirely disappeared and some local authorities have this system.

In the past five years, state education has seen further reform. Schools in England and Wales must now teach a “national curriculum”. Scotland has a recommended curriculum for 5- to 14-year-olds. Northern Ireland now has a curriculum which differs only slightly from that in England and Wales.

Schools can now become “grant-maintained” — they can “opt out” of local-authority control. The Government says that schools will provide a better service if they have more control over their own affairs. Critics suspect that this heralds a return to a selective system and the 11-plus.

A fact-filled dietIn Hard Times, Charles Dickens depicts a “ragged school” for poor

children, in a grimy northern industrial town. The school follows the theories of its founder – the town’s leading citizen, Thomas Gradgrind – concentrating on cramming facts into its pupils. Gradgrind, a supporter of the new “Utilitarian” philosophy, believes education should consist exclusively of imparting facts and should not seek to develop children’s imagination or ability to think for themselves. Dicken’s disapproval is shown in the effects this has on the younger characters.

2.Trace the history of the development of British school system.

3.Read the text. Replace the italicized link-words by their synonyms, or change the sentences, making sure the meaning remains the same.

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Anger over New ExamsSchools have always assessed pupils, but teachers fear the new tests could be

used for the wrong purposes.The debate now raging among politicians, teachers and parents concerns a new

system of assessing children at stages during their school careers. There is considerable anger among teachers, particularly about new English tests, which all 14- year-old children in state schools are supposed to sit this summer.

The three main teachers’ organizations, representing almost 400,000 teachers in England and Wales, have either voted already to boycott — to refuse to take part in — these tests, or they are asking their members to vote for a boycott.

The issue of testing schoolchildren has caused some of the fiercest arguments among educationalists since the second world war.

Education has always involved testing and assessment of one form or another. Most teachers would accept the need for measuring the progress of their pupils. Controversy comes over the types of tests and the purposes for which they are used.

Critics of the 11-plus — which was largely phased out in the 1970s — said that it was used to decide a child’s future too early and prevented many children from fulfilling their potential. Children who went to secondary-modern schools — the majority — often felt they had been branded as failures.

During the 1970s most education authorities scrapped the traditional, two-tier system of secondary education. New comprehensive schools took all pupils in their local areas, regardless of intellectual ability.

The whole system of school exams came under scrutiny. In particular O levels — which consisted largely of written exams — were felt to measure a narrow ability range. It was also felt that they did not take a proper account of the work which pupils did before the exam.

Many pupils were excluded from the system. Until the late 1970s a large number of pupils left school without any recognized measure of what they had achieved. In 1988, O levels and CSEs were replaced by a single exam, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Great emphasis was put on coursework (which had been a feature of CSEs), the assessment of pupils’ performance over the years leading up to the written exams.

At the same time the Government decided that all children in state schools should be assessed according to nationally defined standards at regular intervals throughout their school careers: at the ages of 7,11,14 and 16.

The new tests were linked to the national curriculum established in 1988. This defines the subjects which all state-school pupils from 5 to 16 must be taught. The tests, it is argued, enable teachers, parents and pupils themselves to assess their progress against national standards.

Children who under-perform can be identified by teachers and pulled up to scratch. Parents are supposed to gain a better idea of their children’s progress throughout their schooling and be able to compare schools with one another. The Government says that parents have previously not been given enough solid information about the quality of their children’s education.

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These tests have stirred up unease among teachers. The new system is thought by many teachers to be too complicated in its procedures and confused in its aims.

Many teachers believe that they have always been able to measure individual children’s progress themselves much more quickly and simply. They believe that preparing for the national-curriculum tests takes up too much classroom time and squeezes out areas of subjects which the tests do not cover. The tests take on too much importance, they say, and risk becoming the goal of education rather than a helpful tool.

Teachers argue that there are far less disruptive ways of measuring national standards. For instance, small samples of children across the country could be assessed periodically.

Some teachers suspect that there is a hidden purpose in the chosen assessment system. In providing a method for comparing schools, it could mean the reintroduction of selection methods like the old 11-plus as the schools perceived by parents to be the best are inundated with applications. This could eventually restore a two-tier system in state education.

4.Complete the sentences:1)The new system of assessing children at stages during their school careers causes…2)Education is impossible without …3)The 11-plus was phased out because…4)Comprehensive schools take…5)The General Certificate of Secondary Education replaced…6)National standards were defined…7)Parents should be given…8)Individual children’s progress can be measured…9)The new assessment system could mean…

5.In the texts find the words that mean the following:the basic principles of a subject;incomplete; only good in parts;old and torn; imperfect;covered with dirt;to fill, close, block;imperfect, weak, faulty;to choose not to take part in something;a specialist in education;to mark, to give a lasting bad name to;bringing into disorder.

III 1.Consider the following problem topics:1)Should state school system be selective?

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2)A “national curriculum”. Pros and cons.3)Should schools be controlled by local authorities?

2.Speak on the problem of testing and assessment of pupils’ progress at school. What would you change in the present system of assessing pupils?

3.Additional tasks.

a)Act out the dialogue.A new boy comes to school.-What is your name? – asks the teacher.-My name is William Hopkins, – answers the boy.-Always say ’sir’ when you speak to a teacher.-Excuse me, – says the boy, – my name is Sir William Hopkins.

b)What is a lie? Read the passage and answer the questions.There was a chalk fight in a school classroom during break. John picked up the

board rubber and threw it at his friend. He missed and broke a window. The teacher came in a few minutes later and asked, ’Who broke that window?’ John said nothing.

Was John a liar? Who was responsible for breaking the window? Have you ever been in this sort of situation? What happened?

Unit 3. University

Text 1. I Got My B.A. by Sheer Luck, or How Study Skills Saved the Student (by Walter Pauk)

I 1.Read and think about the title. What do you already know about the study skills?

2.Read the following: introduction, first paragraph, first sentence of each paragraph, last paragraph. On the basis of your preview, what does this text seem to be about?

II 1.As you read, make predictions about what the author is going to discuss next.

I Got My B.A. by Sheer Luck, or How Study Skills Saved the StudentIn this text Professor Pauk tells about an experience he had when he was an

undergraduate. B.A. is a bachelor of arts, an undergraduate college degree.

1. NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: I got my B.A. by sheer luck. I say sheer luck

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because, if events were ordinary, I would have failed almost every course. Instead, when things looked impossible, some “chance” idea pulled me out. Here is my story.

(What do you think is going to happen next?)

2. Professor Kolb (the students called him “King Tut”) was especially rough this year. Some said that an editor had turned down his manuscript; others said that he was just tired of students. But whatever it was, exactly 63.3 per cent of the class failed Egyptian History. And if it were not for sheer luck, I’d have raised the percentage to 65,4.

3. I remember most vividly the frightening pace of the lectures. No one could take notes as fast as “King Tut” talked, especially when he became excited. My frantic scribbling and almost indecipherable abbreviating were so slow that I missed more than half. Without complete notes, it was impossible to study. I was lucky to have gotten even the 38 on one exam. As the fellows used to say, the “handwriting on the ’sarcophagus’” was clear for me. I knew that my only chance for survival was to get fuller notes.

4. That night after the exam grades came out, I tried to fall asleep – to forget my devastating grade for even awhile – but words like “hieroglyphics” and “rosetta stone” kept kaleidoscoping and rolling through my mind. As I mulled over my missing more than half of each lecture, I suddenly hit upon an idea: Why not leave every other line on my note paper blank? Then during the following period I could recall the lecture and fill in the missing portions. In deference to the ancients, I called this the “Osiris Plan”.

5. The next day I tried the “Osiris Plan”, and it worked! What luck! At first it was difficult to recall the lecture, but as days passed, it became sort of a game. Often, in the privacy of my room I would, in softer voice, imitate the old professor and try to redeliver the lecture as best as I could without looking at my notes. This mimicry almost got me into trouble, when, on a rare occasion, the professor called on me to answer a question. Stunned by being called, I jumped to my feet and for the first two sentences, before I caught myself, the fellows said I sounded “exactly like Old Tut”.

6. One evening while quietly reciting the day’s lecture to myself, I made an important discovery. In trying to make my presentation as smooth as possible (about this time I had begun imagining that I was a lecturer), I used the transitional words “Now that we have discussed the major reason for the phenomenal success of Pharaoh Hophra, let us look at the subsidiary reasons”. At that moment I stopped still, for at no time did the professor ever cut up the lecture into topics and subtopics; nevertheless, the topics and subtopics were neatly packaged and embedded into the seeming onrush of words waiting to be perceived by the student. With this secret in mind, I found that i could take better notes during the lecture, and during the periods after class I could very easily supply the missing portions, filling in the blank every-other-line.

7. I tried to share this find with other students, but they’d always say, “You’re

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foolish to take all those notes. Just sit back and listen”. Although this sounded too easy to be good advice, I was struck by the great intelligence of my fellow students who could remember the main ideas of lecture after lecture, just by listening. I knew I couldn’t; so to hide my inferior intelligence, I continued taking notes, completing them directly after class, categorizing the ideas, supplying the titles and subtitles, and reciting the lectures.

8. Another incident finally convinced me of my intellectual inferiority when I found that the other students just “flipped the pages” of the textbook. But poor me, I had to work on each chapter for hours. It was only luck that I wasn’t found out, because the professor never quizzed us on our reading; everything depended on the final exam. I was luckier still when, looking in the library stacks for a book on Egyptian religion, I ran across an entire shelf filled with books on Egypt. I spent the rest of the day until 10:00 p.m. (closing time) perusing this lucky find. I finally picked out three books which were written in a style easy enough for me to understand, and I took these back to my room. By first reading these extra books, I found I could come back to the assigned chapter in the textbook and understand it better. I noticed that the author of our textbook frequently referred by footnote to these library books. So with luck I solved the textbook problem.

9. Well, all of this simply led up to the final examination. There I was with a notebook, about two inches thick, filled with lecture notes. Now, was I to memorize all these notes for the exam? And the textbook? Realizing that I didn’t have the brains to memorize everything in my notes, I decided (this time without Osiris’s help) to read each lecture bearing one focusing thought in mind: “What is the really important idea here?” As I found the answer, I’d jot this central point on separate sheets which I called “Summary Sheets”. When I finished, I had “boiled” down inches of lecture notes to just twelve pages of “main issues”. I then did the same with my textbook.

10. Thus armed, I aligned the “Summary Sheets” so that the main issues for both the lecture and textbook synchronized. I learned these main issues by first reading them over, thinking about them, reflecting on them, then without looking at my notes, by trying to recite them in my own words. I went through my summary sheets in the same way, issue by issue.

11. I guess I had played the role of the professor too long, because after having mastered these main issues, I composed ten questions – questions that I’d asked if I were the professor. Still, having some time left, I pretended that I was in the examination room, and spent the next four hours rapidly answering my own ten questions. I then corrected my answers by referring to the lecture and textbook notes, and much to my delight, I had discussed all the facts and ideas accurately. For the first time I felt that I had achieved something. I felt almost adequate. But the warm glow was short-lived. What if the professor didn’t ask what I had staked my life on? Well, I thought, “it is too late to change”. With the feeling that my luck had really run out, I half-heartedly studied for six more hours. I went to bed at 10:00 for a good night’s sleep, having refused to go to the second show of a “relaxing” movie with the rest of the boys.

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(What do you think is going to happen next?)

12. On the way to the examination room the next morning, I knew without question that my luck had run out when I met Jack, who sat next to me. He had not taken a single note all semester; he had not even gone through the motions of “flipping” the textbook pages. When I asked why he wasn’t nervous, he answered, “This is the semester for Examination Set #4, the one dealing with dates, names of pharaohs, dynasties, battles and so forth”.

13. “What’s Examination Set #4?”14. Everybody on campus except me, I guess, knew that old “King Tut” had five

sets of examinations (ten questions in every set), which he rotated over a five-year period. Though “King Tut” collected the mimeographed questions from each student, he did not reckon with the organizing ability of fraternity students. The plan worked like this: Specific students were given the mission to memorize question #1, another to memorize #2, and so forth. When the students left the examination room, they jotted down these questions quickly from memory and put them into the fraternity hopper. In this clever way all five sets of the examination found their way into the files of numerous students.

15. I knew then that even Osiris and Ra, put together, couldn’t help me. I had studied relationships.

16. The room was hot, yet others complained of the cold. My mind reeled. I knew my luck had run out. Dimly, as the examination sheets were passed up each row, I heard successive moans of various kinds: “Oh, No!” “No!” and occasional uncontrolled, almost hysterical laughter. I thought that perhaps the professor had by mistake given out Exam #5 instead of the anticipated #4.

17. By the time the sheets reached me (I always sat in the rear corner of the room where it was quieter) I, too, involuntarily gasped, “Oh! It can’t be”. I closed my eyes and waited for my vision to clear so that I could read the ten questions. They were the same ten questions that I had made up only yesterday – not in the same order, but nevertheless, the same ten questions. How could that be? One chance in a million, I’m sure. How lucky can one get? I recovered my composure and wrote and wrote and wrote.

(What do you think is going to happen next?)

18. “Old Tut” gave me a 100 plus. He penned a note saying, “Thank goodness for one good scholar in all my years of teaching”. But he didn’t know the long line of luck that I had, and I never told him.

19. Now that twenty years have passed, I think that it is safe to reveal that here is one fellow who got his B.A. just by sheer luck.

2.Decide if the statements are true or false.1)The student in actually received his B.A. by sheer luck.

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2)Good study skills were not essential to the student’s success.3)The student’s “Osiris Plan” consisted of leaving every other line blank when taking lecture notes, filling in the missing information later, and then reciting the notes.4)Because the professor did not organize his lectures into topics and subtopics, the student had to supply the titles and subtitles in his notes.5)The student decided to take his classmate’s advice and “just sit back and listen” to the teacher’s lecture without taking notes.

3.Select the best answer.1)The student solved the problem of having a difficult textbook

(a)by flipping through the pages.(b)by forming a study group to discuss the textbook.(c)by checking out from the library easier books on the same subject to study along with the textbook.(d)none of the above.

2)The student’s solution to studying for the final exam was to (a)read his lecture notes and jot the important ideas on summary sheets.(b)review his textbook and also make summary sheets with important ideas.(c)study and recite the information on the summary sheets.(d)all of the above.

3)Another technique the student used to study for the final exam was to(a)make up ten test questions from his summary sheets.(b)get the test questions from his summary sheets.(c)study the summary sheets and get a good night’s rest.(d)ask the professor what would be on the test.

4)Which of the following does the student describe as “sheer luck”?(a)having the misfortune to end up in Professor Kolb’s Egyptian history class.(b)postponement of the test because the professor became ill.(c)seeing the same ten questions he had composed for practice actually appear on the test.(d)getting the test questions from another student.

5)The purpose of this article is to illustrate that(a)Egyptian history is an extremely difficult course.(b)academic success depends mainly on hard work and effective study skills.(c)academic success depends on sheer luck.(d)a student has little control over academic success.

4.Use the context clues to deduce the meaning of each italicized word. The definition you choose should make sense in both sentences.

1)And if it were not for sheer luck, I’d have raised the percentage to 65.4.It was sheer coincidence that Mark ran into his religion professor while he was on vacation in Las Vegas.

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(a)predictable; (b)pure; (c)ironic; (d)thin or transparent2)My frantic scribbling and almost indecipherable abbreviating were so slow that I missed more than half.Because the doctor’s handwriting was indecipherable, the pharmacist had to call her to verify the prescription.

(a)legible; (b)unusually small; (c)unable to be read or interpreted; (d)done quickly

3)My frantic scribbling and almost indecipherable abbreviating were so slow that I missed more than half.By abbreviating many of the words in his notes, the newspaper reporter recorded information very quickly.

(a)writing a word in shortened form; (b)writing a word out in full; (c)omitting a word by mistake; (d)remembering a word rather than writing it down

4)As I mulled over my missing more than half of each lecture, I suddenly hit upon an idea.Lee mulled over the math problem for twenty minutes before he finally thought of the solution.

(a)understood completely; (b)erased; (c)practiced; (d)considered carefully5)Now that we have discussed the major reason for the phenomenal success of Pharaoh Hophra, let us look at the subsidiary reasons.Many large corporations, such as General Mills, own smaller, subsidiary companies.

(a)minor or less important; (b)relevant; (c)primary or main; (d)unknown6)At that moment I stopped still, for at no time did the professor ever cut up the lecture into topics and subtopics; nevertheless, the topics and subtopics were neatly packaged and embedded into the seeming onrush of words.The dime was embedded in the asphalt of the street, and no one could pry it loose.

(a)lost; (b)firmly fixed in a surrounding mass; (c)hidden or unable to be seen; (d)placed or positioned by accident

7)I knew I couldn’t; so to hide my inferior intelligence, I continued taking notes, completing them directly after class, categorizing the ideas, supplying titles and subtitles, and reciting the lectures.Because the builder used inferior paint on the outside of the house, the paint soon began to chip, peel, and fade.

(a)old; (b)surprising and unexpected; (c)untested; (d)lower in quality8)Thus armed, I aligned the ’summary Sheets’ so that the main issues for both the lecture and textbook synchronized.Please keep your chairs aligned in rows so that people can get to the chalkboard at the front of the room.

(a)arranged in a straight line; (b)organized; (c)arranged from largest to smallest; (d)arranged in sequence

9)Dimly, as the examination sheets were passed up each row, I heard successive

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moans of various kinds: ’Oh, No!’ and occasional uncontrolled, almost hysterical laughter.They tried on four successive days to locate the missing mountain climber, but a blizzard forced them to suspend their search on the fifth day.

(a)successful; (b)unrelated; (c)signifying failure; (d)following in uninterrupted order

10)I recovered my composure and wrote and wrote and wrote.The little boy began to scream whenever his mother left the room, but he quickly regained his composure whenever she returned.

(a)memory; (b)joyous outlook; (c)thoughts; (d)calmness

III 1.Explain why you think the author did or did not receive his B.A. by sheer luck.

2.List five behaviors that helped the author succeed in “Old Tut’s” Egyptian history class.

3.What is the most important overall message the writer wants the reader to understand?

4.Additional tasks.

1)Read the following text and say what you think.

There are several good reasons for testing, and kinds of test. But if the aim is to discover weakness, what is the point of down-grading it, and thereby inviting the student to conceal his weakness, by faking and bulling, if not cheating? The natural conclusion of synthesis is the insight itself, not a grade for having had it. For the important purpose of placement, if one can establish in the student the belief that one is testing not to grade and make invidious comparisons but for his own advantage, the student should normally seek his own level, where he is challenged and yet capable, rather than trying to get by. If the student dares to accept himself as he is, a teacher’s grade is a crude instrument compared with a student’s self-awareness. But it is rare in our universities that students are encouraged to notice objectively their vast confusion. Unlike Socrates, our teachers rely on power-drives rather than shame and ingenuous idealism.

2)Decide which of the five choices comes closest to the meaning of the word.1.The chemistry students were warned of the risks involved in the laboratory experiment. The volatile nature of the chemical made it extremely dangerous.

(a)dependable; (b)harmless; (c)stable; (d)unstable; (e)available.2.When I left the restaurant, I realized that I couldn’t remember what the waitress looked like. It must have been her ordinary features that made her so

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nondescript.(a)impressive; (b)sullen; (c)indistinctive; (d)efficient; (e)personable

3.The priestess at Delphi gave the Greek hero a cryptic answer. No matter how hard he tried he could not understand it.(a)short; (b)belated; (c)familiar; (d)believable; (e)puzzling.4.Unlike the desert tortoise, which is active in the summer, the box turtle may estivate.

(a)lay eggs; (b)explore the environment; (c)hunt; (d)remain dormant; (e)look for food.5.The guest speaker spent thirty minutes at the podium. On the other hand, the chairman spoke with brevity, establishing his position in only ten minutes.

(a)entertainment; (b)conciseness; (c)conviction; (d)clarity; (e)sympathy.6.The millionaire’s magnanimous gift to the orphanage exceeded everyone’s hopes.

(a)generous; (b)small; (c)modest; (d)seemly; (e)prudent.7.The twins are different in every way. For example, Sarah has a pleasant disposition, but Charlotte is dour.

(a)talkative; (b)cheerful; (c)arrogant; (d)weird; (e)gloomy.8.New statistics on the homeless lend credence to the fact that their numbers are growing.

(a)doubt; (b)force; (c)authority; (d)acceptance; (e)opinion.9.The history class was a heterogeneous mix of students from all races and ethnic groups.

(a)similar; (b)dissimilar; (c)disorderly; (d)wealthy; (e)well-prepared academically.

10.Only a minuscule three percent of the voters approved the bond issue. (a)minority; (b)decisive; (c)tiny; (d)misinformed; (e)well-read.

11. Unfortunately, husbands and wives who are going through a divorce often develop an adversarial relationship.

Characteristic of (a)enemies; (b)companions; (c)contemporaries; (d)the legal profession; (e)any profession.

12. If one is unused to it, a hot, humid climate makes one feel lethargic. (a)sharp and keen; (b)disciplined; (c)antagonistic; (d)uncomfortable; (e)dull and heavy.

13.O’Henry’s story, “The Ransom of Red Chief”, ends ironically. The kidnapped child is so obnoxious that the kidnappers are desperate to send him home.

(a)predictably; (b)happily; (c)contrary to one’s expectations; (d)logically; (e)tragically.

14.We are often complacent about the way our lives are going, that is, until some tragedy strikes, like a prolonged illness or being fired from one’s job.

(a)excited; (b)self-satisfied; (c)uneasy; (d)disturbed; (e)relieved.15.Travelling not only shows us how other people live but also helps us get rid

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of our parochial attitudes.(a)religious; (b)prejudiced; (c)preconceived; (d)restricted in scope; (e)customary.

Text 2. Lectures Start on Monday (by Dacre Balsden)

I 1.What lectures do you attend at the University? Do you take notes or just listen to the lecturer?

2.Study the words.English School – отделение английского языка и литературыlecture-list – перечень лекций, которые будут прочитаны в учебном семестреDelegacy of training – Управление по подготовке школьных учителей

II 1.As you read the text, put these sentences in their right places.a)Shall he lecture one hour a week or two?b)On the first Monday the lecturer has his largest audience for the term.c)Let a lecturer lecture on whatever subject he chooses.d)Nobody has ever taught them how to lecture well.e)Lectures start on the first Monday of term.f)Undergraduates find it very long indeed and if there is no clock in the room, they find it even longer.g)Those are the conditions under which the majority of the dons are paid to lecture.h)If he does not care about the size of his audience and prefers to lecture on some small field of learning on which he happens himself to be researching or writing a learned paper, he will lecture one hour a week.i)The pupil never knew.j)But you could.k)And then, after an interval, he lectures again.

Lectures Start on Monday–(1)– Lecturers are sometimes in fashion (and in the English School even

glamorous); lectures as such are never in fashion.Why take notes when you could as well read it all in a book? The question is

unanswerable. Not, of course , that there always is a book. Not that, if there is, you always read it. –(2)–

Lectures are born (or monotonously reborn) half-way through the term before the one in which they are delivered. That is the time when the lecture-lists go to the printer. That is when the lecturer decides what lecture he shall advertise. –(3)– If he lectures twice a week, he need only lecture in one term of the year. If he lectures one hour a week, he must lecture in two terms of the year. –(4)–

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In some subjects the lecture-list is itself carefully organized by the Faculty, so that all the necessary lectures are given, and given in the terms in which undergraduates need them. In other faculties the freedom of the lecturer is not so rigidly curtailed. –(5)– If he hopes for an audience, he will choose a subject useful to undergraduates, a subject with a certain breadth, and he will lecture on it twice a week. –(6)– Thursday at 11, Mr Smooth, “Plutarch, On the Virtue of Women”.

Dons in general hate lectures as much as undergraduates. That is why they lecture so badly. –(7)– There is a Delegacy in Oxford for the training of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses; there is no delegacy for the training of dons.

–(8)– Where there are a hundred young men and women today, there will, in eight weeks time, be no more than five or six. Where there is an audience of two today, there will perhaps be one next week and, after that, no audience at all.

A professor’s lecture is sometimes like the pas seul of a prima ballerina. He appears; he lectures; he retires. –(9)– But the College tutor’s public lectures is an interruption in a week otherwise devoted to teaching pupils in his rooms, listening to their essays and talking about them. These are “private hours” – “tutes”, as the undergraduates call them, or tutorials. Sometimes a pupil comes alone, sometimes in a pair, sometimes with two or three others. Once tutors taught in this way for ten hours a week; now, in an inflated University they teach for fifteen or eighteen, even for twenty. Is it surprising if they teach less well?

Young tutors find the hour too long, old tutors find it too short. –(10)– When you reach a tutor’s age, it is less easy to listen than to talk; and observant undergraduates quickly realize that their tutors criticize the final sentences of their essays but give little evidence of having observed the rest. There is a splendid story of the great Ingram Bywater.

“Ah,” he said, in greeting, to his pupil, “what is the subject of your essay? Expediency? Splendid. Then will you read what you have written?”

At the end, he said, “For the next week, will you write an essay on – er – Expediency? That’s all.”

Had he slept through the whole of the essay? Or was he uttering the most devastating criticism? –(11)–

2.Answer the questions.1)How are lectures prepared and delivered?2)Does the faculty take into consideration the undergraduates’ interests when planning the lectures?3)How does the subject of the lecture affect the audience?4)Why do dons lecture so badly?5)How does the audience change during the term?6)Do tutors perform their duties well?

3.Comment on the following:a)A professor’s lecture is somewhat like the pas seul of a prima ballerina. He

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appears; he lectures; he retires.b) Young tutors find the hour too long, old tutors find it too short. Undergraduates find it very long indeed and if there is no clock in the room, they find it even longer.c)Had he slept through the whole of the essay? Or was he uttering the most devastating criticism?

4.Explain the meaning of these words: don, undergraduate, tutorials.

5.Find words in the text which mean the following:in a tiring and uninteresting manner; stiffly, firmly; to reduce, limit; to go away; increased to a high level, blown up; quick at noticing things.

6. Look at these pairs of sentences. The adverbials in italics are in different positions. How does this change the meaning of the sentence?

1)Actually he’s performing in the play tomorrow. He’s actually performing in the play tomorrow.2)Only Kate knows how to look after horses. Kate only knows how to look after horses.3)Honestly, I can’t speak to her any more. I can’t speak to her honestly any more.4)Earlier, I had wanted Rich to come to the meeting. I had wanted Rich to come to the meeting earlier.

Make up examples of your own.

III 1.Act out a dialogue between an undergraduate and his tutor.

2.You are (a)a lecturer, (b)a student. Speak on the problem of students’ attendance.

3.How can one make lectures more attractive to students?

Unit 4. The British Waste Line (by Cyril Northcote Parkinson)

Part 1

I 1.What do you think of people involved in scientific research? How do you picture them? Is the research work they spend money on always important and justified?

2.The following words are from the text. Match them with their synonyms on the right.

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husbandrydiscardgrudgeconceivableinasmuchlaymanlavishon the brink ofniggardlyhitherto

owing to the fact thatmean, stingyfarminggive unwillinglygive generouslythrow out, get rid ofnear toamateur, not professionalup until nowbelievable, imaginable

II 1.Read the first part of the text. Some of the phrases are left out. While reading put them into their right places.

1)in time of emergency2)the layman’s suspicion3)an eventual dividend 4)initiated and financed

5)have the courage to ask6)a very respectable sum7)influence and prestige8)with demands for more

The British Waste LineWasteful war should give place, in theory, to the husbandry of peace. But the

habit of waste is not, in practice, so easy to discard. People who grudge nothing –(1)– seem often to have lost all sense of cost by the time the crisis has passed.

Take research as an example. Research nowadays is so respectable a word that few –(2)– whether all expenditure under this heading is justified. On the one hand, the whole thing is wrapped in mystery. On the other, it is commonly assumed that research will pay –(3)– or at least that a failure to do research will have appalling consequences in terms of international –(4)–. In all this there is an element of truth, but it is worth noticing that some large sums are involved. Great Britain, for example, had an estimated expenditure of £26,100,000 on Research and Development in 1958/59, with another £106,000,000 on Atomic Energy and separate research projects –(5)– by the separate Ministries under the headings of Defence, Agriculture, Medicine and so forth. Add to these figures a proportion of the Vote for Universities and the grand total reaches –(6)–. Is it conceivable that any part of this sum is wasted?

Waste is, of course, inseparable from research, inasmuch as negative results are necessarily frequent. But is the waste larger than inevitable? There is good reason for thinking that it is, but for reasons the opposite of what the layman might expect. –(7)– is that money is lavished on dreamy-eyed eccentric professors who wander off vaguely and then reappear –(8)–, no one knowing what (if anything) they have discovered. They picture the scientist’s approach to the civil servant in cinematic terms, the scientist being visualized as an oldish man with untidy white hair, a dirty woolen scarf and a wild gleam behind his spectacles.

“Glad to see you, Dr. Cloudsley,” says the Assistant Under-Secretary. “I hope

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you have brought with you the papers we have been needing.”“Well, no, actually. But I can tell you how things have been going. A year ago

we thought we were on the brink of a great discovery, but we found this morning that the whole thing was based upon a small arithmetical mistake. You know – the decimal point in the wrong place. Poor Cartwright! Yes, yes, a sad business.”

“You mean that Cartwright was disappointed at the failure?”“Well, no. There was hardly time, was there? He would have been disappointed,

of course, had he lived to realize the mistake we had made. A very sad loss, and the laboratory gone too!”

“The laboratory destroyed?”“Oh, in an instant. All except that cupboard under the staircase where the janitor

kept his brooms. That was saved by the fire brigade.”“Good God – that laboratory cost millions! And I expect Cartwright left a

widow we shall have to pension?”“Yes, indeed. Well, well, there it is. We shall have to rebuild. Actually, we

should have had to rebuild anyway. The laboratory was simply not big enough.”“All this is horrible news. But do tell me what you were trying to discover; in so

far, I mean, as a layman can be expected to understand.”“Oh, didn’t you know? Well, it began with a scheme to produce a new kind of

fuel for use in rockets. Then we tried to see whether the same stuff would do as a preparation for removing old paint. We ended up trying to use it as a cure for coughs. Then it blew up. Very sad.”

“And now you will be wanting a new grant to cover the next phases of your work?”

“That is really what I wanted to see you about. I can’t give you an exact estimate of course.”

“No, no, I understand that.”“But it doesn’t do to be niggardly. That only wastes money in the end.”“So you want, in effect, the largest possible grant?”“Exactly! All you can get for us.”“Well. I’ll do my best. Good-bye, and do please convey my sympathy to

Cartwright’s widow.”But this popular conception of how scientific work is supported by government

is completely false. Waste is the result of control being excessive, not of its being absent. The modern fallacy is to imagine that an elected Conservative or Socialist can decide on a line of research and then leave the scientist to work out the details. No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not have known that there was any such law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date, for no politician of his day and scarcely any other scientist would have known what such an achievement would imply or what purpose it would serve. Discoveries are not made like that. They are the result, as often as not, of someone wandering off his own line of research, attracted by some phenomenon

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hitherto unnoticed or suddenly seen in a new light.

2.Answer the questions.1)What is the reason of the wasteful war?2)What are the two sides to the expenditure on research?3)Why do research and waste always go together?4)What typical mistake do laymen make when trying to explain the reason, why waste is inseparable from research?5)What is the actual cause of the “waste line”?

3.There are many exaggerations in the dialogue. Find them and explain, why they produce a humorous effect.

4.a)Comment on the grammar phenomena:1)I hope you brought with you the papers we have been needing.2)And now you will be wanting a new grant to cover the next phases of your work?

b)What do these emphatic forms convey in the following sentences:1)But do tell what you were trying to discover.2)Good-bye, and do please convey my sympathy to Cartwright’s widow.

Part 2

I 1.Study the words.test-tube – пробиркаformative – образующийreformatory – исправительное заведение для малолетних преступников

II 1.Read the second part of the text. Choose the most appropriate word from those given in brackets.

Closely connected with the field of research, and linked with it by the universities, is the field of education. In considering the more wasteful (features, facets, aspects, angles) of education we must limit our inquiries to the classroom, to the expense of providing teachers, building, test-tubes and chalk. In fact, as we know, people are largely taught what they are (supposed, assumed, presumed) to know about life by television, radio, cinema, newspapers and books; also, and still more effectively, by each other. As a formative influence in society schools play a smaller part than teachers are (prone, likely, disposed) to imagine. As an item of public expenditure, education comes high on the list; so high that its cost should be a matter of interest to every taxpayer, and the more so is that much of the money is clearly wasted.

That this should be so is mainly due to the rise of an imaginary science of

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education, with a (dialect, slang, jargon, idiom) of its own. This is known technically, as educationalism. Broadly speaking, the difference between teaching and educationalism is that the teacher takes a difficult subject and strives to make it relatively easy, the educationalizer takes a simple subject which he has failed to master and makes it seem practically impossible. The (principal, cardinal, key, chief) result of educationalism is that everything takes very much longer and costs very much more. Education expands to fill the time available, so that years can be spent in educationalizing what used to be taught in as many weeks. Educationalism is also expensive in building and equipment. Schools have now to be built almost entirely of glass, so as to admit the sun, and have then to be fitted with plastic blinds in order to exclude it. Apart from that, a school filled with workshops and art-rooms, buildings (committed, dedicated, devoted) to home economics and interior decoration, projection theatres and visual aids, costs far more than schools consisting of ordinary classrooms and equipped with ordinary blackboards.

Studying the bill for all this apparatus, we come to realize that educationalism would be fantastically expensive even if it were of any value. As taxpayers we must pay, not merely for the schools of every grade but for the Teachers’ College, for the Education faculty and for numerous Institutes of Educational research. We have also to meet the closely (associated, allied, combined) costs of juvenile delinquency, as also the further expenses connected with the police, the reformatory and the prison.

2.Answer the questions.1)How would you characterize the second part of the text? Does it sound funny or serious? 2)What is peculiar about the words and the syntax of the extract? Give examples from the text.3)Explain the difference between educationalism and education.4)Why is educationalism so expensive?5)Does the author justify of this expense?

III 1.Act out a short argument between a teacher and an educationalizer, who are attacking each other’s standpoints and attitudes. Start: The trouble with people like you is…

2.You are a politician. Write a speech, in which you outline your views on research expenditure.

3.Additional tasks.

a)Read the story sentence by sentence and find logical mistakes.

Smith Billy is a teacher at a riding school. He always gets up to prepare his lessons in order to avoid waking his children by his singing. He takes his noiseless

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typewriter and writes four or five pages of notes so he will not hesitate when he lectures to his horses. For variety, when his lessons are in danger of becoming too interesting, he sometimes copies out a science fiction story from Grimm or Hans Andersen, which he can dictate to the horses. Occasionally there is an emotional reaction from his docile donkeys: when the story is sad they laugh. Billy prefers this job to the one he had in a language school because now his students never take him for a ride.

b)Read the puzzle and answer the questions to find the solution.

The Scientists and the WatchesOne night, a crazy scientist got involved in a rather silly argument with a fellow

scientist. They were arguing about whose watch was the better, the Swiss one or the Japanese one. Being scientists, they decided to do an experiment to test the watches. The first part of the test was to see if both were waterproof. (They were both so convinced of the quality of their watches that they were willing to risk ruining them.)

They went into their laboratory looking very serious. They filled the sink with water, put the watches in, waited impatiently for ten minutes and took them out.

They could see there was something wrong with both watches, but being cautious men of science they observed them for a couple of hours before speaking to each other. The tension was unbearable. They both silently realized that the Swiss watch was losing sixty minutes an hour and the Japanese one double that.

The scientist with the Japanese watch then slowly raised his head and said, “Both watches are now defective but my watch is right more often than yours, so it’s better.” The scientist with the Swiss watch left the room without saying a word.

Was the man with the Japanese watch right? If so, how?

1)What were they arguing about at the beginning of the story?2)Why couldn’t they go on with the experiment after they took the watches out the water?3)What did they do for a couple of hours?4)What did they realize the Swiss watch was doing?5)If the Swiss watch was losing sixty minutes, was it a)going forwards? b)stopped? c)going backwards?6)So how often in every 12-hour period would the Swiss watch show the right time? a)Once. b)Twice.7)How many hours was the Japanese watch losing every hour?8)If a watch loses 120 minutes every sixty minutes, is it a)going forwards?

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b)stopped? c)going backwards?

9)How often in every 12-hour period will the Japanese watch show the correct time? a)Once. b)Twice.

10)Was the scientist right when he said, “But my watch is right more often than yours?”

11)Why is this absurd?

Section 2. Family Relations

Unit 5. Theatre (By W. S. Maugham)

I 1.Match the words and word combinations below with their definitions. Use them in the sentences of your own.

-undertone-to turn somebody round one’s little finger -to crow (with delight) -in point of fact -to go out of one’s way -to wheedle smth out of smb -to be alert -to have smth up one’s sleeve -to break oneself of something -to brazen out

-to keep smth secret for use at the right time in the future -a quiet voice -to take the trouble, make the special effort -to cure of -to be ready for possible danger -to express pride openly -to face trouble with unashamed confidence, as if one has done nothing wrong -actually, in reality -to obtain from smb by insincere pleasant persuading -to get someone to do whatever one wants

II 1.Read the text.

Michael flattered himself on his sense of humour. On the Sunday evening that followed his conversation with Dolly he strolled into Julia’s room while she was dressing. They were going to the pictures after an early dinner.

“Who’s coming tonight besides Charles?” he asked her.“I couldn’t find another woman. I’ve asked Tom.”“Good! I wanted to see him.”He chuckled at the thought of the joke he had up his sleeve. Julia was looking

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forward to the evening. At the cinema she would arrange the seating so that Tom sat next to her and he would hold her hand while she chatted in undertones to Charles on the other side of her. Dear Charles, it was nice of him to have loved her so long and so devotedly; she would go out of her way to be very sweet to him. Charles and Tom arrived together. Tom was wearing his new dinner jacket for the first time and he and Julia exchanged a little private glance, of satisfaction on his part and of compliment on hers.

“Well, young feller,” said Michael heartily, rubbing his hands, “do you know what I hear about you? I hear that you are compromising my wife.”

Tom gave him a startled look and went scarlet. The habit of flushing mortified him horribly, but he could not break himself of it.

“Oh my dear,” cried Julia gaily, “how marvellous! I’ve been trying to get someone to compromise me all my life. Who told you, Michael?”

“A little bird,” he said archly.“Well, Tom, if Michael divorces me you’ll have to marry me, you know.”Charles smiled with his gentle, rather melancholy eyes.“What have you been doing, Tom?” he asked.Charles was gravely, Michael boisterously, diverted by the young man’s obvious

embarrassment. Julia, though she seemed to share their amusement, was alert and watchful.

“Well, it appears that the young rip has been taking Julia to night clubs when she ought to have been in bed and asleep.”

Julia crowed with delight.“Shall we deny it, Tom, or shall we brazen out?”“Well, I’ll tell you what I said to the little bird,” Michael broke in. “I said to her,

as long as Julia doesn’t want me to go to night clubs with her…”Julia ceased to listen to what he said. Dolly, she thought, and oddly enough she

described her to herself in exactly the words Michael had used a couple days before. Dinner was announced and their bright talk turned to other things. But though Julia took part in it with gaiety, though she appeared to be giving her guests all her attention and even listened with a show of appreciation to one of Michael’s theatrical stories that she had heard twenty times before, she was privately holding an animated conversation with Dolly. Dolly cowered before her while she told her exactly what she thought of her.

“You old cow,” she said to her. “How dare you interfere with my private concerns? No, don’t speak. Don’t try to excuse yourself. I know exactly what you said to Michael. It was unpardonable. I thought you were a friend of mine. I thought I could rely on you. Well, that finishes it. I’ll never speak to you again. Never. Never. D’you think I’m impressed by your rotten old money? Oh, it’s no good saying you didn’t mean it. Where would you be except for me, I should like to know. Any distinction you’ve got, the only importance you have in the world, is that you happen to know me. Who’s made your parties go all these years? D’you think that people came to them to see you? They came to see me. Never again. Never.” It was in point

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of fact a monologue rather than a conversation. Later on, at the cinema, she sat next to Tom as she had intended and held his

hand, but it seemed to her singularly unresponsive. Like a fish’s fin. She suspected that he was thinking uncomfortably of what Michael had said. She wished that she had had an opportunity of a few words with him so that she might have told him not to worry. After all no one could have carried off the incident with more brilliance than she had. Aplomb; that was the word. She wondered what it was exactly that Dolly had told Michael. She had better find out. It would not do to ask Michael, that would look as though she attached importance to it; she must find out from Dolly herself. It would be much wiser not to have a row with her. Julia smiled at the scene she would have with Dolly. She would be sweetness itself, she would wheedle it all out of her, and never give her an inkling that she was angry. It was curious that it should send a cold shiver down her back to think that people were talking about her. After all if she couldn’t do what she liked, who could? Her private life was nobody’s business. All the same one couldn’t deny that it wouldn’t be very nice if people were laughing at her. She wondered what Michael would do if he found out the truth. He couldn’t very well divorce her and continue to manage for her. If he had any sense he’d shut his eyes. But Michael was funny in some ways; every now and then he would get up on his hind legs and start doing his colonel stuff. He was quite capable of saying all of a sudden that damn it all, he must behave like a gentleman. Men were such fools; there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t cut off his nose to spite his face. Of course it wouldn’t really matter very much to her. She could go and act in America for a year till the scandal had died down and then go into management with somebody else. But it would be a bore. And then there was Roger to consider; he’d feel it, poor lamb; he’d be humiliated, naturally it was no good shutting one’s eyes to the fact, at her age she’d look a perfect fool being divorced on account of a boy of three-and-twenty. Of course she wouldn’t be such a fool as to marry Tom. Would Charles marry her? She turned and in the half-light looked at his distinguished profile. He had been madly in love with her for years; he was one of those chivalrous idiots that a woman could turn round her little finger; perhaps he wouldn’t mind being co-respondent instead of Tom. That might be a very good way out. Lady Charles Tamerley. It sounded all right. Perhaps she had been a little imprudent. She had always been very careful when she went to Tom’s flat, but it might be that one of the chauffeurs in the mews had seen her go in or come out and had thought things. That class of people had such filthy minds. As far as the night clubs were concerned, she’d have been only too glad to go with Tom to quiet little places where no one would see them, but he didn’t like that. He loved a crowd, he wanted to see smart people, and be seen. He liked to show her off.

“Damn,” she said to herself. “Damn, damn.”Julia didn’t enjoy her evening at the cinema as much as she had expected.

2.How many characters are there in the chapter you have read? Recall their names. What are the relations between them?

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3.Who went to the pictures that night? How did they behave and why? Find words in the text that describe the behaviour of the characters and the way they feel. Do the ways the characters behave correspond to their inner state?

4.Find some episodes in the text proving that Julia is a brilliant actress even in everyday life.

5.How did Julia see the possible solution to the problem? What tactics will she eventually choose ?

6.Find the words in the text that mean the following:making fun of people (adv)humiliate, disgraceplayfully, livelydraw back, recoilhint, clue, suggestionto annoy or harm intentionallycourteoussomeone charged with adultery with the wife or husband of a person wanting

a divorceimpertinent, bolddirty, unclean

7.Go back to the text once again and find informal phrases. If possible, replace them with neutral and formal ones.

III 1.Read the jokes and say whether they correspond to the situation described in the text. What characters of the story can they refer to?

1)The swiftest means of communication: telegraph, telephone and tell a woman.2)H e . All women are divided into three classes: the looked at, the looked over and the overlooked. S h e . Really? And so are men: the intelligent, the handsome and the majority.3)J a n e . How old are you? M a b e l . I just turned twenty-three. J a n e . I get it. Thirty-two.4)A Telling Story.“She told me,” a woman complained to a friend, “that you told her the secret I told you not to tell her”.“Well,” replied her friend in a hurt tone, “I told her not to tell you I told her”.“Oh, dear,” sighed the first woman. “Well, don’t tell her I told you that she told me.”How do these jokes characterize the relations between men and women,

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friendship between women? What does the text say in this respect?

2.Recall an episode from any book you’ve read where a person, suspected of having done something wrong, tries to conceal it. Were those attempts successful? Try to analyze the person’s behaviour.

Unit 6. The Square Root of Wonderful (by McCullers)

I 1.Study the words. Check up the pronunciation.squat – сидеть на корточкахbayonet – штыкholler – кричать, вопитьjab – толкатьslobber - пускать слюниblarney - сладкие речи

downbeat - мрачныйwiggle - раскачиватьhowl - вытьbaloney - чепуха, вздорgoblet - бокал, кубокcreepy - страшный, пугающий

II 1.Read the stage directions. Does the author give any clue about what is going to happen?

ACT THREESCENE ONE

Time: Just before dawn the following day.At Rise: There is no sound. P h i l l i p descends the staircase, slowly, and stands

looking at P a r i s , who is asleep on the sofa. The following scene is oblique. Neither P h i 1 1 i p nor P a r i s knows fully what is happening and the intentions of both father and son are veiled, obscure, until P a r i s is aware of life and the threat to life.

2.Read the whole text.P h i 1 1 i p . Butch -P a r i s . What?P h i 1 1 i p . Wake up, Butch.P a r i s . What time is it?P h i 1 1 i p . Just before dawn. And your mother has packed during the night. She thinks she can leave us. P a r i s . Leave us? P h i 1 1 i p . Yes. Leave me and you. P a r i s . I don’t believe you. Why did you wake me? P h i 1 1 i p . Because I need you. P a r i s . How?P h i 1 1 i p . When I was big and you were little you needed me. Don’t you remember? P a r i s . I guess so. When I was a baby I would come in and sleep between you and mother. Scared maybe, or I just wanted to. There was a swing somewhere in the

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neighborhood. P h i 1 1 i p . Where was that? P a r i s . On Cranberry Street. That’s as far back as I can remember. How far back can you remember, Daddy? P h i 1 1 i p . I can remember sleeping between my mother and father too.P a r i s . Is that as far back as your memory goes? P h i 1 1 i p . Before that there was only darkness. P a r i s . Darkness? P h i 1 1 i p . Then, years later, there were blazing Georgia afternoons. Like burning glass, they were. P a r i s . Georgia’s hot. P h i 1 1 i p . Hot. Blazing and cruel. July was hot and August longer.P a r i s . Granny has an air-conditioner in her bedroom.P h i 1 1 i p . In those days there were no air-conditioners.P a r i s . What did you do?P h i 1 1 i p . We stewed in the heatP a r i s . Stewed?P h i 1 1 i p . We squatted in the back yard poking in those doodle-bug holes. Although I poked at those holes, year in, year out, I never once saw a doodle bug. P a r i s : What’s in those holes? P h i 1 1 i p . That’s the mystery. You can squat with a broomstraw all summer long and never find out. P a r i s . That’s no fun. P h i 1 1 i p . I remember as a child picking Spanish bayonets. Remember that bush down South that has sharp spikes, like swords at the end? P a r i s . I had a great time chasing girls with those Spanish bayonets. The girls run and holler. The boys run and chase. Not that you ever jab a girl. They’re sharp. P h i 1 1 i p . I jabbed a girl once. Not a hard jab – just a light touch on the behind to make her know I meant business. P a r i s . What did you do after that? P h i 1 1 i p . It was the end of the game. P a r i s . What time is it? P h i 1 1 i p . Time for us to leave. P a r i s . But Mother? P h i 1 1 i p . I told you she’s been packing in the night. Silk stockings, brassieres, and all that crap. P a r i s . I hate you when you talk like that about Mother. P h i 1 1 i p . What did I say wrong? I love her. I can’t live without her. I have done everything to bring her back to us. I crawled on the floor like Dostoyevski. P a r i s . Crawled? You didn’t care when Mother cried when you left her. P h i 1 1 i p . I never left her. I did everything and what ever happens to me it’s her fault, and she’ll know it. But now we are going to be at peace. Where I go you and your mother will follow.

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P a r i s . But where are you going? P h i 1 1 i p . To zones and latitudes you never imagined. P a r i s . In the Arctic Zone the sun shines at midnight. But tell me, Daddy, where you are going! P h i 1 1 i p . To a place more remote than Kilimanjaro, more vacant than the moonlight in the Sahara. P a r i s . Africa?P h i 1 1 i p . Not specially.P a r i s . I always wanted to go to Africa. I adore travel and adventure.P h i 1 1 i p . Do you, Butch?P a r i s . When we went to Yellowstone Park I thought it would be an adventure, but the grizzly bears ate out of your hand and slobbered. It was tame. Without your blarney, Daddy, where are you going?P h i 1 1 i p . Do you want me to tell you a story?P a r i s . I feel half asleep and still dreaming.P h i 1 1 i p . In the Kingdom of Heaven...P a r i s . What kind of a story is that?P h i 1 1 i p . A Bible story. In the Kingdom of Heaven a man was going to travel to a far-off country. And so he called his two servants –P a r i s . It’s funny. The Bible always talks about servants. Mother says to me, “Never say servants, say housekeeper, cleaning maid, or anything – but never servant. Otherwise they quit!”P h i l l i p . The master delivered to the servants his goods –P a r i s . Why did he do that?P h i l l i p . Because he would be gone a long time.P a r i s . What goods did he give them?P h i l l i p . All of his money – his talents.P a r i s . I never thought of talents as money. To me talents mean singing and dancing.P h i l l i p . In the Bible talents are money. It was a way of exchange. Anyway, the master gave five talents to the first servant and to the other just one. And straightway the master left for his journey. Straightway – I love that word. And the one who received five talents traded them with judgment and made ten.P a r i s . On the stock exchange?P h i l l i p . Something like that. For a long time the master stayed away, and when he returned he went to the man who had five talents and the man brought forth five more. “Well done,” the master said. “You have used your talents. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”P a r i s . You always spend your money. Granny says that if you had bought stock you would have made a fortune by now. Stocks have gone up.P h i 1 1 i p . Have they, Butch?P a r i s . And you have so many talents, Daddy.P h i 1 1 i p . Then the master went to the servant who had received one talent and

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the one-talent guy said, “Master, I have hid my talent under the earth - it is still there.”P a r i s . Hid it under the earth? Why did he do that?P h i 1 1 i p . Because the master was a hard master and the servant was afraid.P a r i s . What did the master say?P h i 1 1 i p. The master said, “I will take your one talent and give it to the servant who has ten, for to everyone that has, shall be given. But from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he has.”P a r i s . That’s not fair. To me the Bible is nine times out of ten unfair. In fact the Bible is awfully downbeat.P h i 1 1 i p . You’re right, Butch. It’s not fair.P a r i s . Hattie Brown thinks I have talent. She claims that when I play the guitar I’m as cool as Elvis Presley. When she says that, I wiggle my hips like him – it’s nice to have talent.P h i 1 l i p . It’s better to develop it.P a r i s . When I sing like that, Hattie howls.P h i 1 1 i p . Does she, Butch?P a r i s . Why did you wake me up, at this unearthly hour?P h i 1 1 i p . For company.P a r i s . Do you have a hangover, Daddy?P h i 1 1 i p . No.P a r i s . You look white as death.P h i 1 1 i p . I’ll be all right, Butch. Once I’m on the road.P a r i s . You should not be going anywhere alone. (Paris starts to dress.)P h i 1 1 i p . What are you doing?P a r i s . Getting dressed. I ought to go with you.Phi11ip. It would be company.P a r i s . But where are we going and why are you going? First you said it was Africa. Then you said not. Is it Mexico?P h i 1 l i p . No.P a r i s . Is it Europe?P h i 1 1 i p . No, Butch.P a r i s . Mother doesn’t like Europe. They don’t have screens on the windows and you always get the trots. P h i 1 1 i p . It is not Africa, not Mexico, not Europe. No place your mother has been or me or you. She thought she could leave us but she can’t.P a r i s . Without your baloney, Daddy, what’s this all about? Where are you going?P h i l l i p . You’ll know when we get there.P a r i s . But Mother?P h i 1 1 i p . I told you forty times she’s packing...P a r i s . Packing? Tomorrow is the day I was going to try that reel and tackle. Try it out in the pond. Tomorrow – that is, today.

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P h i 1 1 i p . Suppose there are no tomorrows – that is today?P a r i s . What are you doing?P h i 1 1 i p . Getting my books.P a r i s . Why?P h i l l i p . The ancient savage kings gathered their slave, their ship, their goblet for the voyage.P a r i s . What voyage?P h i 1 1 i p . The last one.P a r i s . You talk so creepy. Strange and downbeat, I’m scared.P h i 1 1 i p . Why are you scared?P a r i s . If I knew why, I would not be so scared.P h i 1 1 i p . It’s almost daybreak.P a r i s . I’m wide awake now.P h i 1 1 i p . It’s time to get started.P a r i s . I can’t go anywhere like this. (Indicating his socks.) The socks don’t mate. I have on one white sock and one red.P h i 1 1 i p . Is that the only reason you don’t want to come?P a r i s . Not only that.P h i 1 1 i p . I remember the October moons of my childhood. The hound dog would be baying. When there was a ring around the moon it was a sign of coming frost. Have you ever seen frost flowers, Butch? With its cold and delicate designs that come on window-panes – they are rose-colored and gold.P a r i s . I never saw that.P h i 1 1 i p . I’m not blaming you, Son.P a r i s . Blaming me?P h i 1 1 i p . No. It operates like this. In our cold house where there was no central heating, Uncle Willie used to light the kitchen stove first thing in the morning and put on the grits for breakfast – old people get up very early in the morning And as the room would warm with the glowing kitchen stove, outside there would still be cold and wintertime. Then the frost flowers would come on the windowpanes. Jack Frost had painted them we always said.P a r i s . This is just the time to dig for angleworms. You find them better just at dawn.P h i 1 1 i p . Or late twilight. I, too, have dug for angleworms.P a r i s . Hattie and I are going to start early. Go to the pond. And if the fish aren’t biting there, we’ll go to Rockland Lake.P h i 1 1 i p . You won’t come with me?P a r i s . My day is important and already planned. Some other time, Daddy.P h i 1 1 i p . I, too, remember sleeping between my mother and my father and having chased girls with Spanish bayonets. I have known both frost flowers and angleworms. And I have known that time when a song on the street and a voice from childhood all fitted and I was a writer and writing every day. And I was not alone then. There was love. I could love and did not struggle against being loved . It was

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company, anyhow. I remember everything - and at that instant will every moment be a reflection of every moment that has gone before? (Almost whispers.) I can’t stand it.P a r i s (shouts). Mother!P h i 1 1 i p (whispers). Now I prefer only darkness. (He exits. Mo11ie enters.)M o 1 1 i e . What on earth, Lambie – ?P a r i s . My daddy.

(We hear the sound of the car.)M o 1 1 i e . What about Daddy? Where is he going – at this hour? P a r i s . I don’t know, Mother. I just don’t know. M o 1 1 i e (goes to window, looking after the car). Lambie, please, put down that guitar.

THE CURTAIN FALLS

3.Answer the questions.1)What is Phillip going to do? What gives away his intentions?2)Do father and son understand each other well? Give examples of such “misunderstandings”.3)At some points of their conversation Phillip and Paris switch over to a different topic unexpectedly. Why? Find such sentences.4)In some cases Phillip doesn’t give logical answers to the questions Paris asks. E.g. “What time is it?” “Time for us to leave”. Find some examples of such “illogical” answers. Are they as illogical as they seem?

4.Identify the speaker of the following phrases. Recall the situations and comment on them.

1)Before that there was only darkness.2)I adore travel and adventure.3)It would be company.4)Stocks have gone up.5)It was company, anyhow.6)That’s not fair.7)My day is important and already planned.8)Scared maybe, or I just wanted to.9)Straightway – I love that word.

5.Judging by the episode you have read, what are the relations between Phillip, Mollie and Paris?

6.Is Phillip really going to kill himself? What proves it?

7.Some of the words in Ex. I1. are informal. Give their neutral and formal equivalents.

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8.Comment on the following grammar phenomena.1)When I was a baby I would come in and sleep between you and mother.2)Then, years later, there were blazing Georgia afternoons. Like burning glass, they were.3)Then the master went to the servant who had received one talent and the one-talent guy said…4)You should not be going anywhere alone.5)The ancient savage kings gathered their slave, their ship, their goblet for the voyage.6)Uncle Willie used to light the kitchen stove first thing in the morning and put on the grits for breakfast…7)And if the fish aren’t biting there, we’ll go to Rockland Lake.

III 1.Put down five phrases to express your attitude to the extract from the play you have read. Compare them with those of your groupmates.

2.Act out an episode from the play. Justify your choice of intonation patterns and comment on the behaviour of the characters.

3.How far back can you remember? Describe the most striking events of your childhood.

4.Read the additional texts and say what you think.

a)Every people has a quite definite image of what a child is at birth. Russians, for example, see the newborn as so strong that they swaddle it firmly to protect it from harming itself. The French, in contrast, see the baby as fragile and vulnerable to anything harmful in the environment – and they softly swaddle the infant to keep it quietly safe.

In Bali a baby is not given a human name at birth. Until it seems clear it will live, the Balinese refer to it as a caterpillar or a mouse. At three months, when it is given a name, it becomes a participating human being whose mother, speaking for it, says the words of polite social response. But if the baby dies before this, people reproach it, saying “You didn’t stay long enough. Next time stay and eat rice with us”. For the Balinese believe in reincarnation. They believe the “soul”, without any specific personality, is reborn every fourth generation within the same family.

Margaret MeadA New Understanding of Childhood

b)Parents today appear to have much uncertainty about their roles as moral guides. Part of this uncertainty is a reaction against the fear techniques that were employed in moral teaching in former generations. Since today’s parent does not wish to teach his child moral attitudes through threats or exaggerated horror or fearful

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warnings he seems afraid to show any moral reactions to his child as if he might then create excessive guilt feelings in the child. This means that many parents who have firm moral beliefs about lying, stealing, murder and destruction fail to transmit them to their children in a profound and meaningful way. Parents tolerate the moral lapses or even the absence of moral principles in their children way beyond the period when we can expect a child to have incorporated moral values in his own personality.

Selma FreibergThe Magic Years

c)Every culture, in every time throughout history, has commemorated the transition of a human being from one state in life to another. Birth, the emergence into manhood, graduation from school at various levels, birthdays, marriage, death – each of these outstanding steps is acknowledged by a ceremony of some sort, always public, the guests in effect becoming witnesses to the statement of life’s ongoingness, of the natural order of history. To insure the special significance of the rite of passage, its apartness from any other event of the day, these rituals usually require pageantry, costumed adornment, and are accompanied by gift-bearing and feasting. We wear black to funerals, bring presents to christenings and birthday parties, get loaded at wakes, eat ourselves sick at bar mitzvahs. Birth, marriage, and death, to be sure, are the most elemental and major steps, and as there is only one of those ritual commemorations for which we are actually, fully present, the wedding becomes, for mankind, its most vital rite of passage. And for this reason it is anchored at the very core of civilization.

Marcia SeligsonThe Eternal Bliss Macnine: America’s Way of Wedding

5.What problems can arise in a family? How can they be solved?

6.Speak about family customs and traditions (in our country and abroad).

Unit 7. The Unicorn in the Garden (by James Thurber)

I 1.Work in groups of two. Look at the following words and think of a story that might combine them all. Then reorder the words according to the order in which they appear in your story. You can use any form of the verb and not necessarily the –ing one.

Examining Sleeping RejectingRejoicing Calling Shutting upThreatening Plotting Telling the truthEating Fighting Seizing

2.When you have decided upon a story, change partners. Ask each other as 47

many questions as you can to learn further details or clarify some points.3.Study the words. Check up the pronunciation.

as crazy as a jay bird – insane (slang; now out-of-date)booby – someone who is insanebooby-hatch – an insane asylum, a hospital for the mentally ill (slang; now out-of-date)breakfast nook – a corner of the kitchen with a small table and, often, high-backed benches; popular in American homes in the 1930’s and 40’sbrowsing – here, eating slowly, as animals do in a fieldcropping – eating; used to describe the way animals eat the top of plantsDon’t count your boobies until they are hatched. The actual proverb is “Don’t count your chickens until they are hatched” meaning don’t count on something before it happens. Cf. hatch – to break out of an egg and hatch – to put someone in a booby-hatchgloat (n) – from the verb “gloat” – to look at with selfish delightgravely – seriouslyhigh heart – great happinessmythical – fictitious, imaginaryroused – woke up, awakened (past form)strait-jacket – a white jacket with very long arms, the ends of which are tied behind someone’s back to keep him still; used to subdue insane peoplesubdue – overcome, bring under controlunicorn – an animal like a horse, with a horn in the middle of its forehead

II 1.Read the text and reorder the words from Ex I1. according to what happens in the story.

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a gold horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. “There’s a unicorn in the garden”, he said. “Eating roses”. She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. “The unicorn is a mythical beast”, she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips. “Here, unicorn”, said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. “The unicorn”, he said, “ate a lily”. His wife sat up in bed and looked at him, coldly. “You are a booby”, she said, “and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch”. The man, who had never liked the words “booby” and “booby-hatch”, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. “We’ll see about that”, he said. He walked over to the door. “He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead”, he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone

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away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed

as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest. “My husband”, she said, “saw a unicorn this morning”. The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. “He told me it ate a lily”, she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. “He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead”, she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

“Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?” asked the police. “Of course not”, said the husband. “The unicorn is a mythical beast”. “That’s all I wanted to know”, said the psychiatrist. “Take her away. I’m sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird”. So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

MORAL: Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.

2.Answer the questions.1)What does the setting tell you about the man’s style of life?2)Why did he want to tell his wife about the unicorn?3)What suggests that the husband was disappointed by his wife’s reaction? Find some words in the text characterizing the man’s elated mood and the woman’s anger.4)Why did it make the man so happy to have a unicorn in his garden?5)Was the husband worried by his wife’s threat?6)Why was there a “gloat” in her eye?7)Why did the police and the psychiatrist look at the woman “with great interest” when they arrived?8)Why did the husband respond as he did to the police’s question?

3.Explain the moral of the story.

4.How do husband and wife differ in temperament and character? Complete the table below to answer the question.

Husband Wife1.How they react to the unicorn?2.Pronoun used to refer to the unicorn.3.Attitude towards their wife/husband.4.Their surroundings.5.How does the vocabulary/style reflect the differences in their rhythm of life?6.How you interpret their behaviour.

III 1.“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” is an English proverb similar to 49

the moral of this story. Is there a proverb in your culture which has the same moral?

2.In what way is Thurber’s fable similar to others you know? In what way is it different?

3.Here are some jokes showing how husbands and wives differ in character. How do these jokes refer to the main idea of the story?

1) “I love thee still,” said the quiet husband to chattering wife.2) If your wife wants to learn to drive, don’t stand in her way.3) “I am sorry to say,” said the doctor, “your wife is lying at death’s door.” “Well,” answered the husband, “I hope you pull her through.”4) “He boasts he runs things in his family.” “He does – the lawn mower, the washing machine, vacuum cleaner, baby carriage and the errands.”5)H u s b a n d . I warned you about exceeding the Feed limit.6)W i f e . We’ve got to fire the chauffer. He’s nearly killed me four times.H u s b a n d . He’s a good man. Let’s give him another chance.

4.Additional task.

The following passage is an extract from a story called Murder Mystery 1 which was produced in nineteen seconds by a computer in 1973. As you can see all the sentences are simple sentences and no use is made of link-words or reference between different sentences. Can you rewrite this short passage to make it look more natural? This will mean adding words and putting some of the sentences together.

The butler announced tea.Everyone went into the garden. The butler served tea. The day was cool.

The sky was cloudy. The garden was nice. The flowers were pretty. Marion complimented Lady Buxley.

Ronald talked with Marion.Tea time was over.Everyone went to the parlor.The cook went to the kitchen. Maggie prepared dinner.Dr Hume asked Edward to play tennis. Edward agreed. Lord Edward went

to the tennis court with Dr Hume. They played tennis. Dr Hume was the good player. Edward played tennis well.

Dr Bartholomew stopped playing tennis. Edward stopped playing tennis.Everyone went to the dining room. Everyone sat down. The butler served

the food. Supper started.

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Marion talked with Florence. Florence argued with Marion. Marion said that Florence was idiotic.

Florence talked with Lady Buxley.Supper was over. The men went to the parlor. The men smoked fat smelly

stogies. The men drank sherry. The women went to the drawing room. The women gossiping drank coffee.

Everyone went to the parlor.Marion talked with Jane.James went to the library. James read the good paperback. Edward asked Ronald

to play tennis. Ronald agreed. Ronald went to the tennis court with Lord Edward. They played tennis.

John suggested the game of bridge. Lady Buxley agreed. Dr Bartholomew Hume agreed. They played bridge.

The servants went to bed. Everyone went to bed.

Unit 8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (by James Thurber)

I 1.Study the words. Check up the pronunciation.braided – украшенный лентойrakish – щеголеватый, лихойrev – увеличивать число оборотовdistraught – смущенныйhaggard – изможденныйcraven – трусливыйvault – прыгатьaxle – ось, валwrecking – аварийный, спасательныйrap – стучать, резко говорить

crack – первоклассныйshot – стрелокinsinuating – вкрадчивыйbicker – пререкаться, ссориться, дратьсяcur – грубиянtousled – взъерошенныйfleeting – быстро исчезающийstrap – связать ремнямиsquad – взвод

II 1.Read the text.“We’re going through! ” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He

wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold grey eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8.500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on №8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on №8 auxiliary! ” repeated Lieutenant Berg. The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy Hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!”…

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“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast! ” said Mrs Mitty. “What are you driving so fast for?”

“Humm?” said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. “You were up to fifty-five,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five! ” Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence. “You’re tensed up again,” said Mrs Mitty. “It’s one of your days. I wish you’d let Doctor Renshaw look you over.”

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. “Remember to get those overshoes while I’m having my hair done,” she said. “I don’t need overshoes,” said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. “We’ve been through all that,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’re not a young man any longer.” He raced the engine a little. “Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?” Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. “Pick it up, brother! ” snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

…“It’s the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan,” said the pretty nurse. “Yes?” said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. “Who has the case?” “Dr Renshaw and Dr Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr Remington from New York and Mr Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over.” A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. “Hello, Mitty,” he said. “We’re having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you’d take a look at him.” “Glad to,” said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered introductions: “Dr Remington. Dr Mitty. Mr Pritchard-Mitford, Dr Mitty.” “I’ve read your book on streptothricosis,” said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. “A brilliant performance, sir.” “Thank you,” said Walter Mitty. “Didn’t know you were in the States, Mitty,” grumbled Remington. “Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary.” “You are s very kind.” Said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. “The new anaesthetizer is giving way!” shouted an intern. “There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!” “Quiet, man!” said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. “Give me a fountain-pen!” he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. “That will hold for ten minutes,” he said. “Get on with the operation.” A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. “Coreopsis has set in,” said Renshaw nervously. “If you would take over, Mitty?” Mitty looked at him and at the craven

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figure of Benbow who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. “If you wish,” he said. They slipped a white gown on him, he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining…

“Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!” Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. “Wrong lane, Mac,” said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. “Gee, Yeh,” muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked “Exit only.” “Leave her sit there,” said the attendant “I’ll put her away.” Mitty got out of the car. “Hey, better leave the key.” “Oh,” said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

“They’re so damn cocky,” thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Mitford and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young grinning garageman. Since then Mrs Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the side-walk. “Overshoes, ” he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out in the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice, before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town – he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb’s razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborandum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. “Where’s the what’s-its-name?” she would ask. “Don’t tell me you forgot the what’s-its-name. ” A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

“Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. “This is my Webley-Vickes 50.80;” he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge rapped for order. “You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?” said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. “Objection!” shouted Mitty’s attorney. “We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July.”

Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Waller Mitty’s arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. “You miserable cur!”…

“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. “He said “Puppy biscuit” to himself,” she said to her companion. “That man said “Puppy biscuit.”’ Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into

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an A&P, not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. “I want some biscuit for small, young dogs,” he said to the clerk. “Any special brand, sir?”

The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. “It says “Puppies bark for it” on the box, ” said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser’s in fifteen minutes. Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn’t like to get to the hotel first, she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuits on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. “Can Germany conquer the World Through the Air?” Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

…“The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir,” said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair. “Get him to bed,” he said wearily. “With the others. I’ll fly alone.” “But you can’t, sir,” said the sergeant anxiously. “It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman’s circus is between here and Saulier.” “Somebody’s got to get that ammunition dump,” said Mitty. “I’m going over. Spot of brandy?” He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. “A bit of a near thing,” said Captain Mitty carelessly. “The box barrage is closing in,” said the sergeant. “We only live once, Sergeant,” said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. “Or do we?” He poured another brandy and tossed it off. “I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir.” Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. “It’s forty kilometers through hell, sir,” said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. “After all,” he said softly, “what isn’t?” The pounding of the cannon increased, there was the rat-rat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming “Aupres de ma Blonde.” He turned and waved to the sergeant. “Cheerio!” he said…

Something struck his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs Mitty. “Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?” “Things close in,” said Walter Mitty vaguely. “What?” Mrs Mitty said. “Did you get what’s-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What’s in that box?” “Overshoes,” said Mitty. “Couldn’t you have put them on in the store?” “I was thinking,” said Walter Mitty. “Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” “I’m going to take your temperature when I get you home,” she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive sound whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, “Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won’t be a minute.” She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking… He

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put his shoulders back and his heels together. “To hell with the handkerchief,” said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful. Walter Mitty, the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

(From My World and Welcome to it by James Thurber)

2.Fill in the chart.Dream №1 Dream №2 Dream №3 Dream №4 Dream №5

Dream e.g. Hydroplane. Walter Mitty = superior and reckless commander

Incidents or details linking dream and reality

Going quickly

Reality Ordered about by his wife

3.Answer the questions.1) How does Walter Mitty picture himself in his dreams? How can you describe his real personality?2) What can you say about Mrs Mitty? Do Mr and Mrs Mitty get on with each other?3) Does Mrs Mitty know anything about Mr Mitty’s secret life?4) Does Walter Mitty often day-dream? What causes his day-dreams?

4.Find in words in the text that mean the following.циферблат, шкала, дискдополнительный, запаснойнестись, мчатьсяухмылятьсярезко прерывать, рявкатьнаглый, дерзкийслякоть, грязь

затяжка55

презрительный, надменныйнепостижимый, загадочный, непроницаемый

5.Complete each sentence with the correct colour.1) His supervisor gave him a _ look when he turned up late for the third time this week.2) I must be on some kind of _ list because I have a lot of difficulty getting credit.3) We’re waiting for the _ light from head office to launch our publicity campaign.4) Local residents protested when they heard a factory was going to be built in a _ belt area.5) I won’t believe we’ve got the contract until see it down in _ and _.6) Among the _ goods, washing machines are our best sellers.7) There were several _ faces when these so-called financial experts found that they had been tricked!8) We need to cut through all the _ tape and speed up the decision-making process.9) That’s a bit of a _ area. It’s difficult to say who exactly has responsibility for recruitment.

10) The company found itself several thousand pounds in the _ after spending so much on improving its production line.

11) They’re looking for a _ knight to help them fight the takeover bid.12) Then, out of the _, she offered me a job managing her new restaurant. You

can imagine my surprise.13) We have to roll out the _ carpet for him as he’s one of our best customers.14) The _ revolution has meant that food exports have increased dramatically

in the past few years.

III 1.Do you agree that day-dreaming is a way of escaping reality?

2.Describe how you picture yourself in your dreams. What brings you back to reality?

3.Additional task. Read the text sentence by sentence. Find logical mistakes.

a) My neighbour John has just called in to say that he and his wife can come to my party next Wednesday. So we’ve arranged to meet outside the cinema at about six o’clock. The main film showing is the latest James Bond film, starring Sophia Loren, Henry Kissinger and Clark Gable. After the service the two of us will probably go for a drink. It’s a long time since I saw John and his wife, so I’m looking forward to an enjoyable Saturday evening with them.

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b) If you want a new car for the family then come along to our surgery and look at our latest discoveries. We have imported cars as well as a wide range produced in British kitchens.

There are no vehicles here on display so just come along any time to see them.Alternatively you could phone and we’d be delighted to give you our catalogues

personally. We are open from 3 a.m. – 7 a.m., seven days a year and are looking forward to buying from you the car you’ve been dreaming of.

Unit 9. Bridget Jones’s Diary (by Helen Fielding)

I 1. Have you ever kept a diary? What did you write in it?

2. What do you think of people who keep diaries?

3. Study the words. Check up the pronunciation.bellow – вопить, оратьcircuitous – окольный, обходнойcourtship – ухаживаниеcoy – скромный, прикидывающийся скромнымcut-throat – жестокий, беспощадныйdazzling – ослепительныйdistraught – смущенныйensue – следовать, являться результатомglad rags – праздничная одеждаheady – опрометчивый, безрассудныйhunch – предчувствие, подозрениеimmerse – погружаться, углублятьсяinsurmountable – непреодолимыйludicrous – смехотворный, абсурдныйoverbearing – властный, повелительныйquarry – добычаresignedly – покорноretrieve – вернуть себе, взять обратноsmugly – самодовольноstrident – резкий, крикливыйstrut – ходить с важным видомstunning – ошеломляющий, сногсшибательныйtatty – невзрачный, жалкий, оборванныйtop-notch – первоклассныйtranspire – выясниться, становиться явнымundaunted – неустрашимый, стойкийvirulent – опасный, злобный

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zeal – рвение, энтузиазмII 1. Read the following extracts from the book “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and do

the tasks for each part.

Extract 1Sunday 1 January

9st 3 (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year’s Day),cigarettes 22, calories 5424.

Noon. London: my flat. Ugh. The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is drive to Una and Geoffrey Alconbury’s New Year’s Day Turkey Curry Buffet in Grafton Underwood. Geoffrey and Una Alconbury are my parents’ best friends and, as Uncle Geoffrey never tires of reminding me, have known me since I was running round the lawn with no clothes on. My mother rang up at 8.30 in the morning last August Bank Holiday and forced me to promise to go. She approached it via a cunningly circuitous route.

“Oh, hello, darling. I was just ringing to see what you wanted for Christmas. ”“Christmas?”“Would you like a surprise, darling?”“No!” I bellowed. ’Sorry. I mean . . .”“I wondered if you’d like a set of wheels for your suitcase.”“But I haven’t got a suitcase.”“Why don’t I get you a little suitcase with wheels attached. You know, like air

hostesses have.”“I’ve already got a bag.”“Oh, darling, you can’t go around with that tatty green canvas thing. You look

like some sort of Mary Poppins person who’s fallen on hard times. Just a little compact case with a pull-out handle. It’s amazing how much you can get in. Do you want it in navy on red or red on navy?”

“Mum. It’s eight thirty in the morning. It’s summer. It’s very hot. I don’t want an air-hostess bag.”

“Julie Enderby’s got one. She says she never uses anything else.”“Who’s Julie Enderby?”“You know Julie, darling, Mavis Enderby’s daughter. Julie! The one that’s got

that super-dooper job at Arthur Andersen . . .”“Mum . . .”“Always takes it on her trips . . .”“I don’t want a little bag with wheels on.”“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t Jamie, Daddy and I all club together and get you a

proper new big suitcase and a set of wheels?”Exhausted, I held the phone away from my ear, puzzling about where the

missionary luggage-Christmas-gift zeal had stemmed from. When I put the phone back she was saying: “ . . . in actual fact, you can get them with a compartment with

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bottles for your bubble bath and things. The other thing I thought of was a shopping trolley.”

“Is there anything you’d like for Christmas?” I said desperately, blinking in the dazzling Bank Holiday sunlight.

“No, no,” she said airily. “I’ve got everything I need. Now, darling,” she suddenly hissed, “you will be coming to Geoffrey and Una’s New Year’s Day Turkey Curry Buffet this year, won’t you?”

“Ah. Actually, I . . . I panicked wildly. What could I pretend to be doing? ” . . . think I might have to work on New Year’s Day. ”

“That doesn’t matter. You can drive up after work. Oh, did I mention? Malcolm and Elaine Darcy are coming and bringing Mark with them. Do you remember Mark, darling? He’s one of those top-notch barristers. Masses of money. Divorced. It doesn’t start till eight.”

Oh God. Not another strangely dressed opera freak with bushy hair burgeoning from a side-parting. “Mum, I’ve told you. I don’t need to be fixed up with . . . ”

“Now come along, darling. Una and Geoffrey have been holding the New Year Buffet since you were running round the lawn with no clothes on! Of course you’re going to come. And you’ll be able to use your new suitcase.”

a) When and why did Mrs. Jones phone Bridget?b) How did Bridget feel about the call? How did she know that her mother was plotting something?c) What else do we learn about Bridget and her family from this extract?

Extract 2Saturday 18 February

9st, alcohol units 4, cigarettes 6, calories 2746, correct lottery numbers 2 (v.g.).At last I got to the bottom of Mum and Dad. I was beginning to suspect a post-

Portuguese-holiday Shirley-Valentine-style scenario and that I would open the Sunday People to see my mother sporting dyed blond hair and a leopard-skin top sitting on a sofa with someone in stone-washed jeans called Gonzales and explaining that, if you really love someone, a forty-six year age gap really doesn’t matter.

Today she asked me to meet her for lunch at the coffee place in Dickens and Jones and I asked her outright if she was seeing someone else.

“No. There is no one else,” she said, staring into the distance with a look of melancholy bravery I swear she has copied from Princess Diana.

“So why are you being so mean to Dad?” I said.“Darling, it’s merely a question of realizing, when your father retired, that I had

spent thirty-five years without a break running his home and bringing up his children.”

“Jamie and I are your children too,” I interjected, hurt.“ – and that as far as he was concerned his lifetime’s work was over and mine

was still carrying on, which is exactly how I used to feel when you were little and it

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got to the weekends. You only get one life. I’ve just made a decision to change things a bit and spend what’s left of mine looking after me for a change.”

As I went to the till to pay, I was thinking it all over and trying, as a feminist, to see Mum’s point of view. Then my eye was caught by a tall, distinguished-looking man with grey hair, a European-style leather jacket and one of those gentleman’s handbag things. He was looking into the café, tapping his watch and raising his eyebrows, I wheeled round and caught my mother mouthing, “Won’t be a mo,” and nodding towards me apologetically.

I didn’t say anything to Mum at the time, just said goodbye, then doubled back and followed her to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Sure enough, I eventually found her in the perfume department wandering round with the tall smoothie, spraying her wrists with everything in sight, holding them up to his face and laughing coquettishly.

Got home to answer phone message from my brother Jamie. Called him straight away and told him everything.

a) What was going on between Bridget’s mum and dad?b) What did Bridget’s mother decide to change about her life? Why?

Extract 3Sunday 19 February

8st 13 (v.g. but purely through worry), alcohol units 2 (but the Lord’s Day), cigarettes 7, calories 2100.

Called Mum up to confront her about the late-in-life smoothie I saw her with after our lunch.

“Oh, you must mean Julian,” she trilled.This was an immediate giveaway. My parents do not describe their friends by

their Christian names. It is always Una Alconbury, Audrey Coles, Brian Enderby: “You know David Ricketts, darling – married to Anthea Ricketts, who’s in the Lifeboat.” It’s a gesture to the fact that they know in their hearts I have no idea who Mavis Enderby is, even though they’re going to talk about Brian and Mavis Enderby for the next forty minutes as if I’ve known them intimately since I was four.

I knew straight away that Julian would not turn out to be involved in any Lifeboat luncheons, nor would he have a wife who was in any Lifeboats, Rotaries or Friends of St. George’s. I sensed also that she had met him in Portugal, before the trouble with Dad, and he might well turn out to be not so much Julian but Julio. I sensed that, let’s face it, Julio was the trouble with Dad.

I confronted her with this hunch. She denied it. She even came out with some elaborately concocted tale about ’Julian’ bumping into her in the Marble Arch Marks and Spencer, making her drop her new Le Creuset terrine dish on her foot and taking her for a coffee in Selfridges from which sprang a firm platonic friendship based entirely on department store coffee shops.

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Why, when people are leaving their partners because they’re having an affair with someone else, do they think it will seem better to pretend there is no one else involved? Do they think it will be less hurtful for their partners to think they just walked out because they couldn’t stand them any more and then had the good fortune to meet some tall Omar Sharif-figure with a gentleman’s handbag two weeks afterwards while the ex-partner is spending his evenings bursting into tears at the sight of the toothbrush mug? It’s like those people who invent a lie as an excuse rather than the truth, even when the truth is better than the lie.

I once heard my friend Simon canceling a date with a girl - on whom he was really keen – because he had a spot with a yellow head just to the right of his nose, and because, owing to a laundry crisis he had gone to work in a ludicrous late-seventies jacket, assuming he could pick his normal jacket up from the cleaner’s at lunchtime, but the cleaners hadn’t done it.

He took it into his head, therefore, to tell the girl he couldn’t see her because his sister had turned up unexpectedly for the evening and he had to entertain her, adding wildly that he also had to watch some videos for work before the morning; at which point the girl reminded him that he’d told her he didn’t have any brothers or sisters and suggested he come and watch the videos at her place while she cooked him supper. However, there were no work videos to take round and watch, so he had to construct a further cobweb of lies. The incident culminated with the girl, convinced he was having an affair with someone else when it was only their second date, chucking him, and Simon spending the evening getting hammered alone with his spot, wearing his seventies jacket.

I tried to explain to Mum that she wasn’t telling the truth, but she was so suffused with lust that she had lost sight of, well, everything.

“You’re really becoming very cynical and suspicious, darling.” she said. “Julio” – aha! ahahahahahaha! – “is just a friend. I just need some space.”

So, it transpired, in order to oblige, Dad is moving into the Alconburys’ dead granny’s flat at the bottom of their garden.

a)Did Bridget have grounds for suspicion? What gave her mother away?b)How did Mrs. Jones describe her relations with Julian?c)What did Bridget think about telling lies to a partner? Compare her parents’ and Simon’s stories?

Extract 4Saturday 4 March

9st (what is point of dieting for whole of Feb when end up exactly same weight at start of March as start of Feb? Huh. Am going to stop getting weighed and counting things every day as no sodding point).

My mother has become a force I no longer recognize. She burst into my flat this morning as I sat slumped in my dressing gown, sulkily painting my toenails and watching the preamble to the racing.

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“Darling, can I leave these here for a few hours?” she trilled, flinging an armful of carrier bags down and heading for my bedroom.

Minutes later, in a fit of mild curiosity, I slobbed after her to see what she was doing. She was sitting in front of the mirror in an expensive-looking coffee-colored bra-slip, mascara-ing her eyelashes with her mouth wide open (necessity of open mouth during mascara application great unexplained mystery of nature).

“Don’t you think you should get dressed, darling?”She looked stunning: skin clear, hair shining. I caught sight of myself in the

mirror. I really should have taken my makeup off last night. One side of my hair was plastered to my head, the other sticking out in a series of peaks and horns. It is as if the hairs on my head have a life of their own, behaving perfectly sensibly all day, then waiting till I drop off to sleep and starting to run and jump about childishly, saying, ’Now what shall we do?”

“You know,” said Mum, dabbing Givenchy II in her cleavage, “all these years your father’s made such a fuss about doing the bills and the taxes - as if that excused him from thirty years of washing-up. Well, the tax return was overdue, so I thought, sod it, I’ll do it myself. Obviously I couldn’t make head nor tail of it so I rang up the tax office. The man was really quite overbearing with me. ‘Really, Mrs. Jones,’ he said. ‘I simply can’t see what the difficulty is.’ I said, ‘Listen, can you make a brioche?’ He took the point, talked me through it and we had it done inside fifteen minutes. Anyway, he’s taking me out to lunch today. A tax man! Imagine!”

“What?” I stammered, grabbing at the door frame. “What about Julio?”“Just because I’m "friends" with Julio doesn’t mean I can’t have other "fiends",”

she said sweetly, slipping into a yellow two-piece. “Do you like this? Just bought it. Super lemon, don’t you think? Anyway, must fly. I’m meeting him in Debenhams coffee shop at one fifteen.”

After she’d gone I ate a bit of muesli out of the packet with a spoon and finished off the dregs of wine in the fudge.

I know what her secret is: she’s discovered power. She has power over Dad: he wants her back. She has power over Julio, and the tax man, and everyone is sensing her power and wanting a bit of it, which makes her even more irresistible. So all I’ve got to do is find someone or something to have power over and then . . . oh God. I haven’t even got power over my own hair.

a) What changes took place in Mrs. Jones’ life?b) How did Bridget react to her mother’s behaviour?

Extract 5Sunday 5 March

2 p.m. Just triumphantly returned from heroic expedition to go downstairs for newspaper and glass of water. Could feel water flowing like crystal stream into section of head where most required. Though am not sure, come to think of it, if water can actually get in your head. Possibly it enters through the bloodstream.

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Maybe since hangovers are caused by dehydration water is drawn into the brain by a form of capillary action.

2.15 p.m. Story in papers about two-year-olds having to take tests to get into nursery school just made me jump out of skin. Am supposed to be at tea party for godson Harry’s birthday.

6 p.m. Drove at breakneck speed feeling like I was dying, across grey, rain-sodden London to Magda’s, stopping at Waterstone’s for birthday gifts. Heart was sinking at thought of being late and hungover, surrounded by ex-career-girl mothers and their Competitive Child Rearing. Magda, once a commodity broker, lies about Harry’s age, now, to make him seem more advanced than he is. Even the conception was cut-throat, with Magda trying to take eight times as much folic acid and minerals as anyone else. The birth was great. She’d been telling everyone for months it was going to be a natural childbirth and, ten minutes in, she cracked and started yelling, “Give me the drugs, you fat cow.”

Tea party was nightmare scenario: me plus a roomful of power mothers, one of whom had a four-week-old baby.

“Oh, isn’t he sweet?” cooed Sarah de Lisle, then snapped, “How did he do in his AGPAR?”

I don’t know what the big deal is about tests for two - this AGPAR is a test they have to do at two minutes. Magda embarrassed herself two years ago by boasting at a dinner party that Harry got ten in his, at which one of the other guests, who happens to be a nurse, pointed out that the AGPAR test only goes up to nine.

Undaunted, however, Magda has started boasting around the nanny circuit that her son is a defecational prodigy, triggering off a round of boast and counter-boast. The toddlers, therefore, dearly at the age when they should be securely swathed in layers of rubberware, were teetering around in little more than Baby Gap G-strings, I hadn’t been there ten minutes before there were three turds on the carpet. A superficially humorous but vicious dispute ensued about who had done the turds, following by a tense stripping off of towelling pants, immediately sparking another contest over the size of the boys’ genitals and, correspondingly, the husbands’.

“There’s nothing you can do, it’s a hereditary thing. Cosmo doesn’t have a problem in that area, does he?”

Thought head was going to burst with the racket. Eventually made my excuses and drove home, congratulating myself on being single.

a) What party did Bridget attend? Did she enjoy it?b) Why did Bridget congratulate herself on being single?

Extract 6Thursday 6 April

Went to meet Jude for quiet drink to talk about Flow some more and noticed a familiar besuited figure with knitting-pattern dark good looks sitting in a quiet corner having dinner: it was Magda’s Jeremy. Waved at him and just for split second saw

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expression of horror cross his face, which instantly made me look to his companion who was a) not Magda. b) not yet thirty, c) wearing a suit which I have tried on twice in Whistles and had to take off as too expensive. Bloody witch.

I could tell Jeremy was going to try to get away with the sort of quick “Hello not now” look which acknowledges your close, old and enduring friendship but at the same time demonstrates that this is not the moment to affirm it with kisses and an in-depth chat. I was about to play along with it but then I thought, hang on a minute! Sisters! Under the skin! Magda! If Magda’s husband has nothing to be ashamed of in dining with this worthless trollop in my suit, he will introduce me.

I altered my path to pass his table, at which he immersed himself deep in conversation with the trollop, glancing up as I walked past and giving me a firm, confident smile as if to say ‘business meeting.’ I gave him a look which said, “Don’t you business meeting me,” and strutted on.

What should I do now, though? Oh dear, oh dear. Tell Magda? Not tell Magda? Ring Magda and ask if everything’s OK? Ring Jeremy and ask him if everything’s OK? Ring Jeremy and threaten to tell Magda unless he drops the witch in my suit? Mind my own business?

I resolved serenely to tell no one, as gossip is a virulent spreading poison. Instead I will ring Magda a lot and be there for her so if anything is amiss (which she is bound, with woman’s intuition, to sense), she will tell me. Then if it seems the right thing to do, I will tell her what I saw.

a) Describe the incident that occurred between Bridget and Jeremy.b) Why was Bridget in two minds?

Extract 7Tuesday 11 April

8st alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, Instants 9 (this must stop).All seems normal with Magda and Jeremy so maybe it was just a business

meeting. Am invited to a glittering literati launch of Kafka’s Motorbike next week at the Ivy. Determined, instead of fearing the scary party, panicking all the way through and going home pissed and depressed, am going to improve social skills, confidence and Make Parties Work for Me – as guided by article have just read in magazine.

Apparently, Tina Brown of The New Yorker is brilliant at dealing with parties, gliding prettily from group to group, saying, “Martin Aims! Nelson Mandela! Richard Gere!” in a tone which at once suggests, “My God, I have never been more enchanted to see anyone in my entire life! Have you met the most dazzling person at the party apart from you? Talk! Talk! Must network! Byeee!” Wish to be like Tina Brown, though not, obviously, quite so hardworking.

The article is full of useful tips. One should never, apparently, talk to anyone at a party for more than two minutes. When time is up, you simply say, “I think we’re expected to circulate. Nice to meet you,” and go off. If you get lost for words after asking someone what they do to which they reply “Undertaker” or “I work for the

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Child Support Agency,” you must simply ask, “Do you enjoy that?” When introducing people add a thoughtful detail or two about each person so that their interlocutor has a conversational kicking-off point. E.g., “This is John – he’s from New Zealand and enjoys windsurfing.” Or, “Gina is a keen skydiver and lives on a barge.”

Most importantly, one must never go to a party without a clear objective: `whether it be to ‘network,’ thereby adding to your spread of contacts to improve your career, to make friends with someone specific; or simply ‘clinch’ a top deal. Understand where have been going wrong by going to parties armed only with objective of not getting too pissed.

a) What useful information did Bridget find in the article?b) Why does Bridget read such kind of articles?

Extract 8Sunday 2 July

8st 10 (continuing good work), alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, calories 995, Instants 0: perfect.

7.45 a.m. Mum just rang. “Oh, hello, darling, guess what?”“I’ll just take the phone in the other room. Hang on,” I said, glancing over

nervously at Daniel, unplugging the phone, creeping next door and plugging it in again only to find my mother had not noticed my absence for the last two and a half minutes and was still talking.

“So what do you think, darling?”“Um, I don’t know. I was bringing the phone into the other room like I said,” I

said.“Ah. So you didn’t hear anything?”“No.” There was a slight pause.“Oh, hello, darling, guess what?” Sometimes I think my mother is part of the

modern world and sometimes she seems a million miles away. Like when she leaves messages on my answerphone which just say, very loudly and clearly, “Bridget Jones’s mother.”

“Hello? Oh, hello, darling, guess what?” she said, again.“What?” I said resignedly.“Una and Geoffrey are having a Tarts and Vicars party in the garden on the

twenty-ninth of July. Don’t you think that’s fun! Tarts and Vicars! Imagine!”I tried hard not to, fighting off a vision of Una Alconbury in thigh boots, fishnet

nights and a peephole bra. For sixty-year-olds to organize such an event seemed unnatural and wrong.

“Anyway, we thought it would be super if you and” – coy, loaded pause – “Daniel, could come. We’re all dying to meet him.”

My heart sank at the thought of my relationship with Daniel being dissected in dose and intimate detail amongst the Lifeboat luncheons of Northamptonshire.

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“I don’t think it’s really Daniel’s – ” Just as I said that the chair I had, for some reason, been balancing on with my knees while I leaned over the table fell over with a crash.

When I retrieved the phone my mother was still talking.“Yes, super. Mark Darcy’s going to be there, apparently, with someone, so . . . ”“What’s going on?” Daniel was standing in the doorway. “Who are you talking

to?”“My mother,” I said, desperately, out of the corner of my mouth.“Give it to me,” he said, taking the phone. I like it when he is authoritative

without being cross like this.“Mrs Jones,” he said, in his most charming voice. “It’s Daniel here.”I could practically hear her going all fluttery.“This is very bright and early on a Sunday morning for a phone call. Yes, it is an

absolutely beautiful day. What can we do for you?”He looked at me while she chattered for a few seconds then turned back to the

receiver.“Well, that’ll be lovely. I shall put that in the diary for the twenty-ninth and look

out my dog collar. Now, we’d better get back and catch up on our sleep. You take care of yourself, now. Cheerio. Yes. Cheerio,” he said firmly, and put the phone down.

“You see,” he said smugly, “a firm hand, that’s all it needs.”

a) Where were Bridget and Daniel invited to? Why didn’t Bridget want to go there?b) Compare the style in which Bridget and Daniel speak to Mrs. Jones.

Extract 9Saturday 23 September

9st, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0 (v.v.g.), draft replies written to Mark Darcy’s invitation 14 (but at least has replaced imaginary conversations with Daniel).

10 a.m. Right. I am going to reply to Mark Darcy’s invitation and say quite clearly and firmly that I will be unable to attend. There is no reason why I should go. I am not a close friend or relation, and would have to miss both Blind Date and Casualty.

Oh God, though. It is one of those mad invitations written in the third person, as if everyone is so posh that to acknowledge directly in person that they were having a party and wondered if you would like to come would be like calling the ladies’ powder room the toilet. Seem to remember from childhood am supposed to reply in same oblique style as if I am imaginary person employed by self to reply to invitations from imaginary people employed by friends to issue invitations. What to put?

Bridget Jones regrets that she will be unable . . .Miss Bridget Jones is distraught, that she will be unable . . .

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Devastated does not do justice to the feelings of Miss Bridget Jones . . .It is with great regret that we must announce that so great wasMiss Budget Jones’s distress at not being able to accept thekind invitation of Mr. Mark Darcy that she has topped herselfand will therefore, more certainly than ever, now, be unable toaccept Mr. Mark Darcy’s kind . . . Ooh: telephone.It was Dad: “Bridget, my dear, you are coming to the horror event next

Saturday, aren’t you?”“The Darcys’ ruby wedding, you mean.”“What else? It’s been the only thing that has distracted your mother from the

question of who’s getting the mahogany ornament cabinet and nesting coffee tables since she got the Lisa Leeson interview at the beginning of August.”

“I was kind of hoping to get out of it.” The line went quiet at the other end.“Dad?” There was a muffled sob. Dad was crying. I think Dad is having a nervous

breakdown. Mind you, if I’d been married to Mum for thirty-nine years I’d have had a nervous breakdown, even without her running off with a Portuguese tour operator.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”“Oh, it’s just . . . Sony. It’s just . . . I was hoping to get out of it too.”“Well, why don’t you? Hurray. Let’s go to the pictures instead.”“It’s . . . ” he broke down again. “It’s the thought of her going with that greasy

beperfumed bouffant wop, and all my friends and colleagues of forty years saying ‘cheers’ to the pair of them and writing me off as history.”

“They won’t . . . ”“Oh yes, they will. I’m determined to go, Bridget. I’m going to get on my glad

rags and hold my head up high and . . . but . . . ” Sobs again.“What?”“I need some moral support.” 11:30 a.m. Miss Bridget Jones has great pleasure . . .Ms. Bridget Jones thanks Mr. Mark Darcy for his . . .It is with great pleasure that Miss Bridget Jones accepts . . .Oh, for God’s sake.

Dear Mark, Thank you for your invitation to your ruby wedding party for Malcolm and

Elaine. I would love to come. Yours, Bridget Jones

Hmmm. Yours,Bridget

or just Bridget

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Bridget (Jones) Right. Will just copy it out neatly and check spellings then send it.

a) What has changed in Bridget’s life? Is Daniel still her boyfriend?b) What do we learn about Bridget’s mother? How does Bridget’s dad feel?c) Why did Bridget first reject and then accept Mark Darcy’s invitation?

2. Analyse the language of the extracts. What is peculiar of the syntax and vocabulary of a diary?

3. Think of a possible ending for this story. What will happen to the characters of this book in the end?

4. Read some extracts from articles about “ Bridget Jones’s Diary” and do the tasks below.

Extract 1DID BRIDGET JONES REALLY LIBERATE US?

Contemporary men’s movements are taking part in a process of reassessment, reflecting upon what ’being a man’ means. Unfortunately, many of these ’men in crisis’ fall into the easy trap of blaming women’s growing advantages as the cause of their malaise. Women too, continue to reassess traditional notions of masculinity and femininity through pop culture.

While men are in crisis, many women continue to flick through the glossies and self-help manuals in an attempt to find their own problems, their own complex identities, reflected there. If some male commentators are suggesting that women, in their will to power, have taken a little bit of men’s essential selves with them, women are recognising that ’having it all’ demands some complex navigation between what is seen as masculine and what is seen as feminine.

The world of work and public life is so steeped in its masculine image and language that it is difficult for women not to become infected, and as a result be perceived as unhealthy ’masculine’ for simply trying to do their work as well as a man.

Good men are hard to find, if the common-sense aphorisms of popular culture are to be believed; in fact any available men seem to be in short supply. Belief in this ’fact’ shapes the agenda for women’s magazines. Having a career is all well and good, but not if it is at the expense of finding Mr. Right. All warn implicitly that the heady days of youth, glamour and social freedom are all too soon replaced by the lengthy twilight of terminal single status.

The ’singleton’ is, perhaps, the elder sister of the ladette. Once she has reached a certain level in her career, the biological imperative to ‘nest’ takes over. It is only then that the singleton realises her success in other fields has been at the expense of the one thing that ‘really’ matters — finding a man.

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Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) is one of those books which is credited with catching the mood of the period in its story of a young woman and her friends negotiating the obstacles of contemporary heterosexual courtship. Bridget neatly expresses the tensions of a woman who recognises the rhetoric of feminism and empowerment, but isn’t always able to relate this to her fulsome desire for a hero from a Jane Austen novel. The book revives the belief that a good romance thrives on conflict and antagonism between the sexes — all engendered by misunderstandings about the various modes of courtship adopted by each party. Helen Fielding’s use of an Austenesque plot dynamic affirms that this ’truth’ was known by Jane Austen when she wrote Pride and Prejudice. As Aminatta Forna observes, “It is now assumed that unequal relationships between men and women are the result of biology,” an idea which is supported by TV series such as Men Don’t Iron, aired on Channel 4 in 1998. Even if people don’t really believe that relationships are governed by some intrinsic Darwinian logic, increasing weight is given to the notion that man and woman simply think and express their emotions differently, and the popularity of John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1993) is testament to this.

The Diary addresses the perspective of gender by affirming that men are different, if equal, and that to ‘survive’ (in other words to conform and enter heterosexual monogamous bliss) one must learn to speak their language whilst celebrating the peculiarities of one’s own sex. In the case of women these include the overwhelming desire for coupledom based on a Cosmopolitan view of single womanhood, sexuality and sacrifice.

The second crucial lesson is that ‘after all, there is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism.’

As a flawed character Bridget Jones is engaging and certainly many readers’ responses are those of empathy and recognition of their own feelings; more than this she is contemporary womanhood packaged and polished by the women’s glossies such as Cosmopolitan. What glossies are good at, after all, is the stimulation of desire for what we haven’t got and the creation of anxiety about our own attributes; they wish us to believe that our aspirations are attainable with a little judicious remodelling and investment in the kinds of commodities advertised within their pages.

Bridget Jones and its ilk paint a bleak picture of the contemporary singles scene, with women seeking control through the dutiful accounting of the days ‘sins’ — calorie intake, cigarettes, alcohol. What is most depressing about the Bridget Jones effect is that because people find echoes of their own struggles with femininity in it, it somehow legitimates the measuring of ones own inadequacies through the body.

a) How are the notions “feminine” and “masculine” perceived nowadays?b) How is the perspective of gender described in the text?

Extract 2Interview: Pamela Paul discusses singledom

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Veils, flowers, music, bills ― chances are, someone close to you is having a June wedding. But Morning Edition will spend Tuesdays this month examining singleness. Americans are living longer, marrying later and outliving spouses for more years thanks to medical advances. So NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg decided to walk down the aisle of the unmarried where ‘I do’ is not necessarily the goal.

S u s a n S t a m b e r g (reporting). Bridget Jones is not alone in her fear of aloneness. Her biological clock is ticking. She’s on the wrong side of 30 and still not married. Lots of us are alone a lot. The year 2000 census found 82 million unmarried Americans. Of those, some 20 million were divorced, 13 1/2 million were widowed, and more than 48 million had never married. Over at American Demographics magazine, editor Pamela Paul finds these figures sobering but misleading.

M s . P a m e l a P a u l (Editor, American Demographics Magazine). Women still get married at an average age of 25 in this country; men get married at 27. Now that’s only three years older than they did in 1890. And I think sometimes, there’s a misperception that people are getting married a lot later because among certain demographics, among sort of older, more urban, more educated people, they’re putting marriage off longer. But the vast majority of Americans continue to get married at a fairly early age.

S t a m b e r g . But still, in certain circles anyway, single has become the new norm. So is there a way to see it as not simply a holding pattern but something of value in and of itself?

M s . P a u l . Well, I think it should be seen as something more than a holding pattern because we do know, for example, that the later you wait to get married, the more likely your marriage is to last. And so if people really regarded that period of dating as a time for self-exploration, I think that they would have a lot better time before they get married.

S t a m b e r g . But you’re thinking still about marriage as the norm and this extended period of time as not the norm just a way to get your chops in shape for when you get married.

M s . P a u l . Right. There’s very little attitude of being single for single’s sake. Most people think of singledom as a stage that is a step towards marriage, the same way that people think of cohabitation and living together before marriage generally as a testing ground and not an end in and of itself.

S t a m b e r g . There’s certainly a stigma to being single.M s . P a u l . Absolutely. And one of the greatest misperceptions, I think, about

our culture is that, you know, a lot of cultural critics will say, `Oh, it’s such an anti-marriage culture, and marriage is so disparaged.’ And the opposite is the case. I mean, all of these single TV shows and single books really are marriage bibles. I mean, if you look at Bridget Jones’s Diary or Ally McBeal, all of those women really wanted to get married. And then when you even look at something like Seinfeld, which is about urban singles, I mean, these people are depicted as downright neurotic.

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S t a m b e r g . It’s interesting, though, that this pull to marriage, this ultimate wish not to be single really still exists because so many of the reasons for marriage itself have changed. You know, you don’t have to get married to survive in North Dakota anymore as the pioneer. You don’t have to get married to have a sex life. I mean, there’s much more sexual freedom these days. There are reliable contraceptives so you don’t have to marry to make babies. Roles have changed so that women run corporations, men cook great dinners, and yet here marriage remains the expected state.

M s . P a u l . Definitely. I mean, it’s so interesting. Marriage has really gone from being a job for women – and that was really how you got your economic security – to being a choice. And yet, the overwhelming majority of women still say they want to get married. If you look at public opinion polls, 90 percent of high school seniors say they want to get married; 50 percent of high school seniors say they want to get married within five years which is pretty surprising.

S t a m b e r g . I find as an old married lady, 40 years, that this is all very encouraging. I must say it’s sort of sweet, isn’t it, this poll to coupleness.

M s . P a u l . Right. And I think what you’re seeing with Generation X is a kind of neo-traditionalism because on the one hand, there is this longing for these traditional institutions. And that, I think, in large part is a reaction against the baby boomers who were the ultimate rebels. They rebelled against every formal institution. Gen Xers, by no means, want to revert back to traditional roles within marriage. I mean, they’re not looking for the homemaker mother and the breadwinner husband. And men, as much as women, don’t want that. In fact, men very much want their wives to work. They want their wives to have independent lives, and they no longer want the responsibility of carrying the economic burden on their own.

S t a m b e r g . What would it take to erase the stigma, to get us thinking in new ways about this state of singledom?

M s . P a u l . I think that if there was more of a realistic discussion about marriage in this country, about what marriage can and cannot offer, then I think that people would really accept the state of singlehood much more for what it is. And what it really is, is a time for yourself. It’s a time to figure out who you are, where you stand in your world and what you want in another person. And to jump into marriage before you’ve established all that, I can tell from my own experience and from the experience of other divorcees I’ve talked to, is a huge mistake. Even if they don’t get married until the age of 32, given the life expectancy today, they’re still going to have 50 years of marriage. So there’s no rush.

a) Why has being single become the new norm?b) Is modern culture really anti-marriage?c) What are the advantages and disadvantages of marriage and singledom?

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Extract 3The Bridget Jones Economy

How young singles shape city culture, lifestyles and economiesBridget Jones’s Diary, depicts the life of a young woman who fails over and

over again to keep the new year’s resolutions that open the book on which the film is based. “I will not”, Bridget promises herself, “Drink more than 14 alcohol units a week. Smoke. Spend more than earn. Fall for any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, egalomaniacs, chauvinists, freeloaders, perverts. Sulk about having no boyfriend.” Bridget lives alone in London, worries constantly about being 30-something but still single, resents “Smug Marrieds”, lives mainly on chocolate, cigarettes and wine, and occasionally tries to dump the resulting cellulite with a trip to the gym. When her affair with her dreadful boss ends in the inevitable disaster, she is propped up by her gang of friends: two single women and a gay man.

Bridget may be a caricature, but only just. It portrays the people who now dominate and shape the rich world’s city life, not just in New York and London, but increasingly in Tokyo, Stockholm, Paris and Santiago: well-educated, single professionals in their 20s and 30s.

Moralists fret about them; marketing folk court them; urban developers want to lure them. They are the main consumers and producers of the creative economy that revolves around advertising, publishing, entertainment and media. More than any other social group, they have time, money and a passion for spending on whatever is fashionable, frivolous and fun.

Bridget and her friends have begun to show up in the census figures. Spotting them is tricky: many of those who live alone are not Bridgets, and many Bridgets share a pad with someone else. However, the evidence adds up. In America’s 2000 Census, one-person households outnumbered for the first time married families with children. Many of these households consist of divorced, widowed or elderly people. But the biggest rise in the 1990s was in the proportion of young people who are living alone.

In the past three decades, says Jason Fields of the US Census Bureau, the proportion of 20-24-year-old American women who have not married doubled from 36% to 73%; and that of 30-34-year-olds more than tripled, from 6% to 22%. Some of these singles – but again, not all – are single mothers, another fast-growing group. The 1990s saw a rise in the proportion of households in which people live with someone to whom they are not related, either by blood or marriage.

What explains the trend? The key seems to be the higher education of women. In most rich countries, more women than men now go to university; in particular, women make up more than half the students taking professional qualifications in subjects such as law and medicine. As new job opportunities unfold, they often earn as much as similarly qualified men. They find work is fun and it pays well, so they put off marriage. Husbands and babies can wait. “Today, people know that they are

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going to be married till they are 80. So 40 is the new 30,” says Marcus Matthews of Kaagan Research, a market-research firm.

Up to now, that has been a strategy that makes sense. More people marry today – at least once – than ever before. Thus fewer than 7% of Americans in their early 50s have never married. The result has been a sort of democratisation of marriage and motherhood, where almost all women marry and most have at least one child.

But the longer women delay, the bigger the chance of failing to do either. Bridget sums up the problem. “The trouble with trying to go out with people when you get older is that everything is so loaded,” she grumbles.

When you are partnerless in your 30s, the mild bore of not being in a relationship – no sex, not having anyone to hang out with on Sundays, going home from parties on your own all the time – gets infused with the paranoid notion that the reason you are not in a relationship is your age. The whole thing builds up out of all proportion, so finding a relationship seems a dazzling, almost insurmountable goal, and when you do start going out with someone it cannot possibly live up to expectations.

The odds are further stacked by the fact that the cities which attract Bridgets are also inevitably places where a disproportionate number of the men are gay. In “Boiler Room”, a film about life in New York, a group of beefy stockbrokers teases the gay men at the next table. “You guys ought to find your own island,” jeers one. “You’re on it,” retorts one of his targets. No wonder young New York women, already a majority, fret so much about the difficulties of finding a partner.

Because young singles have so much disposable money and because they set so many trends, they are a market that many companies long to sell to. But their independence and unpredictability make them hard to define and capture.

Bridget’s taste for booze makes her prime quarry for companies such as Allied Domecq, where Matt Wiant, head of American marketing, argues that the drinking tastes of young women are the key to creating a market for various spirits that were once drunk mainly by middle-aged men after dinner and with a cigar. Courvoisier brandy is a case in point: his company is trying to reinvent it by persuading young women to order it mixed with Cointreau and cranberry juice. Young men, he argues, look to their girlfriends for suggestions on what is and isn’t fashionable to quaff.

Young single women drink plenty: figures from the Life Style study by DDB, a market-research firm in Chicago, suggest that 45% of single 24-35-year-old women who earn at least $20,000 a year confess to having too much to drink sometimes, compared with 24% of women in general. “Blurry goofun tonight,” slurs Bridget after a binge. And they eat sporadically, when they are not dieting: Bridget is no whiz at maths, but she knows the calorific value of an olive to within a decimal point. Because cooking for one is a bore, and eating alone is miserable, singles are big buyers of pre-prepared food. Their ovens are for extra storage; the main cooking utensil is the microwave. Bridget Jones and her friends raid Marks & Spencer, a big British retailer, for “two bottles of wine (1 fizzy, 1 white)” and 1 tub hummus & pkt

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of mini-pittas 12 smoked salmon and cream cheese pin-wheels 1 raspberry pavlova1 tiramisu (party size) 2 Swiss Mountain Bars Marks & Spencer took rather longer than Ms Fielding to notice the part that it plays in stuffing calories into British singles. But the store recently realised that its portions-for-one of pre-prepared food were designed for the bird-like and conservative appetites of the elderly, and not for young women (let alone young men). It now does a good trade in large one-person helpings of ethnic goodies such as noodles and lamb tagine.

But the main thing that distinguishes Bridget from her married sisters is the amount of time and money she spends on simply having fun. Most of that fun happens outside the apartment. Scott McDonald, head of marketing research at Conde Nast, publishers of Vogue and other Bridget mind-fodder, is impressed by how much single professional women in their 30s spend on holidays, art classes, music lessons, health clubs, concerts, yoga classes, movies, eating out – and, of course, shopping and shopping.

In future, Bridget Jones may be more willing to settle sooner for marriage and less eager to find self-fulfilment at work. Young women reared to believe that a career is their birthright have done better in the job market than the marriage market. At the end of her day, Bridget is hugely relieved to find that Mark Darcy really loves her. Could that really be what matters most to single women in their 30s?

a) Why do women put off marriage nowadays?b) Why is it difficult for a woman like Bridget to find a partner?c) What makes such women as Bridget different from married women?

III 1. How is the problem of generation gap described in “Bridget Jones’s Diary”?

2.Speak on the “married vs. single” problem.

Section 3. Crime

Unit 10. The Inspiration of Mr Budd (by Dorothy L. Sayers)

I 1.Below, you will find several passages that represent about half of the short story The Inspiration of Mr Budd by Dorothy L. Sayers. After reading these passages can you guess what happens in the sections that were left out?

500 RewardThe Evening Messenger has decided to offer the above reward to any person

who shall give information leading to the arrest of the man, William Strickland, who is wanted by the police in connection with the murder of the late Emma Strickland at 59, Acacia Crescent, Manchester.

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Description of the Wanted ManThe following is the official description of William Strickland: Age 43; height 6

ft 1 or 2; complexion rather dark; hair silver-grey and abundant, may dye same; full grey moustache and beard, may now be clean-shaven; eyes light grey; left upper eye-tooth stopped with gold; left thumb-nail deformed by a recent blow.

Speaks in rather loud voice; quick, decisive manner.Disappeared 5th inst., and may have left, or will try to leave, the country.

Mr Budd read the description through carefully once again and sighed. It was most unlikely that William Strickland should choose his small and unsuccessful saloon, out of all the barbers’ shops in London, for a haircut or a shave, still less for ’dying same’; even if he was in London, which Mr Budd saw no reason to suppose.

(1)Even razor in hand, he would hardly be a match for William Strickland, height

six feet one or two, who had so fiercely beaten his old aunt to death. Shaking his head doubtfully, Mr Budd advanced to the door, and nearly ran into a large customer who dived in rather suddenly.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” murmured Mr Budd, fearful of losing nine-pence; “just stepping out for a breath of fresh air, sir. Shave, sir?”

(2)“I beg your pardon, sir,” he stammered, and in the same moment decided that

the man must be a preacher of some kind. He looked rather like it, with his odd, light eyes, his bush of fiery red hair and short chin-beard.

(3)“Fact is,” said the man, “my young lady doesn’t like red hair. She says it attracts

attention. Dark brown, now – that’s the colour she has a fancy for. And I’m afraid the beard will have to go. My young lady doesn’t like beards.”

“Will you have the moustache off as well, sir?”(4)

In fancy, Mr Budd saw this well-off and gentlemanly customer advising all his friends to visit ‘his man’. It was most important that there should be no failure. Hair-dyes were awkward things – there had been a case in the paper lately.

“I see you have been using a tint before, sir,” said Mr Budd with respect. “Could you tell me…?”

(5)Lightly talking about the feminine mind, Mr Budd gave his customer’s hair the

examination of trained eye and fingers. Never – never in the process of nature could hair of that kind have been red. It was naturally black hair, prematurely grey. However, that was none of his business. He received the information he really needed – the name of the dye formerly used, and noted that he would have to be careful. Some dyes don’t mix kindly with other dyes.

Chatting pleasantly, Mr Budd worked on, and as he used the roaring drier, talked of the Manchester murder.

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(6)The stranger read the paragraph very carefully and Mr Budd, watching him in

the glass, saw him suddenly draw back his left hand, which was resting carelessly on the arm of the chair, and push it under the white apron.

(7)There came back to him the exact number and extent of the brutal wounds

inflicted upon the Manchester victim – an elderly lady, rather stout, she had been. Glancing through the door, Mr Budd noticed that the streets were full of people. How easy it would be…

(8)Yet surely Mr Budd was in a position of advantage. A decided man would do it.

He would be out in the street before the customer could get out of the chair. Mr Budd began to move round towards the door.

(9)But after all, Mr Budd didn’t have to arrest the man himself.“Information leading to arrest” – those were the words. He would be able to tell

them the wanted man had been there, that he would now have dark brown hair and moustache and no beard.

It was at this moment that the great Inspiration came to Mr Budd.(10)

The streets were less crowded when Mr Budd let his customer out. He watched the tall figure cross Grosvenor Place and climb on to a 24 bus.

He closed the shop door, and in his turn made his way, by means of a 24, to the top of Whitehall.

Mr Budd was interviewed by an important-looking inspector in uniform, who listened very politely to his story and made him repeat very carefully about the gold tooth and the thumbnail and the hair which had been black before it was grey or red and was now dark-brown.

“But there’s one thing more,” said Mr Budd – “and I’m sure to goodness,” he added, “I hope, sir, it is the right man because if it isn’t it’ll be the ruin of me…”

Nervously he crushed his soft hat into a ball as he leant across the table, breathlessly uttering the story of his great professional betrayal.

The Miranda docked at Ostend at 7 a.m. A man burst hurriedly into the cabin where the wireless operator was just taking off his headphones.

(11)The Old Man with authoritative gestures cleared a way through the excited little

knot of people gathered about First Class Cabin № 36, for several passengers had heard of ‘something up’. Sternly he bade the stewards and the boy to stand away from the door. Terribly he commanded them to hold their tongues. Four or five sailors stood watchfully at his side. In the sudden silence, the passenger in № 36 could be heard pacing up and down the narrow cabin, moving things, clattering, splashing water.

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(12)At the sound of the bolt being carefully withdrawn, the Old Man stepped

forward. The door opened a chink, and was slammed to again, but the Old Man’s boot was firmly pushed into the opening. The policemen hurried forward. The passenger was brought out.

(13)Mr Budd got his 500. The Evening Messenger published the full story of his

great betrayal. He trembled, fearing his dangerous fame. Surely no one would ever come to him again.

On the next morning an enormous blue limousine rolled up to his door. A lady, magnificent in furs and diamonds, swept into the saloon.

(14)

2. Now put the missing passages in the right places.

a) “Eh?” said the man. “Oh, yes – well, fact is, as I said, my fiancee’s a good bit younger than I am. As I expect you can see I began to go grey early – my father was just the same – all our family – so I had it touched up – grey bits restored, you see. But she doesn’t like the colour, so I thought, if I have to dye it at all, why not a colour she does fancy while we’re about it, what?”

b) “Here!” he cried; “this is to go.” There’s something up and the Old Man’s sent over for the police. The Consul’s coming on board. A message to the English police:

“Man on board answering to description. Ticket booked name of Watson. Has locked himself in cabin and refuses to come out. Insists on having hairdresser sent out to him. Have communicated Ostend police. Await instructions.”

c) “Be as quick as you can, won’t you?” said the man, a little impatiently, but pleasantly enough. “It’s getting late. I’m afraid it will keep you overtime.”

“Not at all, sir,” said Mr Budd. “It doesn’t matter at all.”No – if he tried to rush out of the door, his terrible customer would jump upon

him, drag him back, and then with one frightful blow like the one he had given his aunt…

d) Presently he came steps overhead. Six pairs of Belgian police boots came tip-toeing down the stairs. The Old Man glanced at the official paper held out to him and nodded.

The Old Man knocked at the door of №. 36.“Who is it?” cried a harsh, sharp voice.“The barber is here, sir, that you sent for”.“Ah!” There was relief in his tone. “Send him in alone, if you please. I – I have

had an accident.”e) Nevertheless, Mr Budd committed the description, as well as he could, to

memory. It was a chance – and Mr Budd’s eye was always fascinated by headlines with money in them.

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He put the newspaper down, and as he did so, caught sight of his own reflection in the glass and smiled, for he was not without a sense of humour. He did not look quite the man to catch a brutal murderer single-handed. He was well on the middle forties – with a small paunch and pale hair, five feet six at most, and soft-handed, as a hairdresser must be.

f) “Do you do dyeing?” said the man impatiently.“Oh!” said Mr Budd, relieved, “yes, sir, certainly, sir.”A stroke of luck, this: dyeing meant quite a big sum.g) “The police seem to have given it up as a bad job,” said the man.“Perhaps the reward will liven things up a bit,” said Mr Budd, the thought being

naturally uppermost in his mind.“Oh, there’s a reward, is there? I hadn’t seen that.”“It’s in tonight’s paper, sir. Maybe you’d like to have a look at it.”h) “You are Mr Budd, aren’t you?” she cried. “The great Mr Budd? Isn’t it too

wonderful? And now, dear Mr Budd, you must do me a favour. You must dye my hair green, at once. Now. I want to be able to say I’m the very first to be done by you. I’m the Duchess of Winchester, and that awful Melcaster woman is chasing me down the street – the cat!”

If you want it done, I can give the number of Mr Budd’s parlours in Bond street. But I understand it is a terribly expensive process.

i) But not before Mr Budd had seen it. Not before he had taken conscious note of the horny, deformed thumb-nail. Many people had such an ugly mark, Mr Budd told himself hurriedly, but the man glanced up, and the eyes of his reflection became fixed on Mr Budd’s face in a serious examination.

“Well,” said Mr Budd, “the man is safe out of the country by now, I reckon. They’ve put it off too late.”

The man laughed.“I reckon they have,” he said. Mr Budd wondered whether many men with

smashed left thumbs showed a gold upper left eye-tooth. Probably there were hundreds of people like that going about the country. Likewise with silvery-grey hair (‘may dye same’) and aged about forty-three. Undoubtedly.

j) As he fetched a bottle from the glass-fronted case he remembered an old-fashioned paper-knife that had belonged to his mother. Hand-painted, it bore the inscription ‘Knowledge is Power’.

Mr Budd now felt a strange freedom and confidence; he removed the razors with an easy, natural movement, and made light conversation as he skillfully applied the dark-brown tint.

k) The large man tore off his overcoat without waiting for Mr Budd’s helping hands.

“Are you prepared to die?” he demanded abruptly.The question fitted so alarmingly with Mr Budd’s thoughts about murder that for

a moment it quite threw him off his professional balance.l) “Well, no-no, I think I’ll stick to that as long as I’m allowed to, what?” He

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laughed loudly, and Mr Budd approvingly noted well-kept teeth and a gold stopping. The customer was obviously ready to spend money on his personal appearance.

m) “What’s the matter?” said the customer. “Just stepping out to look at the time, sir,” said Mr Budd softly and stopped. He retreated to the back of the shop, collecting his materials. If only he had been quicker – more like a detective in a book – he would have observed that that thumbnail, that tooth, put two and two together, and run out to give the alarm while the man’s beard was wet and soapy and his face buried in the towel. Or he could put lather in his eyes – nobody could possibly commit a murder or even run away down the street with his eyes full of soap.

n) “Strike me pink!” screamed the boy, “strike me pink if he ain’t gone green in the night!”

Green!Not for nothing had Mr Budd studied the complicated reactions of chemical

dyes. In the pride of his knowledge he had set a mark on his man, to mark him out from all the billions of this overpopulated world. Was there a port in all the world where a murderer might slip away, with every hair on him green as a parrot – green moustache, green eye-brows, and that thick, springing mass of hair, vivid, flaring midsummer green?

II 1.Read the complete text one more time.

2.Answer the questions.1)Why did Mr Budd memorize the description of the man wanted by the police?2)Why did Mr Budd think he would hardly be a match for William Strickland?3)What did Mr Budd suppose when his customer said, ’Are you prepared to die?’ What did the customer really mean?4)What made Mr Budd suspect the customer?5)What was Mr Budd’s first impulse?6)What was Mr Budd’s great inspiration?7)How was the murderer captured?8)How was Mr Budd rewarded for his ingenious idea?9)Why did the Duchess of Winchester want to have her hair dyed green?

3.Find facts from the text to prove that:1)Mr Budd believed it next to impossible that he should ever meet the criminal face to face.2)Mr Budd was no match for William Strickland.3)Mr Budd gradually realized that his customer was the man wanted by the police.4)William Strickland did not know that he was identified by Mr Budd.5)For Mr Budd knowledge really and truly proved to be power.

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4.Explain the meaning of the following words and word combinations in English.

to commit smth to memoryto be a match for smb/smthto have a fancy for smthto be the ruin of smbto set a mark on smb/smthto stammer

tintuppermostto paceto clatterto liven things upto be in a position of advantage

III 1.Give a story of how things might have developed had Mr Budd rushed out into the street for help.

2.Tell the story of Mr Budd’s great professional betrayal as he might have told it to the police inspector.

3.The most impossible of things may become the current fashion. Write a story to illustrate how it sometimes happens.

4.Additional tasks.

a)Sort out the two stories.The General’s Visit / No Teeth

1)He immediately ordered a pool and courts to be built.2)Some weeks later Peter met his friend in the street, and the friend asked him what had happened.3)Peter had been called up, but he didn’t want to join the army, so he asked his friend what he should do.4)When he was asked why he would not give benches to primary children but wanted prisoners to have a swimming pool, he replied, ’Do you think I will ever go back to primary school?’5)His friend said, “Well, why don’t you have all your teeth pulled out? You won’t get past the medical then.”6)A general visited a primary school where the children said they had no benches to sit on.7)Some time later he visited a prison. The men there complained they had no swimming pool and no tennis courts.8)Peter, who had no teeth left, mumbled, “The officer said I was no good to the army – I’ve got flat feet!”9)He told the kids there were no benches – they must make sacrifices for their country.

b)Solve the puzzle.

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The MurderersNew York,

from our own correspondentPolice arrested five men suspected of shooting and killing Richard K. Foxy, the

well-known nightclub owner. They now know which of the five men is the killer.Each man made two statements during the questioning, one of which was true

and one false. Here are the five statements:D a d d y L o n g - L e g s . I didn’t kill Foxy. Square-Head murdered him.S h o r t y . I sure never shot that guy. These other four all say they’re innocent.S q u a r e -H e a d . Just look at that guy’s face: Big-Nose shot Foxy dead. I’m

not guilty.F a t t y . Square-Head’s the guilty one. I’m innocent.B i g -N o s e . I had nothing whatever to do with this murder. Daddy Long-Legs

and Fatty are the killers.

Unit 11. Crime

I 1.Study the words.flog – пороть, сечьdetention – задержание, арестconcurrent – совпадающий, действующий одновременноinmate – обитательdiscernible – видный, различимыйgrave – серьезныйcustody – опека, попечительство

2.Match the words and their definitions.guardianmanslaughterreformatoryjuvenilepay amendsunrulyprobationphase out

-of or for young people-the crime of killing a person illegally, but not intentionally-the system of allowing certain lawbreakers not to go to prison, if they behave well-a special school for young people who have broken the law-difficult to control-to stop or remove-someone who has responsibility of looking after a child that is not their own-pay for some harm, damage

II 1.Read the following text. Arrange the paragraphs in the right order.

’Cops, Courts and Correction’Recent events have once again focused attention on the treatment of young

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offenders rather than the prevention of youth crime.a) In another case a 15-year-old from Leeds was found last June to have stolen

400 cars worth more than £3 million pounds within a year.Such cases have prompted calls from politicians of all parties, the police, judges

and magistrates for more effective measures to deal with young offenders. Particular concern has been expressed about “persistent” offenders: young people who are frequently arrested and taken to court but released because the courts have no powers to lock up people of their age.

b) But the first big reforms came only in the 1840s, when “reformatories” were formed specifically for juveniles. These were "secure" institutions where young criminals, orphans and abandoned children could be locked up, often for five years or more. The aim was to reform and improve them by harsh discipline, work and religious instruction. They were punished by being beaten with the birch, a bundle of twigs.

In 1908 the first juvenile courts were set up; previously young people had been tried by adult courts. The age of criminal responsibility (the age at which children are held to be responsible for their actions) was set at eight years. The probation service was set up to “advise, assist and befriend” youngsters, a factor which cut the numbers of juveniles locked up. Older juveniles aged 16 and over who broke the law could be sent to “Borstals”. These were established to provide training in a craft or a trade under strict regimes and enable the trainees to gain employment and be better equipped for life outside.

c) The approved schools were themselves renamed “community homes with education” in 1969. Some, for more unruly youngsters, were secure. Borstals were abolished in 1982 and replaced by “youth custody centres” for 15- to 21-year-olds. These continued the element of training.

In a response to public concern about youth crime, the Conservative government revived the idea of the "short, sharp shock". It introduced this regime to some detention centres, which had been running concurrently with Borstals for 14- to 16-year-olds. The Government hoped it would deter youngsters from returning to crime.

d) The number of informal warnings by police to youngsters has also increased. These warnings are not recorded, so again the amount of juvenile crime might have been underestimated.

The powers which courts have to deal with serious offenders in their early teens were limited in 1988 by the Criminal Justice Act. This prevented youngsters under 14 from being locked up for any crime other than murder or manslaughter, a less serious category of unlawful killing. Last October that age limit was raised to 15.

For 150 years governments have tried to strike a balance between punishing and reforming young offenders. Two hundred years ago children were hanged and put in jail merely for stealing food. Pressure for reform in the 1820s led to cuts in the number of offences attracting the death penalty.

e) However, some organizations are concerned that there has been little in the debate about prevention. Crime Concern argues in a new document on youth crime:

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“Too many crime-prevention programmes focus exclusively on ‘cops, courts and correction’. We need to pay as much attention to preventing crime as we currently do to reacting to it.”

f) According to the Home Office, the government department responsible for criminal policy and crime prevention: “The amount of crime for which juveniles are known to have been responsible has fallen sharply over the last decade, following an increase in the 1970s.”

But the compilers of these statistics say that they must be treated with caution. They exclude the large amount of unreported crimes. Many of the remaining crimes are not solved — so they cannot be classified as “adult” or “juvenile” crime. Additionally, the number of juveniles in the general population has fallen by a fifth in the past 10 years.

g) The murder last month of two- year-old Jamie Bulger in Bootle has heightened the public’s vague sense of unease that crime involving young people may be getting worse.

The case follows some other well- publicised examples in which juveniles — boys or girls aged between 10 and 17 — have been accused of committing serious crimes. Two weeks ago an 11- year old boy appeared on television in a balaclava mask outside an elderly couple’s house. He had crashed a stolen car into the garden and been arrested, but the police had no authority to keep him in custody to await trial.

h) Today, the main political parties are starting to agree that new measures are needed to control the persistent young offender. The Government is planning to bring back secure institutions for 12- to 15-year-old offenders on the lines of the old approved schools.

The Labour party says that persistent young offenders should be locked up as a last resort. But it opposes a return to approved schools. Labour wants the number of secure places provided by the local authorities, for serious offenders, to be increased.

i) In 1933 the 19th-century reformatories were renamed “approved schools” for 10- to 15-year-olds. The age of criminal responsibility was raised to 10 in England and Wales, although it remained at eight in Scotland. The aim continued to be reform. Boys under 14 could still be flogged but this was stopped in 1948, when detention centres were set up for more serious and persistent juvenile offenders. Like prisons, they were criticized for putting people into a setting where they learned more about crime.

Short, sharp failureThe Conservative government in 1979 proposed a “short, sharp shock” to

cure persistent offenders and deter others. In 1981, inmates at four detention centres were set drill and exercise. Many enjoyed the chance to get fitter. In 1984, the Home Office stated that the initiative “had no discernible effect on the rate at which trainees were reconvicted”. Half were convicted of a crime within a year of release. The scheme was phased out soon afterwards.

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2.Answer the questions.1)What recent events have focused public attention on the treatment of young offenders?2)Why statistics on juvenile crime are to be treated with caution?3)What changes did the Criminal Justice Act (1988) bring?4)What was the essence of the reforms of 1820s, 1840s?5)What changes have been introduced in the 20th century to control the persistent young offenders?6)Do recently introduced crime-prevention programmes really concentrate on preventing crime?

3.Compare different punishing and reforming measures for young offenders in Britain.

4.Read the following text.

Young Offenders and the LawUnder 10You cannot be guilty of a criminal offence.You can be taken into local authority care if you are beyond the control of a

parent or guardian. In extreme cases, with the permission of the Health secretary, you can be put in a secure community home.

10 – 13A child over 10 is capable of a criminal offence, but can only be convicted in

court if he/she knows the difference between right and wrong.Greater use is being made of informal methods instead of courts: eg caution by

police, making amends such as repairing damaged property.Persistent offenders can be dealt with by Young Courts except in cases of

murder or manslaughter which are heard in adult Crown Courts.For grave crimes this age group can be put in secure community homes.Very disturbed and delinquent children can be placed in a secure Youth

Treatment Centre until the age of 18, but only with the Health Secretary’s permission. Such cases are very rare.

Young offenders who appear in court can be:-fined or made to pay compensation (parents or guardians are ordered to pay);-put under the supervision of a social worker or probation officer;-given an “absolute discharge” for trivial crimes. This means they are not

punished.14+Between 14 and 16, a child is legally defined as a “young person” and presumed

to know the difference between right and wrong.The same penalties apply as for 10 to 13 age group but the risk of a custodial

sentence increases.

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From 14-17: youngsters accused of serious offences, which for an adult would carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, can be tried by the adult Crown Court.

15: offenders can be locked up in a Young Offender Institution for 2 to 12 months. They can also be held in police custody to await trial if no secure local-authority accommodation is available or if the court decides that this is necessary to protect the public.

16: offenders can be ordered to do community service, can be put on probation and are liable to pay fines or compensation themselves.

17: offenders are still dealt with by Youth courts but can be held in custody in the same way as an adult if they are thought likely to go missing or commit another crime.

5.Agree or disagree with the following statements.1)You can be guilty of a criminal offence at 8.2)A child of 10 can be convicted in court.3)A child of 13 is punished even for trivial crimes.4)At 15, a young criminal faces the same penalties as the 10 to 13 age group.5)Offenders of 17 are still dealt with by Youth Court.

6.Read the following text.

Out of the Mouths of the BabesIn a new survey young people describe their experiences of crime and suggest

possible causes and solutions.Young people are just as worried as their parents by the cases reported in the

media and by crime which they suffer themselves, according to a new survey by criminologists. In fact, youngsters could be said to have more reason to fear violent crime because they are its most common victims.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University carried out the survey on two large council estates near Birmingham. They questioned 307 youngsters who were aged between 13 and 17 about crime, its causes and possible solutions.

According to Kate Painter, who organized the research, the findings contradict the view of some public figures that juvenile crime is increasing. She says the findings show that very few teenagers are involved in stealing cars, burglary, robbery and assaults.

The 148 boys and 159 girls questioned were from families with high levels of unemployment. A high percentage had single parents and most were still at school.

Strict rules were observed to encourage those questioned to answer honestly. All were questioned with their parents’ permission but parents had to be out of the room during interviews. Answers to questions about varieties of crime committed were put in unmarked envelopes to keep the respondents anonymous and discourage them

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from boasting.Two out of every five boys and girls had played truant from school, a quarter

regularly smoked and about 7 out of 10 had drunk alcohol. Roughly a fifth said they had taken money from home and a smaller percentage had shoplifted.

Thirty-three per cent of the boys, and 26 per cent of the girls, said they had hit and injured somebody in a public place. Only one per cent had broken into a house or shop. Three per cent, girls as well as boys, had take vehicle and driven it away. Seven per cent had used a weapon in a fight, twice as many carried weapons for protection.

But what came through strongly was the large number of youngsters who had also been victims of crime or the threat of crime. Fifteen per cent had been stopped by male drivers they did not know asked to get into their cars. Similar numbers had been followed by a stranger in a car or on foot. A fifth said they had been assaulted in the street.

When asked why youngsters they knew committed crimes, 79 per cent cited boredom and 58 per cent said offenders had no sense of right and wrong. A lack of leisure facilities was blamed by half and 44 per cent blamed parental neglect.

More police officers on foot patrol was the most popular solution reducing juvenile crime, and was suggested by nearly 7 out of 10. Sixty-five per cent said there should be more discipline and supervision by parents.

In fact, the majority of those surveyed revealed the presence of caring parents. Seven out of 10 were taken by parents and 61 per cent said their parents wanted to know where they were and what they were doing at times. Eighty-five per cent said they could talk to their mother or father about anything that troubled them.

Three-quarters had never been hit by either parent but were shouted at or threatened for wrongdoing, whereas 16 per cent were hit sometimes or often. Sixty-nine per cent said their parents explained to them why certain things were wrong.

Ms Painter says that the findings still need proper analysis and will not be published for another year. But we can already see that there is consensus among young people and adults about strategies for preventing crime and why young people offend.

Are our kids out of control? The answer is no, but there is a substantial minority of children who are neglected. You can deduce from that that those children are more likely to get involved in crime if there is nobody checking up on them.

“In the past, 18- to 21-year-old working-class kids got jobs and married. The best antidote to crime is a steady job and a steady relationship.”

6. Say, what these figures relate to:79%, 7 out of 10, 307, 26%, 148, 159, 44%, 58%, ¾, 2 out of 5, ¼, 61%, 69%.

7.Complete the following sentences.1)Youngsters are worried by the criminal cases reported in the media because…2)The findings show that…3)The youngsters questioned were encouraged…

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4)There is consensus among young people and adults about…5)There is a substantial minority of children who…6)Those children are most likely…

8.What are the possible causes of teenage crime experience? What are the possible solutions?

9.Insert the following words in the sentences below.detention concurrent inmate discernible grave custody probation phase out magistrate persistent caution underestimate secure try liable assault findings

1)He is serving two _ prison sentences.2)I kept telling him I wasn’t interested in his offer, but he was _.3)There is still no _ improvement in the economic situation.4)The boy came up before the _ on a charge of theft.5)She was held in police _ for six hours.6)Don’t _ his abilities.7)They were released from _ without being charged.8)Their claims should be treated with great _.9)Make the windows _ before leaving the house.

10)The _ of the committee on child care are due to be published soon.11)The bus service to country areas is being _.12)The situation poses a _ threat to peace.13)The army launched a major _ against the rebel town.14)They’re going to _ him for murder.15)The young offender was put on _ for two years.16)One of the _ has escaped.17)He declared that he was not _ for his wife’s debts.

III 1.You are a politician (policeman, judge, psychologist, sociologist). Suggest measures to deal with young offenders, relying on your own experience.

2.Write a short essay on the topic “Are our kids out of control?”.

3.Additional tasks. a)Spot the lies.

Crime WaveMore and more crimes are being reported in the city’s daily papers. People are

getting more and more frightened. They are demanding immediate action. So much newspaper space is taken up with crimes that the Police Commissioner is seriously embarrassed. He has promised to act quickly to reduce the number of crimes.

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b)Read and say what you think.Twelve years ago, Bonnie Garland, a pretty, upper-class Yale student, was

murdered. Her estranged boyfriend went up to her bedroom one night and with a hammer cracked her head open “like a watermelon”, as he put it. Murders are a dime dozen in America. But the real story here, the real horror, chronicled in painful detail by Williard Gaylin (in The Killing of Bonnie Garland), was the aftermath: sympathy turned immediately from victim to murderer, a Mexican American recruited to Yale from the Los Angeles barrio. Within five weeks he was free on bail, living with the Christian Brothers and attending a local college under an assumed name. Friends raised $30,000 for his defense. “From my investigation,” wrote Gaylin, “it is clear that more tears have since been shed for the killer than for the victim”.

Now in New York City another awful crime. A 28-year-old jogger was attacked in Central Park by a gang of teens from nearby Harlem. Police say the boys hunted her down, beat and raped her savagely and left her for dead. At week’s end she remained in a comma.

In New York the instinct to “garland” the monstrous – to extenuate brutality and make a victim of the victimizer – is more attenuated than in the Ivy League. The New York tabloids, the moral voice of the community, are full-throated in their vilification of the monstrous “wolf pack”. It is their social betters, those from the helping professions, who have lost their moral compass. It is they who would Garland this attack if they could.

These children are “damaged”, explains forensic psychologist Shawn Johnston. “They are in pain inside … acting out their pain on innocent victims. In the case of the Central Park beating, they picked a victim that was mostly likely to shock and outrage. That speaks to how deep their anger and despair is.”

“We have to be honest,” explains psychologist Richard Majors. “Society has not been nice to these kids.”

“They’re letting out anger,” explains Alvin Poussaint, the Harvard educator and psychiatrist. “There’s a lot of free-floating anger and rage among a lot of our youth.”

Rage? Upon arrest, police said, the boys joked and rapped and sang. Asked why he beat her head with a lead pipe, Yusef Salaam was quoted by investigators as saying “It was fun”. The boys have not yet been taught to say they did it because of rage, pain and despair, because of the sins whites have visited upon them and their ancestors. But they will be taught. By trial time, they will be well versed of the language of liberal guilt and exoneration.

How could boys have done something so savage? We have two schools. The “rage” school, which would like to treat and heal these boys. And the “monster” school, which would like to string them up.

I’m for stringing first and treating later. After all, the monster theory, unlike the rage theory, has the benefit of evidence. What distinguishes these boys is not their anger – Who is without it? – but their lack of any moral faculty. Acts of rage are usually followed by reflection and shame. In this case, these characteristics appear to be entirely missing.

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The boys were not angry. They were “wilding”. Wilding is not rage, it is anarchy. Anarchy is an excess of freedom. Anarchy is the absence of rules, of ethical limits, of any moral sense. These boys are psychic amputees. They have lost, perhaps never developed, that psychic appendage we call conscience.

Conscience may be inbred, but to grow it needs cultivation. The societal messages that make it through the din of inner-city rap ’n’ roll conspire to stunt that growth. They all but drown out those voices trying to nurture a sense of responsibility, the foundation of moral character.

For example, the fatuous Cardinal O’Connor could not resist blaming the park assault on, well, society. We must all “assume our responsibility”, he intoned, “for being indifferent to the circumstances that breed crimes of this sort.” What circumstances? “Communities which know nothing but frustration”.

When the Rev. Calvin Butts III of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church was asked by CBS about the attack, he spoke of “the examples that our children are faced with”. Such as? “We’ve had President resign, foreign Prime Ministers resign in disgrace. We’ve had Oliver North lie publicly on television… And many of our youngsters, across racial lines, see that and then act it out.”

Richard Nixon, Noboru Takeshita and Ollie North may have much to answer for in the next world, but the savaging of a young woman in Central Park is not on the list. The effect of such preposterous links is to dilute the notion of individual responsibility. Entire communities are taught to find blame everywhere but in themselves. The message takes. New York Newsday interviewed some of the neighbors of the accused and found among these kids “little sympathy for the victim.” Said a twelve-year-old: “She had nothing to guard herself; she didn’t have no man with her; she didn’t have no Mace.” Added another sixth-grader: “It is like she committed suicide.”

There is a rather large difference between suicide and homicide. For some, the distinction is not obvious. They must be taught. If not taught, they grow up in a moral vacuum. Moral vacuums produce moral monsters.

Young monsters. The attackers are all 14 to 17. Their youth is yet another source of mitigation. In addition to class and racial disadvantage, we must now brace ourselves for disquisitions on peer pressure, adolescent anomie and rage.

Spare us the Garlanding. The rage in this case properly belongs to the victim, to her family and to us.

Charles KrauthammerCrime and Responsibility

Unit 12. Terrified (by C. B. Gilford)

I 1.Look at the sentences from the story. What is the story about?“Right now the road seemed deserted.”“There’d been people in that other car.”

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“It’ll be called an accident.”

2.Study the words.thriving – процветающийdoze – дрематьcourtesy – вежливостьdim – затемнятьvindictive – мстительныйhog – захватитьconcede – уступатьfender – крыло (автомобиля)skid – тормозить, скользитьavalanche – лавинаnumb – онемелыйflit – пронестисьscuffling – шаркающий

lurid – неестественно яркий, шокирующийrove – блуждать (о взгляде)fathom – вникать, пониматьwell – бить ключомbabble – лепетатьdisdain – презиратьcajole – упроситьdefy – пренебрегатьonslaught – нападениеslack off – ослабитьspout out – болтатьblot out – закрывать, затемнять

3.Complete the sentences using the words from Ex. I 1 in the correct form.1)The government _ defeat as soon as the election results were known.2)The anaesthetic made my arm go _.3)I’ve been trying to _ out how to do it.4)The papers gave all the _ details of the murder.5)How are your children? _, I hope!6)Our army tried to withstand the enemy _.7)His eyes _ about the crowded room looking for the mysterious stranger.8)He’s been _ the bathroom and no one else can get in.9)If the road is icy it’s easy to _.

10)We received an _ of inquiries.

II 1.Read the text.Paul Santin had had a good day. Small town doctors and drug stores were doing

a thriving business, and, therefore, so was Paul Santin, pharmaceutical salesman. But it had been a long day, and now it was past eleven. Santin was driving fast on the country back road, trying to make it home before midnight.

He was tired, sleepy, fighting to stay awake for another half hour. But he was not dozing. He was in complete control of his car. He knew what he was doing.

He’d passed few other cars. Right now the road seemed deserted. He’d chosen this route just for that reason. Light traffic. And that’s the way it was - an almost empty road – when he saw the other car.

He saw it first as a pair of headlights rounding the curve a quarter mile ahead. The lights were fantastically bright, and the driver failed to dim them. Santin cursed him, whoever he was. He dimmed his own lights, but received no answering courtesy. He cursed again, vindictively switched his own lights back to highway

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brightness. But he sensed no real danger in it.He was vaguely aware that the other car was rocketing toward him at high

speed. Too much speed for the kind of road they were on. Mechanically, he slacked off on the accelerator, concentrated on staying on his side of the road, and on not looking directly at those oncoming lights.

But it was much too late when he realized the other car was hogging the centre of the road. And he had to make his decision too quickly. Whether he bore right in, perhaps leaning on his horn, hoping the other driver would pull aside. Or to hit the shoulder and take his chances with gravel and dirt.

He took the second choice, but not soon enough. He saw the other car wasn’t going to concede an inch; so he swerved to the right. The blow was delivered against his left rear fender and wheel. The rear of his car skidded ditchward ahead of the front. Then the whole car seemed to defy gravity. It rolled sideways, leaped into the air, throwing Santin clear of itself at the top of the leap.

He didn’t see or hear the final crash of the machine. All his consciousness was in the impact of his body against the hillside that met him like a solid wall; then he slid downwards in the midst of a miniature avalanche of small stones and dirt. Afterward he lay still, and so was all the world around him.

In that first moment, he felt no pain. The shock had numbed him. But he knew he was alive. He knew he was somehow conscious. He was also distantly, vaguely aware that his body was broken and beginning to bleed.

The blinding lights were gone. He was lying on his back in a patch of weeds. Above him were the stars and a bright full moon. They seemed closer to him than they had ever seemed before. Perhaps it was that optical illusion that first gave him the idea he was going to die.

At that moment, he felt no anger about it. He could remember his anger before the crash, but it was a distant, unreal thing to him. Again the thought of dying flitted across his mind. The dying feel nothing toward other creatures. They are completely concerned with themselves.

Then he heard the voices. A renewal of contact with the world. There’d been people in that other car. He wondered about them, calmly, without fury, without sympathy. But he gave all his attention to the listening.

“He isn’t here.” A masculine voice a bit young.The other car had been hit too. It had been stopped. Or perhaps the driver had

stopped the car without being forced to. Anyway, the people from the car, whoever they were, had walked back to his car and were looking for him.

To help him? His first instinct was to call out, guide them to where he lay. They’d been selfish in hogging the road, but now they were charitable, wanting to aid. But then another instinct rose to fight against the first. Would they really be friendly? Suddenly he felt terrified of them. Without knowing why. Surely everybody wants to help accident victims. Don’t they?

“He must have been thrown out.” A girl’s voice answering. Frightened.“I guess so. What’ll we do?” The same masculine voice. So there must be only

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two of them.“Look for him,” the girl said.A hesitation. “Why?”Another hesitation. “Don’t you want to know what happened to him ... or her?”“I don’t know.” The masculine voice trembled. “I don’t know ...”“I think we ought to look around and find him.”“Okay ... It’s dark though.”“You’ve got a flashlight, haven’t you?”“Sure. I’ll get it.”Footsteps up on the road. The boy returning to his own car for the flashlight.

And then silence again.Santin waited, trembling in a sweat of new fear. He hadn’t liked the sound of

those voices. That boy and girl weren’t people who would care. If he was dying, they weren’t people who would be of much help.

If he was dying? He was certain of it. The pain was beginning now. He could identify it in several places. His face, his chest, both his legs. And somewhere deep inside him, where nobody could reach but a doctor. That was the area of pain that made him certain of death.

So it didn’t matter, did it? Whether or not they found him with their flashlight?“Okay, I’ve got it.” The boy’s voice. “Where do we look?”“In the ditch, I guess.”Scuffling footsteps, disturbing gravel, crunching through grass and brush. Then

a winking light, sweeping back and forth. Both the light and the footsteps getting nearer. Inevitably, they would find him. He could speed their search by calling to them. But he didn’t. He waited.

“Hey!”The light was in his face. Paralyzed, he couldn’t seem to turn away from it. The

footsteps hurried. And then they were there. Two forms standing over him, outlined against the sky. And the light shining in his eyes. He blinked, but they didn’t seem to understand that the light bothered him.

“He’s alive.” The girl. “His eyes are open.”“Yeah. I see ...”“But he’s hurt.” The figure who was the girl knelt down beside him, mercifully

shielding him from the flashlight. Because of the brightness of the moon, he could see her face.

She was young, terribly young, sixteen maybe. She was pretty too, her hair dark, her skin pale, perhaps abnormally so, her made-up mouth lurid in contrast. But there was no emotion in her face. She was in shock possibly. But as her eyes roved over his injuries, no sympathy lighted in her eyes.

“You’re pretty badly hurt, aren’t you?” The question was right at him.“Yes ...” He discovered he could speak without great difficulty.“Where? Do you know?”“All over, I guess. Inside especially.”

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The girl was thoughtful over his reply. Her next question seemed cold, calculated. “Do you think you could pull through if we got help?”

He thought too, gave himself time to answer. But even so, he made a mistake. “I think I’m going to die,” he said, and knew he had made a mistake as soon as he’d said it.

The girl’s face changed somehow, imperceptibly. Santin couldn’t fathom the change. He only knew it had happened. She pulled away from him, rose to her feet, rejoining the boy.

“He’s going to die,” she said. As if she knew it as certainly as San-tin himself.“There’s no use trying to find a doctor then, is there?” The boy sounded

relieved, as if his responsibility for this whole thing had ended now.“I guess not.”“What’ll we do then?”“Nothing, I guess. Just wait here. A car’s bound to come along sometime.”“We can ride back to town then, huh?” The boy seemed to depend completely

on the girl for leadership.“Sure. We can send a doctor or somebody back. But this guy will probably be

dead by then. And we’ll have to report to the police.”“The police?”“We’ll have to. You killed a man.”There was silence then. Santin lay at their feet, looking up at the two silhouetted

figures. They were talking about him as already dead. But somehow it didn’t anger him yet. Maybe because he considered himself dead too.

“Arlene ... what’ll they do to me?”“Who, the police?”“Yes ... You said I killed a man.”“Well, you did, didn’t you?”The boy hesitated. “But it was an accident,” he managed finally. “You know it

was an accident, don’t you, Arlene? I mean, it just happened ...”“Sure.”They were talking softly, but Santin could hear every word they said. And he

felt compelled somehow to speak. “Every accident is somebody’s fault,” he told them.

They were startled. He could see them look at each other, then down at him again. “What do you mean by that, mister?” the boy asked after a moment.

“This accident was”“First of all, you didn’t dim your lights ...”“Well, neither did you.”“I did at first.”“But you switched back to highway lights again.”“Only after you refused to dim.”The boy was silent again for a moment. Then he said, “But when we hit, you

had your lights on bright.”

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Santin had to admit it. "I got mad," he said. “But that’s not the most important thing. You were driving over on my side of the road.”

The boy’s face went around to the girl. “Arlene, was I on his side of the road?”It seemed she giggled. Or something like it. “How do I know? We were-”She didn’t finish the sentence, but Santin guessed the rest of it. They’d been

necking, or petting, or whatever young people called it these days. That was why the boy hadn’t dimmed his lights. And that was why he’d had poor control of his car. And now he, Santin had to pay the price of their good time.

It angered him, finally. With a curious sort of anger. Detached somehow, separate from himself. Because now in the long run it didn’t really matter to him. Since he was going to die.

But also Santin felt a certain satisfaction. He could speak vindictively, and with assurance. “You see, you were on the wrong side of the road. So it was your fault.”

The boy heard him, but he kept looking at the girl. “What will they do to me?” he asked her. “The police, I mean. What will they do to me?”

“How do I know?” she snapped at him. She’d been so calm. Now maybe the initial shock was wearing off. Now maybe she was becoming frightened, nervous.

“Even if I was on the wrong side of the road,” the boy said, “it was still an accident. I didn’t try to run into this guy’s car. I didn’t try to kill him.”

“That’s right ...”“You read about these things in the paper. Nothing much happens to the driver.

Maybe he gets fined. But my dad can pay that. And even if I had to go to gaol, it wouldn’t be for long, would it, Arlene? What do you think it would be? Thirty days?”

“Or maybe sixty. That wouldn’t be so bad.”Santin listened to them. And slowly the anger welled higher in him. Or maybe

even ninety days, he could have added. Some insurance com-pany would pay. But the killer himself wouldn’t pay nearly enough. Ninety days for murder.

“There’s just one thing,” the boy said suddenly.“What?”“It’ll be called an accident. And maybe it’ll be called my fault. A little bit

anyway. That is, if this guy here doesn’t spout off to anybody.”“About what?”“About who dimmed lights and who didn’t. And who was on whose side of the

road. But of course he can’t spout off if he’s dead.”“That’s right." There was suddenly something strange in the girl’s voice, an

awareness.“So he’s got to be dead. Do you see what I mean, Arlene?”“He said he was going to die ...”“Yeah, but he doesn’t know. And neither do we. But he’s got to die. We’ve got

to make sure he dies.” The boy’s voice went up suddenly, toward the pitch of hysteria.

Santin saw the girl clutch the boy’s arm and look up into his face. The whole posture of her body denoted fear.

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“There’s another thing too.” The boy spoke swiftly, almost babbling. “My dad has told me about insurance. They have to pay more for a guy who’s just crippled than for a guy who’s dead. They pay big money to cripples. I don’t know whether our insurance is that big. If this guy doesn’t die, and is just hurt real bad, it might cost us a lot more than the insurance we got. And, man, what my dad would do to me then.

The girl was terrified now. “But he’s going to die,” she whispered hoarsely.“How do we know that, Arlene? How do we know?”Santin felt no pain now. Only fury. They hadn’t offered to help him. They

wanted him dead. They were selfish, unbelievably selfish. And they were cruel enough to discuss all this right in front of him.

Suddenly, the boy was kneeling, and the flashlight was probing Santin’s face again. Santin blinked in the glare, but despite it, he got his first look at the boy. Young. Young like the girl. But not calm like she’d been. Panic was in his eyes. And he was hurt too. An ugly scalp wound marred the left side of his head, and blood was matted in his hair.

“How do you feel, mister?” the boy asked.Santin disdained to answer. He wouldn’t give them the same satisfaction again.

He wouldn’t tell them of the hot flood of pain that washed over him in ever-growing waves. He wouldn’t tell them he’d already heard death whispering in his ear, cajoling him to let go of life.

But he saw the desperation in the boy’s face. The boy searched farther with the flashlight, playing it up and down Santin’s body. Then he stood up.

“He doesn’t look like he’s hurt bad enough to die,” he told the girl.No, it doesn’t look like that, Santin thought. The damage is inside. But it’s just

as fatal. Don’t tell them though. Let them sweat. And you might stay alive till somebody comes.

A sudden eruption of pain blotted out his thoughts, leaving him barely conscious.

The girl screamed, and it was as though she was screaming for him. The boy had apparently struck him in some way. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

The boy’s answer was almost a scream too. “He’s got to die. I’ve got to make him die.”

There was a strain of decency in the girl somewhere. Or a woman’s compassion. “But you can’t kill him,” she told the boy fiercely.

“What difference does it make?” he argued back, with hysteria in his voice again. “I’ve already killed him, haven’t I? He’s just got to die quick, that’s all. Don’t you understand, Arlene?”

Obviously she didn’t. She clung to him, holding him back.“Nobody will ever know the difference,” he told her. There was logic in his

argument. “He’s hurt already. They’ll think it’s from the accident.”They were silent for a little while. “All right, Vince,” he heard her say finally.And still all Santin could do was to lie there. Probably he was going to be beaten

and kicked to death. Murdered deliberately, logically, to protect a weak, vicious kid.

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Somehow he hadn’t been so afraid of that other death. But he was afraid of this one. This death had a quality of horror about it.

“No!” he yelled at them with all his strength. “No!”The flashlight in the boy’s hand probed his face again. Santin had been proud

before, but he wasn’t now. He didn’t turn away from the light. He let them see his terror.

“Do you think you can do it, Vince?” the girl asked. Her voice was steady. Now that she’d been convinced, she’d be the stronger of the two.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ve got to."Santin saw him coming and closed his eyes.“Wait a minute,” he heard the girl say, as from the far end of a long tunnel. He

existed in a red haze of agony now, and her voice seemed far away.“What’s the matter?”“You’re getting blood on yourself, aren’t you?”“I don’t know.”“Look and see.”“Yes, I am. but what difference does it make?”“Vince, Vince, are you crazy? They’ll see the blood. And maybe somebody will

get suspicious. They can analyze blood, and tell who it belonged to.”A spark of hope, and Santin dared to open his eyes again. The boy was poised

over him for another onslaught, but now he hesitated.“I know what to do,” he said finally.He left suddenly, exited from Santin’s view. But Santin could hear him

thrashing around in the weeds. And then finally his shout.“Arlene, come over and help me lift this.”More thrashing among the weeds. The girl joining the boy.And the boy’s excited voice. “The guy was thrown out of the car, wasn’t he?

Okay then, he just hit his head on this, that’s all. We’ll rearrange the body a little. Come on now, let’s lift it together.”

A slow returning of footsteps. Wildly, Santin searched for them. Saw them. They were coming toward him together, their backs bent, straining. Between them they carried a wide flat object that seemed to be very heavy.

He didn’t scream this time. He couldn’t. Even his vocal cords were paralyzed. But he could watch them. They walked slowly, with great effort. They stopped, one on each side of him, and the huge, heavy, flat object they held blotted out the sky above his face.

Then, at the very last moment of his life, he became aware of some-thing. A soothing calm flooded over him. I was going to die anyway, he thought. This is quicker, of course, maybe even merciful. But it’s also murder.

He prayed. A strange prayer. He prayed for a smart cop.Sergeant Vanneck of the State Highway Patrol was a smart cop. In the grey light

of dawn, he studied tyre marks on the road. They were hard to see on the dark asphalt, and he couldn’t be entirely sure.

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He was a little surer how he felt about the pair who stood by his car and watched him as he went about his work. The boy called Vince and the girl called Arlene. They were like most other youngsters who got involved in fatal accidents, and they were also different. So, as the dawn grew brighter, he continued his search.

He found more than he’d expected to find. The body had been re-moved and the area was pretty well trampled. But he found the evidence nevertheless. It was clear, unquestionable.

He climbed back out of the ditch and walked over to the girl and the boy. There must have been something terrifying in his face, because it made the boy ask nervously, “What’s the matter Sergeant?”

“There are two sides to a rock,” Sergeant Vanneck said. “The top side stays clean, washed by the rain. The bottom side is dirty from contact with the ground. Now you tell me, sonny, how Mr Santin was thrown from his car so that he hit his head on the bottom side of that rock?”

2.Arrange the events of the story in the correct order:1)Santin didn’t like the sound of the voices he heard.2)Santin saw two people standing over him.3)Santin was thrown out of the car.4)The boy and the girl were getting nervous.5)Now Santin wasn’t trying to conceal his terror.6)Because of the shock Santin didn’t feel pain.7)The evidence was clear.8)He could identify pain in several places.9)Santin was driving his car fast trying to get home before midnight.

10)They wanted to make sure Santin died.11)There was no use of finding a doctor.12)Santin prayed a strange prayer.

3.Answer these questions.1)Paul Santin was in complete control of his car when going home, wasn’t he? Prove it, giving facts from the text.2)Describe the collision of the two cars. Was it possible to avoid it?3)Why did Santin hesitate when he heard people from the other car speak?4)The boy and the girl were sympathetic at first, weren’t they?5)What grave mistake did Santin make?6)What shocked Santin in the way the boy and the girl were speaking about him?7)What possible solutions to the problem did the young people see?8)Why was Santin more afraid of the “second” death than of the “first”?9)What “brilliant” idea came to Vince’s mind?

10)Why did Santin feel some sort of relief at the very last moment of his life?

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4.Trace how the behaviour of the characters changes throughout the story. What causes these changes? How are these changes reflected in the speech of the characters?

5.In the text the words ‘terror’, ‘terrified’, ‘terrifying’ are used several times. Can you recall the situations and the characters these words refer to? Suggest your explanation of the title of the text.

III 1.At the end of the story the murderer is found out. What punishment will he get? Suggest your continuation of the story.

2.Imagine that you are Sergeant Vanneck. Describe Vince’s behaviour while you were searching for evidence. What seemed strange to you? In what way did the boy’s behaviour change when you found the unquestionable evidence?

3.Sometimes there is very little evidence but nevertheless detectives manage to find the criminal. Even in the most elaborate crime there must be something that has been overlooked by the criminal. What can give a criminal away? Recall some examples.

4.Additional tasks.

a)Sort out the two stories and retell them.The Loan / The Burglar

1) “That’s not so hard, George,” said his father. “Write to him and say you need the $1000 at once.”2)Among my best friends are Joe and his wife Alice, who live in a nice little house near Manchester.3) “You mean the $500,” George interrupted.4)The friend proved to be untrustworthy, and as George thought he would lose the $500, he asked his father for advice.5)The donor neglected to send his name, and all day the couple’s question was, “Wonder who it is?”6) “No, I don’t! Say a thousand pounds and he will write back he only owes you $500.”7)There was a note from the burglar propped up on the pillow in the bedroom saying, “Now you know.”8)When, as a newly married couple, they had just returned from their honeymoon, they got a pleasant surprise in the post one morning - two tickets for the best show in town.9)George Smith had lent a friend $500 but he had nothing in writing confirming the loan.

10)They enjoyed the show; when they reached home they found that their house

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had been broken into and that all their wedding presents had been taken.11) “Then you’ll have it in writing.”

b)Read the story sentence by sentence and find logical mistakes.John Adams is an amateur detective who spends all his time trying to solve

crimes. Yesterday at about nine o’clock in the afternoon he saw his brother Joe walk up to a red car, get into it and ride off at a steady trot. Three days later at exactly the same time he thought he saw the same thing. He couldn’t be absolutely sure as it was already getting dark and the woman was holding an umbrella over her face to protect her from the fog. Later that day when Adams had observed several other suspicious people he walked to the next village and handed his report to the head waiter at New Scotland Yard.

Unit 13. “Take the Witness!” (by Robert Charles Benchley)

I 1.Below are some extracts from court cases. In all but one of them a silly question is asked. Which one?

a) “And the youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?”b) “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”

“No.”“Did you check for blood pressure?”“No.”“Did you check for breathing?”“No.”“How can you be so sure, doctor?”“Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”“But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?”“It is possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.”

c) “Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?”d) “You say the stairs went down to the basement?”

“Yes.”“Did they also go up?”

e) “What were you doing at the time of the murder?’“I was watching the football on TV.”“Were you alone?”“Yes, I was.”“Who won the match?”“Manchester United.”

f) “Now, doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?”

g) “Were you present when your picture was taken?”

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2.Which one did you find the most amusing?

3.The words and phrases in the box are all connected to the theme of law. Put the words under one of the headings below.

Crimes punishments people legal processes

Sue libel suspended sentence jury the accused contempt of court judge counsel arson award damages community service manslaughter weigh up the evidence fraud speeding witness return a verdict cross examine solitary confinement

4.Use words and phrases from the table to complete these sentences.a)What’s the difference between the two? Well, slander is when you say something about someone which isn’t true. _ is when you publish it, and that’s when people generally take action.b)If a person is on trial for murder the press can’t refer to them as ‘the murderer.’ They have to say ‘_’.c)You’re guilty of _ when you didn’t kill the victim deliberately.d)You _ someone if you want to claim money from them because they have harmed you in some way.e)The jury has to listen to the case, _ and then _.f)A _ means that you don’t actually have to go to prison unless you commit another crime.g)‘_’ is a more formal term for a legal adviser.h)_ can be anything from teaching kids to play football to cutting grass. Obviously, it’s not paid.

5.Put the crimes below in the order of seriousness. Decide on the punishment you think a person guilty of each crime should get.

mugging swearing in public kidnapping drink driving graffiti creating and releasing computer viruses trespassing dropping litter

6.Look at the expressions in the box below. Which means…a)suspected of having committed a crime?b)she doesn’t follow rules?c)we are all equal in the eyes of the law?d)take revenge without using the legal system?e)bossing people around?f)What I say must be respected?g)illegal?h)obeying and respecting the law?i)legally?

a law unto herself laying down the law against the law take the law into my own hands no-one is above the law by law in trouble with the

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law law-abiding my word is law

7.Complete the sentences with the expressions above.a)After years as a _ citizen, John decided to rob a bank and flee the country.b)Policeman: You were doing 160 kilometres per hour.Prince: Yes, but do you know who I am?Policeman: Yes, but _.c)There was a constable here earlier. I think Mark’s _ again! d)I was tempted to _ and wring his neck.e)’Do this! Do that! Be back by 10!’ My father was always _.f)You can never tell what Ruth’s going to do. She’s _.g)I’m the boss and _.h)Most Europeans are required _ to carry ID cards.i)In some countries it’s _ to chew gum.

8.Study the words from the text.induce - побуждатьreveries - мечтыadversary - соперникfiddling - пустой, ненужныйwax - прийти в бешенствоsneer - насмешкаdeplete - расслаблятьrally - шуткаfloor - поставить в тупикcocky - нахальный

frantic – бешеныйtractable - послушныйfresh - дерзкийpat - “в точку”barrage - нагромождениеpandemonium - ад кромешныйquell - подавлятьpop - неожиданно появитьсяadjourn - отсрочивать, объявлять перерывwallop – удар

9.Match the words on the left with the words on the right to make up compounds.cross come court cross day taxi

roomride dream examination questioning back

10.Fill in one of the following expressions in the sentences below.fresh as a daisyto be after smb/smthto think smth upsmart-Aleckya pretty kettle of fishto be immune from

to take one’s cue from smthbaby talka good crackto drag smth outto hit one’s strideto get smb on the run

1)_ is a clever quick joke or remark.

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2)_ means to be specially protected from smth.3)_ is to be in search of.4)If you annoy others by trying to sound too clever, you are being _.5)When you try to copy a certain standard, you _.6)_ means to invent smth.7)The way people sometimes talk to babies, often repeating words or sounds or using words with no meaning is called _.8)_ means to confuse smth.9)_ is to feel that you are fit for doing smth.

10)_ is to cause to last an unnecessary long time.11)_ is young, not tired and active.12)_ is a situation that is difficult and awkward.

II 1.Read the text.Newspaper accounts of trial cross-examinations always bring out the cleverest in

me. They induce day-dreams in which I am the witness on the stand, and if you don’t know some of my imaginary comebacks to an imaginary cross-examiner, you have missed some of the most stimulating reading in the history of American jurisprudence.

These little reveries usually take place shortly after I have read the transcript of a trial, while I am on a long taxi-ride or seated at a desk with plenty of other work to do. I like them best when I have work to do, as they deplete me mentally so that I am forced to go and lie down after a particularly sharp verbal rally. The knowledge that I have completely floored my adversary, and the imaginary congratulations of my friends (also imaginary), seem more worth while than any amount of fiddling work done.

During the cross-questioning I am always very calm. Calm is a nice way, that is – never cocky. However frantic my inquisitor may wax (and you should see his face at times – it’s purple!), I just sit there, burning him up with each answer, winning the admiration of the court-room, and, at times, even a smile from the judge himself. At the end of my examination the judge is crazy about me.

Just what the trial is about, I never get quite clear in my mind. Sometimes the subject changes in the middle of the questioning, to allow the insertion of an especially good crack on my part. I don’t think that I am ever actually the defendant, although I don’t know why I should feel that I am immune from trial by a jury of my peers – if such exists.

I am usually testifying on behalf of a friend, or perhaps as just an impersonal witness for someone whom I do not know, who, naturally, later becomes my friend for life. It is Justice that I am after – Justice and a few well-spotted laughs.

Let us whip right unto the middle of my cross-examination, as I naturally wouldn’t want to pull my stuff until I had been insulted by the lawyer, and you can’t get insulted simply by having your name and address asked. I am absolutely fair about these things. If the lawyer will treat me right, I’ll treat him right. He has got to

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start it. For a decent cross-examiner there is no more tractable witness in the world than I am.

Advancing towards me, with a sneer on his face, he points a finger at me. (I have sometimes thought of pointing my finger back at him, but have discarded that as being too fresh. I didn’t resort to clowning.)

Q. You think you are pretty funny, don’t you? (I have evidently just made some mildly humorous comeback, nothing smart-Alecky, but good enough to make him look silly.)

A. I have never given the matter much thought.Q. Oh, you haven’t given the matter much thought, eh? Well; you seem to be

treating this examination as if it were a minstrel show.A. (very quietly and nicely) – I have merely been taking my cue from your

questions. (You will notice that all this pre-supposes quite a barrage of silly questions on his part, and pat answers on mine, omitted here because I haven’t thought them up. At any rate, it is evident that I have already got him on the run before reverie begins.)

Q. Perhaps you would rather I concluded this inquiry in baby talk?A. If it will make it easier for you. (Pandemonium, which the Court feels that it

has to quell, although enjoying it obviously as much as the spectators.)Q. (furious) I see. Well, here is a question that I think will be simple enough to

elicit an honest answer: Just how did you happen to know that it was eleven-fifteen when you saw the defendant?

A. Because I looked at my watch.Q. And just why did you look at your watch at this particular time?A. To see what time it was.Q. Are you accustomed to looking at your watch often?A. That is one of the uses to which I often put my watch.Q. I see. Now, it couldn’t, by any chance, have been ten-fifteen instead of

eleven-fifteen when you looked at your watch this time, could it?A. Yes, sir. It could.Q. Oh, it could have been ten-fifteen?A. Yes, sir – if I had been in Chicago. (Not very good, really. I’ll work up

something better. I move to have that answer struck from the record.)When I feel myself lowering my standards by answering like that, I usually give

myself a rest and, unless something else awfully good pops into my head, I adjourn the court until next day. I can always convene it again when I hit my stride.

If possible, however, I like to drag it out until I have really given my antagonist a final wallop which practically curls him up on the floor (I may think of one before this goes to press) and, wiping his forehead, he mutters, “Take the witness!”

As I step down from the stand (fresh as a daisy), there is a round of applause which the Court makes no attempt to silence. In fact, I have known certain judges to wink pleasantly at me as I take my seat. Judges are only human, after all.

My only fear is that, if ever I really am called upon to testify in court, I won’t be

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asked the right questions. That would be a pretty kettle of fish! 2.What can you say about the personality of the story-teller? What kind of

person is he?

3.Comment on the author’s words “Judges are only human, after all.” Does this phrase seem funny? Why?

4.In the last paragraph the author says that he is afraid he won’t be asked “the right questions” if called upon to testify in court. What does he mean?

5.What do you think, why is “would” in the last sentence italicized?

6.Comment on the following grammatical phenomena:1)Just what the trial is about, I never get quite clear in my mind.2)If it will make it easier for you.3)If the lawyer will treat me right, I’ll treat him right.4)My only fear is that, if ever I really am called upon to testify in court, I won’t be asked the right questions.

7.In what meaning is the word “fresh” used in the text? Read the following joke based on the play with two different meanings of the same word. Do you happen to know other examples of the kind?

Lady: “Are you sure these crabs are fresh?”Fishmonger: “Madam, they are positively insulting”.

8.Write out informal words and phrases from the text.

III 1.Think in what way the following poem is connected with the story you’ve read.

The Case for Obscurity(On thoughts and words)

If no thoughtyour mind does visit,

make your speechnot too explicit.

2.Roleplay an imaginary court trial. Let there be a cross-examiner and a witness. The witness has been insulted by the lawyer and tries to make the lawyer look silly.

3.Describe a court case you have read or heard about.

4. Additional tasks.

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a)Read the joke and say how the humorous effect is achieved.Prisoner: The judge sent me here for the rest of my life.Prison guard: Have you got any complaints?Prisoner: Do you call breaking rock with a hammer a rest?

b)Read the following joke out loud. Choose appropriate intonation and comment on your choice.

“You want to go in and say: ‘Good morning, Judge. How do you feel?’ ”“Not me. I did that once and the judge said: ‘Fine - $10’ ”.

c)Read the puzzle and answer the questions to find the solution.There were two lawyers, Alfred and Bertram. Alfred once borrowed a great deal

of money from Bertram. He promised to pay him back on the day he won his first case in court. But Alfred was lazy and never took on a case.

At first Bertram didn’t mind, but after five years he got tired of waiting for his money. He decided to take Alfred to court to get the money back.

On the day of the trial they both came to the court feeling happy and confident. They shook each other’s hand as if nothing was wrong. Alfred was sure that whether he won or lost in court he wouldn’t need to pay Bertram the money back. Bertram, on the other hand, was sure he’d get his money back. Can both of them have been right?

A.Look at it from Alfred’s point of view:1)If the judge says he must pay, then he has

a)won the caseb)lost the case.

2)If so, then according to his promise to Bertram, a)he has to pay Bertramb)he needn’t pay him.

3)If the judge says he needn’t pay Bertram, then he hasa)won the caseb)lost the case.

4)If so, then according to the law, a)he must pay Bertramb)he needn’t pay him.

B.Look at it from Bertram’s point of view:1)If the judge says Alfred must pay then he, Bertram, has

a)won the caseb)lost the case.

2)The judge’s ruling is law, soa)Alfred has to pay upb)he doesn’t have to pay up.

3)If the judge says Alfred needn’t pay then he, Bertram,

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a)has won the caseb)has lost the case.

4)Therefore, according to Alfred’s promise,a)Alfred must pay himb)Alfred needn’t pay him.

C.Does this sound quite right to you? Is either of them right? Where is the contradiction?

d)Read the cases below and discuss the questions that follow each one.Case one

A driver swerves to avoid a little girl crossing the road. The driver goes off the road and injures a pedestrian.

a)What is the driver guilty of, if anything?b)Who should pay for the pedestrian’s medical expenses?c)Who should pay for the damage done to the car?

Case twoA footballer trips up an opponent deliberately. The opponent breaks a leg and is unable to play football again. He sues the other footballer for a lifetime of lost earnings.

Should the footballer pay? Why/Why not?Case three

Bob adds a double vodka rather than a single to Joe’s drink. Joe gets into his car and is stopped by the police on the way home. He’s breathalysed, found to be over the legal alcohol limit and banned from driving for six months. Joe sues Bob for the money he has to spend on taxis over the next six months.

Should Bob pay for Joe’s taxi expenses? Why/Why not?

Section 4. The Arts

Unit 14. William Hogarth

Part 1

I 1.Study the words.felicity – дар, способность, счастьеjaded – измученный, заезженныйverve – живость, яркость, талантclandestine – тайный, скрытыйcongenial – подходящий, благоприятныйsharp-wittedness – остроумие, проницательностьinsular – островной, относящийся к Британским островам

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veneration – почитание, преклонениеvarnish – лак, олифаcurvature – изгиб

II 1.Read the text. Some of the sentences have been removed from it. Fill in the blank spaces with the sentences below.

a)Yet he was not content with one line of development only and the work of his mature years takes a varied course.b)With many felicities of detail and arrangement they show Hogarth still in a restrained and decorous mood.c)There is no reason to suppose he had anything but respect for the great Italian masters, though he deliberately took a provocative attitude.d)His first success as a painter was in the "conversation pieces" in which his bent as an artist found a logical beginning.e)It was his achievement to give a comprehensive view of social life within the framework of moralistic and dramatic narrative.f)The fact that he was apprenticed as a boy to a silver-plate engraver has a considerable bearing on Hogarth’s development.g)In portraiture he displays a great variety.

William Hogarth (1697–1764)William Hogarth was unquestionably one of the greatest of English artists and a

man of remarkably individual character and thought. (1) He produced portraits which brought a fresh vitality and truth into the jaded profession of what he called “phizmongering”. He observed both high life and low with a keen and critical eye and his range of observation was accompanied by an exceptional capacity for dramatic composition, and in painting by a technical quality which adds beauty to pictures containing an element of satire or caricature.

A small stocky man with blunt pugnacious features and alert blue eyes, he had all the sharp-wittedness of the born Cockney and an insular pride which led to his vigorous attacks on the exaggerated respect for foreign artists and the taste of would-be connoisseurs who brought over (as he said) “shiploads of dead Christs, Madonnas and Holy Families” by inferior hands. (2) What he objected to as much as anything was the absurd veneration of the darkness produced by time and varnish as well as the assumption that English painters were necessarily inferior to others. A forthrightness of statement may perhaps be related to his North-country inheritance, for his father came to London from Westmorland, but was in any case the expression of a democratic outlook and unswervingly honest intelligence.

(3) It instilled a decorative sense which is never absent from his most realistic productions. It introduced him to the world of prints, after famous masters or by the satirical commentators of an earlier day. It is the engraver’s sense of line coupled with a regard for the value of Rococo curvature which governs his essay on aesthetics, The Analysis of Beauty.

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As a painter Hogarth may be assumed to have learned the craft in Thornhill’s “academy”, though his freshness of colour and feeling for the creamy substance of oil paint suggest more acquaintance than he admitted to with the technique of his French contemporaries. (4) These informal groups of family and friends surrounded by the customary necessaries of their day-to-day life were congenial in permitting him to treat a picture as a stage. He was not the inventor of the genre, which can be traced back to Dutch and Flemish art of the seventeenth century and in which he had contemporary rivals. Many were produced when he was about thirty and soon after he made his clandestine match with Thornhill’s daughter in 1729, when extra efforts to gain a livelihood became necessary. (5) A step nearer to the comprehensive view of life was the picture of an actual stage, the scene from The Beggar’s Opera with which he scored a great success about 1730, making several versions of the painting. Two prospects must have been revealed to him as a result, the idea of constructing his own pictorial drama comprising various scenes of social life, and that of reaching a wider public through the means of engraving. The first successful series The Harlot’s Progress, of which only the engraving now exist, was immediately followed by the tremendous verve and riot of The Rake’s Progress, c. 1732; the masterpiece of the story series the Marriage a la Mode followed after an interval of twelve years.

As a painter of social life, Hogarth shows the benefit of the system of memory training which he made a self-discipline. London was his universe and he displayed his mastery in painting every aspect of its people and architecture, from the mansion in Arlington Street, the interior of which provided the setting for the disillusioned couple in the second scene of the Marriage a la Mode, to the dreadful aspect of Bedlam. (6) He could not resist the temptation to attempt a rivalry with the history painters, though with little success. The Biblical compositions for St. Bartholomew’s Hospital on which he embarked after The Rake’s Progress were not of a kind to convey his real genius. He is sometimes satirical as in The March of the Guards towards Scotland, and the Oh the Roast Beef of Old England! (Calais Gate), which was a product of his single expedition abroad with its John Bull comment on the condition of France, and also the Election series of 1755 with its richness of comedy. (7) The charm of childhood, the ability to compose a vivid group, a delightful delicacy of colour appear in the Graham Children of 1742. The portrait heads of his servants are penetrating studies of character. The painting of Captain Coram, the philanthropic sea captain who took a leading part in the foundation of the Foundling Hospital, adapts the formality of the ceremonial portrait to a democratic level with a singularly engaging effects. The quality of Hogarth as an artist is seen to advantage in his sketches and one sketch in particular, the famous Shrimp Girl quickly executed with a limited range of colour, stands alone in his work, taking its place among the masterpieces of the world in its harmony of form and content, its freshness and vitality.

The genius of Hogarth is such that he is often regarded as a solitary rebel against a decaying artificiality, and yet though he had no pupils, he had contemporaries who,

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while of lesser stature in one way and another, tended in the same direction.(William Gaunt. A Concise History of English Painting)

2.Answer the questions.1)What is peculiar of Hogart’s manner of painting?2)What was his attitude to foreign artists?3)What pictures and series of pictures are mentioned in the text? Give their brief description.

3.Explain what the word "phizmongering" means.

4.Which of these words go together? Recall the situations from the text in which these phrases were used.

technicalpugnaciousinsularprovocativedecorativepictorialceremonialsolitary

senseportraitfeaturesqualityrebelattitudedramapride

5.Match the adjectives and their translation. What nouns can be used with them? contentmaturerestrainedconsiderabledecorouscomprehensivevarieddramaticfreshkeenexceptionalvigorouswould-beinferiorabsurdcustomarycontemporaryvividengagingdecaying

всестороннийприходящий в упадокмнимый, “с претензиями”обычныйдовольныйзрелыйсовременныйяркий, живойпроницательныйразнообразныйнизшего качествасдержанныйпристойныйзначительныйдраматичный, театральныйсвежий, новый, чистыйисключительныйнелепыйсильный, энергичный, бодрыйпривлекательный

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mood years course view narrative vitality eye composition capacity attack connoisseurs hands veneration necessaries rivals group effect artificiality

6.Match the words to make up phrases as they were used in the text. Think of your own examples.

to takea felicityto findwithin the frameworkto giveto haveto bringkeen and criticala forthrightnessto instillfreshnessa feelingto treat a pictureto be the inventorto gainto tendto beto scoreto reachto displayto attemptto embarkto conveyto composea delightful delicacya penetrating studyto be seenharmony

a livelihoodeyeas a stageof statementa logical beginningone’s masterya varied coursefor the creamy substance of oil paintof coloura considerable bearing on smthof lesser staturein the same directionof moralistic and dramatic narrativeof colouron smthone’s real geniusa comprehensive view of smtha rivalry with smb/smtha vivid groupa wider publica decorative sensea great successto advantageof characterof the genreof detail and arrangementof form and coloura fresh vitality and truth

Part 2

I 1.Match the words and their synonyms. Which of these words are formal?wroughtdexterouspendingdissipated

friendnot yet settledregretfulspread all over smth

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twiddleruefulpervadeconfidantapprehendensue

arrestskilfulhappen afterwardsdoneplayimmoral

2.Have you ever heard the following names - Andromeda, Judith and Holofernes? Who do they refer to?

II 1.Read the text.Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode

The famous set of pictures called “Marriage a la Mode” contains the most important and highly wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. Pride and pomposity appear in every accessory surrounding the Earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet – as how should such an Earl wear anything but velvet and gold lace? His coronet is everywhere: on his footstool on which reposes one gouty toe turned out; on the sconces and looking-glasses; on the dogs, on his lordship’s very crutches; on his great chair of state and the great baldaquin behind him; under which he sits pointing majestically to his pedigree, which shows that his race is sprung from the loins of William the Conqueror, and confronting the old Alderman from the City, who has mounted his sword for the occasion, and wears his Alderman’s chain, and has brought a bag full of money, mortgage-deeds, and thousand pound notes, for the arrangement of the transaction pending between them. Whilst the steward is negotiating between the old couple, their children are together, united but apart. My lord is admiring his countenance in the glass, while the bride is twiddling her marriage ring on her pocket handkerchief and listening with rueful countenance to Counsellor Silvertongue. The girl is pretty, but the painter with a curious watchfulness, has taken care to give her a likeness to her father, as in the young Viscount’s face you see a resemblance to the Earl, his noble sire. The sense of the coronet pervades the picture, as it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The pictures round the room are sly hints indicating the situation of the parties about to marry. A martyr is led to the fire; Andromeda is offered to sacrifice; Judith is going to slay Holofernes. There is the ancestor of the house (in the picture it is the Earl himself as a young man), with a comet over his head, indicating that the career of the family is to be brilliant and brief. In the second picture, Madam has now the Countess’s coronet over her bed and toilet-glass, and sits listening to that dangerous Counsellor Silvertongue, whose portrait now actually hangs up in her room, while the counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by her side, evidently the familiar of the house,

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and the confidant of the mistress. My lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither he returns jaded and tipsy to find his wife yawning in her drawing-room, her whist-party over, and the daylight streaming in; or he amuses himself with the very worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at home listening to foreign singers, or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse still, seeks amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is known. My lord draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended whilst endeavouring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to the Alderman of the City, and faints upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue’s dying speech at Tyburn, where the counsellor has been executed for sending his lordship out of the world. Moral: don’t listen to evil silver-tongued counsellors: don’t marry a man for his rank, or a woman for her money: don’t frequent foolish auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband: don’t have wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn.

William Makepeace Thackeray The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century

2.Answer the questions:1)What does Marriage a la Mode describe?2)What do you think about the names of Hogarth’s characters? What qualities of their owners do they suggest?3)The author says that the pictures around the room are sly hints indicating the situation. Explain why.

3.What do the following quotations from the text mean?1)Whilst the steward is negotiating between the old couple, their children are together, united but apart.2)The sense of the coronet pervades the picture, as it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer.3)Madam has now the Countess’s coronet over her bed and toilet-glass...

III 1.Use additional sources of information to find a biography of a painter. Make a short presentation.

2.Choose a painting and try to analyze the means which the artist applied to make the message of the picture clear.

3.Additional tasks.

a)Read the following joke about an artist and explain why the old man was hesitating.

One day a painter, looking out of the window, saw an old countryman going by and thought the man would make a good subject for a picture. So he sent out his

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servant to tell the old man that his master would like to paint him. The old man hesitated and asked what the painter would pay him.

The painter said he would give him a pound. The man still hesitated.“Come on”, said the painter, “it’s an easy way to earn a pound”.“Oh, I know that”, he answered. “I was only wondering how I should get the

paint off afterwards.”

b)Read the joke and say if the men were really eager to do what the sergeant asked them to.

Sergeant: Who likes moving pictures? (Most of men eagerly step forward.) All right, you fellows carry the pictures from the basement to the attic.

Unit 15. Modernism

I 1.Write three things you know and three things you want to know about modern art.

2.Study the words.

aegis – эгида, защитаprimacy – первенствоevince – показывать, проявлятьshattering – разрушительный, оглушительныйlure – привлекатьdabble – барахтатьсяvoraciously – жадно, ненасытноcontrive – придумыватьfeeble – слабыйsquander – тратитьsuggestiveness – многозначительностьbuoyant – веселый, жизнерадостныйblunt – тупойsagging – обвисающий

kapok – вата из семян капкаscrap – обрывокhelterskelter – неразберихаcrouching – припадающий к землеsage-brush – полыньmorbid – нездоровый, отвратительныйgestural – жестикуляционныйinsoluble – нерастворимый, неразрешимыйideational – воображаемыйdiscard – отвергатьcanker – разъедатьdribble – выпускать по каплеfling – бросать, метатьvortex – вихрь

3.Match the names of various trends of modernism and their definitions.

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-Futurism

-Cubism

-Surrealism

-Performance Art

-Minimal Art

-Impressionism

-Post-Impressionism

-Op Art

-Fauvism

-Conceptual Art

-Expressionism

-Pop Art

-Dada

-a style of painting (used esp. in France between 1870 and 1900 by painters such as Monet, Cezanne and Pissarro) which produces effects (esp. of light) by use of colour rather than by details of form.-a late 19th-century style of painting in which paintings have a strong colour and a strong plan.-a movement in painting 1905-08 using pure, bright colours and including the work of the painters Matisse and Braque.-a 20th century art style in which the subject matter is represented by geometric shapes. Picasso and Braque are the most famous artists connected with this style.-an early 20th-century movement in art and literature which was a violent reaction against previous ideas about art and writing, and was particularly concerned with producing unexpected strange images which have a feeling of unreality. Was one of the main influences upon surrealism.-a style of painting which expresses feelings rather than describing objects and experiences.-a new style of painting, music and literature in the early 20th century which claimed to express the violent active quality of life in the modern age of machines.-a modern type of art and literature in which the painter, writer etc. connects unrelated images and objects in a strange dreamlike way; famous painters include Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali.-a form of modern art which shows common objects from everyday life, such as advertisements, articles found around the house rather than the usual subjects of art.-a form of modern art using patterns that play tricks on your eyes.-an art movement started in New York in the 1960s, involving esp. sculptures, consisting of simple forms in an impersonal style.-art having some theatre and something to see and/or hear e.g. a sculpture of which the artist forms a part.-art in which the artist intends to describe an idea rather than make an art object.

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II 1.Read the text. After reading it, write a detailed plan of the text. Follow the instructions:

1)How many parts can the text be divided into? Think of a suitable heading for each part.2)Within each part think of smaller parts with their own sub-headings.

The twentieth century is marked by a violent enhancement of the struggle between the two opposing tendencies in art – the realist tradition and the academic and modernistic trends. Modernism is represented by a multitude of trends but with all their apparent differences all modernistic trends have one common decisive feature: al of them are aggressively opposed to realism in art and materialism in aesthetics; they advocate extreme subjectivism (“self expression”) in creative work.

While Henri, Luks, Sloan and Bellows were successfully struggling against conservative academism and exalting the primacy of life over art, a new vanguard was emerging and gathering force in America under the aegis of art for art’s sake. A decisive role in fostering modernism in America was played by the famous Armoury Show of 1913, which was the first vast exhibition of modern European art. It included Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the Fauves, Cubists, and “Dada” (Derain, Dufy, Manguin, Villon, Friesz, Picasso, Braque, Leger, Picabia, Duchamp, Gleizes, de la Fresnaye) The Armoury Show speeded up the decay of art evinced already by some artists such as Morris Prendergast and Arthur Davis, who paved the way for the frank departure from realism to purely formal and subjective experiments.

This vast demonstration of new and bold experiments of the most avant-garde artists of many countries shocked and bewildered the American public. It had a shattering effect on some young artists, who, lured by the tempting paths of “free” art – free from any obligation to life – abandoned realism to experiment with avant-garde styles, imitating now one now another European painter, dabbling voraciously in Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and Fauvism. They contrived to combine in their largely eclectic and derivative work the imitation of the most contradictory of European avant-garde trends. American modernism was a feeble and hasty imitation of European formalistic experiments.

The first wave of modernism in America was represented by Cubism (L.Feininger, Ch.Demuth, Ch.Sheeler), Futurism (J.Stella), abstractionism (M.Russell and S.Macdonald-Wright) and Expressionism (M.Weber, A.Maurer, M.Hartley, J.Marin). Expressionism was by far the most widespread form of modernism in America in the period between the Armoury Show and World War II. After a few years of experimentation many artists returned to more representational styles, and about 1925 this first wave of modernism had passed.

There were some serious and undoubtedly very gifted artists who gave up

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realism in search of new forms of expression and squandered their talent in fruitless experimentation. Among purely formalistic works they would sometimes produce a work revealing a keen awareness of the beauty of American nature.

One of the most sensitive among the artists converted to modernism, was John Marin (1870–1953). He was an expressionist and like all other expressionists, he concentrated on his own emotions, the intensity of which far surpassed his range of vision. Drawing on the Fauves and late Cezanne for his stylistic devices, he developed his own spontaneous and generalized style of painting, a colouristic shorthand, with a number of abbreviated personal symbols of colour and line – a green triangle for a pine, a zigzag for a wave. His favourite medium was water-colour which he used with great richness and suggestiveness. He found his subject matter in New York or in the state of Maine. In Maine he did his most memorable work – his breezy and buoyant water-colour landscapes of the coast of Maine. His best landscapes are a lyrical expression of the expansive, joyful poetry of earth and sea. He transmuted the rugged coast of Maine into a remarkable and lyrical harmony of form and radiant colour.

Marsden Hartley (1887–1943) as a painter is characterized by frequent changes of style. His early landscapes of the Maine mountain countryside reveal his profound admiration for Ryder. In France he was influenced by Cezanne and Picasso and experimented with a cubistderived style. In Berlin, under the influence of Kandinsky, he began experimentation in abstraction. But it was German Expressionism that had the strongest impact on his style.

After years of experimentation, he returned to his native Maine, where he found his subject matter and his ultimate expressionistic manner. He painted the fishermen, pinewoods and rockbound coast of Maine with an elemental simplicity and with great power. His best Maine landscapes, rough, blunt, with their simple colour areas and heavy-handed execution have the direct and uncomplicated impact of a primitive.

Charles Demuth (1883–1935), more known for his “architectural” and industrial scenes, which are rendered in the geometric mode of precisionism, is best in his more realistic water-colours of flowers, fruits and also in his night-club and vaudeville subjects. Even more expressive are the water-colour illustrations for Poe, Zola, Balzac and Henry James, which he made for his own pleasure. In these highly original and elegant water-colours he “taps a vein of psychological power practically unique in American art”, as D.C. Rich put it.

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887) began with abstractions, giantsized flower forms - irises, sunflowers, petunias, Jacks-in-the-pulpit enlarged until they had lost their identity as flowers. In the late twenties she moved to New Mexico and desert landscape provided her with new subject matter; she painted its sands and skies, its crouching, hump-backed hills and bleached bones and skulls lying in the sage-brush. Her pictures of dried cow skulls placed against an abstract red, white and blue suggest a parallel with surrealist paintings.

The second wave of modernism began in the thirties. The positions of modernism were largely strengthened by the arrival in America of many

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representatives of the European avant-garde at the beginning of World War II. In the early forties New York became the centre of cosmopolitan surrealism. Surrealists used traditional painting techniques, but objects of the real world were torn from their accustomed environment and recombined illogically and arbitrarily. Surrealists drew for their expression on the subconscious, on dreams, fears and morbid fancies. They rendered their fearful, enigmatic and hallucinatory visions, their obsessions and complexes, in terms of realistic images. Their works are filled with the arbitrary and the monstrous, with a morbid eroticism and horror of death.

The European fugitives Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Matta, and Andre Breton spent some years in New York, while Yves Tanguy and Pavel Tchelitchev settled in America for good. They went on with their exploration of the subconscious and the irrational and translated their dreams and obsessions. The American variant of surrealism was represented by P. Blume’s and E. Berman’s hallucinatory visions and I. Albright’s pathologic scrutiny of the wrinkles of old age, and his obsessions with sensation of disintegration. This surrealistic unsubstantial intensity of mood continued in the work of the so-called “magic realists” like Henry Koerner and Bernard Perlin.

Another group of surrealists was influenced by the “psychic automatism” of Andre Breton. They employed symbolic, semi-abstract forms, a direct outpouring of subconscious impulses, sometimes in symbolic form, often of sexual derivation or of a purely gestural nature. This variety of surrealism led to the subsequent gestural Abstract Expressionism or “action painting” exemplified by Bradley Walker Tomlin, Robert Motherwell, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock and others.

A second abstract movement, which began in the mid-thirties, had become by the forties the dominant trend in American art overshadowing a vigorous school of realist painting which had continued to flourish. Like surrealism, abstractionism was nurtured by disillusion, fear and the awareness of helplessness in the face of the insoluble contradictions of contemporary reality. For many artists it became a refuge from reality, a withdrawal into an egoistic “self-expression”. Abstractionism is an extreme form of modernism, and evidence of the deep crisis of modern culture. It deforms the outside world to the point of making it unrecognizable and resulted in the complete disintegration of form. The abstractionists severed the last ties which connected their art with visible reality. They maintain that art does not reflect, does not cognize reality, but is a means of expressing the personal, instinctive, subconscious emotional experience of the artist. Their works are practically devoid of any image-bearing, intellectual, emotional or ideational content and sense. Their paintings are a confusion of patches and lines, their sculptures - a conglomeration of absurd forms of metal, wood or stone. Preaching unlimited arbitrariness and subjectivism in artistic creation they violate the fundamental principles of art: they discard drawing and composition in painting and the reproduction of actual forms of the material world in sculpture. By denying the criteria of artistic values in art, and by discarding national forms and traditions, abstractionism corrupts people’s aesthetic taste, diverts them from the cognition of human life and human struggle and cankers

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their love for their national culture.Abstractionism has a number of varieties. Joseph Albers, Bradley Walker

Tomlin and Irene Rice Pereira represented the geometric or precise mode of abstraction which prevailed in the mid-thirties. Free-form abstraction was dominant in the forties and fifties. This mode of abstraction goes by the name of “Abstract Expressionism” and is represented by American art critics as being “the most significant movement”, “the triumph of American painting”. Abstract Expressionism developed by the fusion of expressionism – with its emphasis on emotional intensification, abstraction - with its rejection of representation of reality, and surrealism – with its reliance upon automatism. The way for Abstract Expressionism was paved by Arshile Gorky and Adolph Gottlieb, who were deeply involved in surrealist argument. About 1950 Abstract Expressionism broke into gestural abstraction or “action painting” (Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning), symbolic Abstract Expressionism (Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Theodores Stamos) and chromatic or colour-field abstraction (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newmann, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey). They have different styles and techniques, but all of them have one common feature – they have nothing to do with real life and very little - with art.

The “action painting” arising out of the "psychic automatism" of surrealism, came closest to pure automatism. With “action painters” planned designing was replaced by purely instinctive methods, in which the physical action of painting determined the final forms. Traditional brushwork gave way to dribbling, flinging or pouring the pigment on to the canvas. The most celebrated “virtuoso” of “action painting”, Jackson Pollock, placed his enormous canvases on the floor and moved around them, spotting, puddling and splashing paint from buckets, producing a vortex of swirling lines, spatters, and drips.

Some of Pollock’s paintings (and a few of Mark Tobey’s, James Brooks’, Fritz Glarner’s) possess at least a certain decorative quality which is lacking in the works of A. Gorky, R. Motherwell, M. Rothko, A. Gottlieb and others, whose harsh and muddy colours and slovenly helterskelter combinations of smears produce a cheerless impression. But nothing can surpass in ugliness and sickening repulsiveness Willem de Kooning’s woman series in which monstrous fullbodied, wide-eyed, toothy female figures materialize from a chaos of slashing brushstrokes and anatomical fragments spread across the canvas.

Around 1960 abstractionism appeared to have run its course. The decade of the sixties saw new trends, some as outgrowths of abstraction, some as reactions against it. The most notorious and influential "movement" of the sixties was pop art, which opposed to abstractionism the rude world of actual objects that are passed as “works of art”. Pop art utilizes the most common banal features of American daily life – comic strips, billboards, and all sort of rubbish from a dump. In spite of its name, pop art has nothing to do with popular or folk art. The return to real objects is based upon concepts borrowed from the earlier “schools” of modernism: complexes of “stream of consciousness”, refusal to express a concrete idea. These concepts are expressed by

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the alogism of scraps of visual information and commodities wrenched from their habitual context, by fetishization of actual objects as such. Pop art works offer to the viewer an unlimited set of disconnected associations, political, commercial, sexual, which break in upon one another. No evaluation, interpretation or commentary is possible, they merely express a frigid attitude of noninvolvement. “The implication is,” an American art critic remarks, "that nothing can be done about a materialistic, worldly society plunged into situations, so that the only sensible attitude is one of the unemotionalized acceptance of the realities." Though pop art was a reaction against abstraction there is much in common between them. They both display a dispassionate concern with visual experience unrelated to any social ideals.

The leading exponents of pop art in America were Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

R. Rauschenberg combines abstraction with pop art devices, incorporating commonplace mass-produced items into his canvases, The result is a conglomeration of cloth, bits of newspaper, strips of canvas, splashes, blobs or drips of paint with furniture, kitchen utensils, bottles, road signs, stuffed animals, photos and the like protruding from the canvas or merging into it. His notorious “masterpiece” “The Bed” represents an actual pillow and a patchwork quilt splashed liberally with paint.

Andy Warhol, perhaps the most publicized of the pop artists, takes his inspiration from such images of mass culture of a depersonalized and standardized consumer society as labels of manufactured products, newspaper headlines, magazine photographs, currency and stamps. He makes pictures of soup-cans, tomato ketchup, Coca-Cola bottles; of famous personalities (Jacqueline Kennedy – Jackie), film stars (Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Tylor); of works of art (Mona Liza, Thirty Are Better Than One). Warhol has created several Disaster series depicting car crashes, suicides, the electric chair, etc. Each image is mechanically repeated a great number of times by means of mass-reproduction devices (photomechanical silk screening), e.g. One Hundred Campbell’s Soup Cans, Green Coca-Cola Bottles or 5 Deaths 11 Times in Orange.

Roy Lichtenstein draws upon comic strips for his inspiration. His pictures are like comic book illustrations painted in bright colours and enlarged to a gigantic scale (over 13 feet in length).

James Rosenquist is inspired by advertizing, especially the huge omnipresent billboard. He is known to have produced the largest pop painting, entitled F-lll. The canvas is larger than the fighterbomber it represents and is 86 feet long. It consists of 51 interlocking panels.

Tom Wesselmann found his inspiration in the bathroom. He is best known for his Great American Nudes and bathroom collages in which real objects (toilet paper, toilet seat, towels, etc.) are incorporated with airy female figures painted flat.

Claes Oldenburg is famous for his sagging soft sculptures of food items and household utensils made of vinyl stuffed with kapok and enlarged to an absurdly gigantic size (Giant Hamburger).

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By the late 1960s pop art became outmoded. “The rapidity of artistic change in the 1960s was unusual even in a period accustomed to the swift dispersal of outmoded styles into inglorious obsolescence,” remarks Milton Brown. It is impossible to classify the bewildering number of modern “movements” that rocked the American art world in the sixties and seventies. Pop art, junk, assemblage, hard edge that flourished in the sixties, were superseded by Op, Minimal, Land, Systemic, Primary, Performance, Body, Process, Conceptual, Post-Studio, Story and Light and Movement Art, that dominated the scene in the seventies. These trends carried still further the drastic switch from tradition, and a nihilistic attitude to the culture of the past and to humanitarian ideals. The boundaries of American art became so flexible that anything might be included from earthworks and videotape events to cornflakes scattered in an open area, grease, dirt, leaves, ice blocks melting on a gallery floor or merely verbal statements and print. The search for novelty is very characteristic of the present day art world and very often this is the primary concern of the artist. Speaking about the accelerated pace innovation, Jack Levine very aptly compared it with the rat race: “I think that the abstract, the non-objective, the modernistic artists have lost themselves in the wilderness. I think they have been motivated by a continuous sequence of rebellions, one against the other, so nobody remembers which came first, the why and wherefore of what they are doing... I think that simple cognition, simple reason has been dispelled by the ceaselessness of the rat race.”

2.Answer the questions.1)What is modernism opposed to in art and aesthetics?2)What played a decisive role in speeding up modernism in America?3)What was the reaction of the public to the avant-garde exhibitions?4)What made many new artists abandon realism?5)What and who was the 1st wave of modernism represented by?6)Why was John Marin considered to be one of the most sensitive among modernists?7)What is the main feature of M. Hartleys’s works?8)Ch. Demuth can be called unique in American art. Explain why.9)What are the two major themes of G. O’Keeffe’s works?

10)What is peculiar of the 2nd wave of modernism?11)Can you recall different trends of surrealism and their representatives?12)What can you say about the abstract movement of the 30s?13)Describe different varieties of abstractionism and give examples.14)What trends were popular in the 60s, when abstractionism had run its

course?15)Give a brief account on the works of R. Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Roy

Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg.16)Why is it impossible to classify the modernistic movements of the 60s and

70s?

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III 1.Say what you think of the following quotation: “Paintings and fighting are best seen at a distance.” (Benjamin Franklin)

2.Write a review for a popular magazine of a modern art exhibition you have recently visited.

3.Speak on the problem “Is modern art really an art?”

Unit 16. The Eloquence of Silence (by Julia Marlowe)

I 1.Study the words.scorching – палящийdelineation – изображение, описаниеimpersonation – воплощение, исполнениеdeficient – лишенный, несовершенныйtwit – насмехаться, поддразниватьeminent – знаменитый, выдающийсяhit off – подражать, копироватьcontemplate – обдумывать, намереватьсяallude – намекать, ссылатьсяruse – уловка, хитростьstolid – вялый, флегматичный, тупойslight – относиться с невниманиемripple – журчаниеdaintiness – изысканность, утонченностьmartial – воинственныйtramping – тяжело ступающийgrandeur – великолепие, величиеtumult – шум, смятениеephemeral – недолговечный, преходящийrender – превращать, делатьinsignia – знаки отличия (мн. ч.)transfix – пронзать, прокалывать

2.Note the difference:Repertory – the practice of performing several plays with the same actors and in the same theatres, one after the other on different days. E.g. a job in repertory, a repertory theatre.Repertoire – the collection of plays, pieces of music etc., that a performer or theatre company can perform. E.g. He has a larger repertoire of funny stories.

3.Fill in the gaps with Participle I or Participle II of one of the words in the box.agonize polish tramp fascinate play finish persuade

1)Her silence pictured her _ state of mind.

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2)This quality is essential of a _ artist.3)This actor’s voice is particularly adapted to _ fiction.4)His voice was like the martial music of a _ host.5)“The silent rhetoric of _ eye ” is important for any actor.6)The sound of his voice resembles a harp _ upon with a hammer.7)Acting is more important than the _ delivery of lines.

II 1.Read the text.Julia Marlowe (1870–1950) was born in England and brought to America when

she was five. When she was thirteen she was engaged to play a small part in one of the juvenile companies which were popular in those days. Later she appeared in a Rip Van Winkle company and by 1883 had minor roles in Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night in a touring company. After a period of study and training in New York she appeared in a long list of plays. She specialized in dramatic novels and popular melodramas. Her association in the Shakespearean repertory with many outstanding players of the day put her talents to work in a long and distinguished career as a famous interpreter of the Bard.

A carefully trained voice, able to follow all the “windings of the lengthened oh”, is, of course, of great importance to the actress; yet it would seem to me, from observing great players, that they achieve their most impressive results through depicting in the countenance “the events of the soul”.

Too much importance has been given to the human voice. It is for this reason that many players have given their whole attention to its cultivation, forgetting that in the delineation of character by impersonation, there are other and even more important aids.

It is curiously the case, that very many great actors were woefully deficient in the matter of enunciation. It was said, for example, of the great Colley Cibber that he had a “shrill voice apt to crack”; that Betterton’s voice was “low and grumbling, like the notes of a harp played upon with a hammer”, that Garrick’s generally failed him in great roles; and that Edmund Kean’s was generally hard and husky, not naturally agreeable, and was wont to mount into a squeak.

John Philip Kemble, generally acknowledged during his time as a great actor, was constantly twitted by dramatic writers on account of his painfully singular enunciation. Reviewers of her time generally referred to Peg Woffington’s voice as being harsh, and Mrs. Abington’s as “not naturally pleasing to the ear”. Another case in point is that of the famous French actress, Sophie Arnould. She was a great favorite during the time of Louis XIV and holds a high place among the idols of the French stage. Yet it was said of Sophie that she had “the finest asthma ever heard”.

It will be seen, then, that these eminent players were able to achieve distinction in their calling despite the fact that their voices possessed qualities ungrateful to the ear. In other words, they were able to delineate and depict the “deep events of the soul”. Great acting then does not depend upon the voice solely. Indeed, some of the

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most effective pieces of acting are achieved solely through the ability of keeping silent. A poet during Garrick’s time hit off this truth in a couplet:

A single look more marks the internal woeThen all the windings of the lengthened oh.

I recall, when a young girl, the first time I saw Edwin Booth. He and Lawrence Barrett were appearing in Othello. Barrett impersonated Othello, and Booth, Iago. As I have never seen Booth, I did not know him when he appeared on the scene. Suddenly I discovered a figure at the back of the stage intently watching the Moor. You could see plainly that he contemplated some demoniac act. His eye and manner at once caught the attention of the house long before he had said a word. The look on his face was crafty and devil-like. This one incident proved to me that there was very much more in acting than the polished delivery of lines.

I recall an even more striking example. Years ago, I saw a dramatization of Zola’s novel, Therese Racquin. In this play there was the character of an old woman who became paralyzed through seeing a murder committed. This character during the entire action of the piece uttered not a word, and pretended that she could not hear. The audience knew that this was a ruse, yet she sat through the entire action of the play listening to the conversation of the guilty persons. Now this old woman, who did not once used her voice after the paralytic stroke, proved to be the most important figure in the play.

In Gordin’s The Kreutzer Sonata, there is quite a remarkable example of the eloquence of silence. It will be recalled by those who saw the play that the wife, suspicious of her husband, sits down in silence by the window during an entire evening. The woman’s sister and her husband have gone to the opera. She utters not a word, and after some little time, during which there is a most impressive silence, the curtain descends. Three hours are supposed to elapse before the next act, and when the curtain rises, the woman is still in the same attitude, silently meditating. This device pictured better than the words her agonizing state of mind.

Another equally effective example is supplied by Crime and Punishment, a dramatization of Dostoyevsky’s novel, which Paul Orleneff, the famous Russian actor, presented in New York two years ago. A critic described this incident: “The scene is in a little drinking place. A few stolid, roughly dressed men sit around wooden tables, with vodka before them. Among them is an old, broken-down drunkard. Orleneff, as the student Raskolnikoff, enters, sits himself before a glass of vodka, and listens to the old drunkard telling the story of his life.

For nearly half an hour Orleneff does not say a word, and hardly moves. As the old man tells about his wife and children, how drink has ruined him and his family, how his young daughter has sold her virtue for the sake of the others, how he has learned to adore and worship the abandoned girl, who seems to him almost a saint, Orleneff’s face, without the help even of his hands, reflects the drama of the old man’s life. It does far more than that. By subtle, perfectly natural pantomime, the actor expresses not only sympathy and growing understanding of the old drunkard’s situation, but a solemn, intensely serious criticism of all that poverty means. One

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feels that the Russian student is in line with the Nihilist tradition of Russia, and that what has been theoretical philosophy with him is taking concrete form as he listens to the old man. It is one of the most dramatic scenes I ever witnessed, and yet nothing happens in the usual sense of the word. But Orleneff’s face tells the story of what is happening to him spiritually, and that accounts for the murders he commits in the next act.”

A similar case is to be found in Bernstein’s play The Thief. It will be recalled that the husband, while extracting a confession from his wife, utters not a word - a most effective piece of stage business…

The inability to listen and depict in the countenance what others have said has spoiled many a good actress. Only last winter I saw a young actress in a comedy who, had she not slighted this necessary requirement, would have been a most effective performer. When called upon to speak a line, or enter actively in a scene, she was excellent; but during intervals in which she was not engaged, she seemed utterly unconscious of what was going on. Her stolid inability to enter into the life of the play greatly marred its effectiveness, and utterly ruined her own part in it.

We have seen that many great actors such as Betterton, Garrick, Kean, Kemble, Woffington, and others, though handicapped by faulty enunciation, yet rose to the highest distinction in their calling. These actors, however, were exceptions to the rule, for we are informed that Barry’s voice “could charm the birds off the bushes”; that Mrs. Oldfield’s was particularly adapted to the proper interpretation of ripples of daintiness and fascinating fiction, and that Forrest’s was like the martial music of a tramping host. But after all, it is the actor with an “eye” speaking like the star of night, who has won the greatest applause. A look often speaks volumes and reveals what the tongue could not - “the silent rhetoric of persuading eyes.” The voice is important only when in use; the eye is never at rest. I think it was the late George Meredith who said that the flash of a woman’s eye is an idea striking a light inside.

There is grandeur in stillness, and it is the eye that is the mind’s signal and the soul’s interpreter. It is the actor’s chief business to express the emotions of the human heart. The eye discloses the tumult that rages within, and speaks the inner thought even more completely than can the tongue. It has a language of its own - an expression that is as far above any language as the eternal firmament is above the ephemeral butterfly.

Horace Walpole said that the voice of Mrs. Cibber, the soul of Mrs. Pritchard, and the eye of Garrick, formed a combination which in one actor would render him superior to all the actors the world has seen or should see. Walpole does not, however, give his opinion as to which of these – the voice or the eye – is more important. Howbeit, Garrick was the greatest of the trio, and it was his eyes and expression that made him so.

The imperfection of Edmund Kean’s voice has been alluded to, yet a writer who had known him said: “He was remarkable for the silence and shyness with which he took his seat in the green room, his eye alone discoursing most eloquent music.” His eyes at time “threatened like a loaded and levelled pistol”, gleaming with scorching

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lustre. All who saw him act were struck with their marvelous power, in which might be seen the flash and outbreak of a fiery soul. He was able to still an angry audience with a single look, and his most tragic flights, the superb play of his eye was said to be magnificent. Beneath the drooping lashes “slept a world of eloquent meaning”.

All the mightly histrions of the dead past had singularly beautiful and expressive eyes – the unfailing symbols and insignia of a great soul. Tony Aston, in his Brief Supplement, dwells at considerable length on Betterton’s wonderful and expressive eyes – eyes that spoke the soul’s thoughts before the voice uttered them. He could transfix with a look, and a soft glance melted the hearts of the hardest listeners. In silence they had a speech which all could interpret.

Theatre-goers of today recall Edwin Booth’s ever-glowing and radiant eyes, able unfailingly to express melting tenderness of withering scorn, love, anger, and avarice – all visibly moved those beautiful black orbs.

In brief, unless the actor is able to discourse most eloquently without opening his lips, he lacks the prime essential of a finished artist.

Note1)a Rip Van Winkle company – one of the strolling companies playing Rip Van Winkle only2)the Bard = the Bard of Avon – Shakespeare3)I did not know – I did not recognize4)to be in line with – to accept the views of, agree5)had she not slighted this necessary requirement – if she had not slighted this necessary requirement

2.Answer the questions.1)According to the author, what is the greatest means that helps the actors to achieve the most impressive results?2)If an actor is deficient in the matter of enunciation, does it mean he will be a complete failure?3)Give some remarkable examples of the eloquence of silence from the text.4)What inability can spoil a good actor or actress?5)“A look often speaks volumes and reveals what the tongue could not – “the silent rhetoric of persuading eyes”. The voice is important only when in use; the eye is never at rest”. Do you agree with it?6)The author states: “It is the eye that is the mind’s signal and the soul’s interpreter”. Is it the only means of disclosing the “tumult that rages within”?

3.Find in the text the formal variants of these neutral words:face, sad, pronunciation, likely, expressiveness, eyes, brightness, the sky, greed, actor.

4.Replace the italicized words with words and word combinations from the text.1)After a period of training Julia Marlowe appeared in many plays.

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2)The countenance of an actor shows “the events of the soul”.3)Some actors’ voices possess qualities unpleasant to the ear. 4)Three hours passed by before the next act.5)His state of mind explains the murders he commits in the next act.6)The actress’ inability to enter into the life of the play spoilt its effectiveness.7)Many actors lack the perfection essential of a finished artist.

5.These are names of characters in popular fiction. They are so well-known (even by those who have never read or even heard of the original work) that they are often used in ordinary conversation. Put each one in its correct place in the sentences below.

Robin Hood Superman Man Friday Peter Pan James Bond Billy Bunter Robinson Crusoe Scrooge

a)During the war he was sent on dangerous secret missions abroad. Very exciting! He was a sort of _.b)I think Alan should go on a diet and get more exercise. He’s beginning to look like _.c)He still has very youthful enthusiasms, and he’s as slim and fit as he was 20 years ago. He’s a _.d)There are times when most of us would like to escape from all the pressures of city life and live a more simple, basic kind of _ existence.e)Come on! I’ve never met anyone so reluctant to spend money, you _!f)He’s not very practical. What he needs is someone to look after him and do everything for him. He needs a _.g)The firm is doing very badly and facing bankruptcy. I don’t think it can survive. We don’t just want a new director. We want a _.h)Well, yes, he was a criminal and he stole a lot of money, but he helped a lot of people with it. He was a bit of a _.

6.Instructions as above.Walter Mitty Big Brother Jekyll and Hyde Rip Van Winkle Little Ford Fauntleroy Sherlock Holmes Tarzan Cinderella

a)He’s a strange person. Usually he’s very pleasant and reasonable, but there are times when he gets very bad-tempered and almost violent. He’s got a _ personality.b)How on earth did you guess his nationality, occupation and all those other things about him just from his appearance? You’re a proper _.c)I don’t like this new government proposal to put details of everyone’s private life on computers. I can see it will mean greater efficiency and all that, but, well, it’s a bit like _, isn’t it?d)I think the neighbour’s kids should be allowed a bit of freedom to wear what they like and get dirty having fun, not made to look like _.e)She’s really exploited by her family. They make her do everything for them,

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cook, clean... She’s a sort of _.f)He’s a body-builder and weight-lifter. Have you seen him in a swimsuit? He looks like _.g)He sounds very impressive when he talks about his adventures and achievements, but it’s all fantasy. He’s a _ character.h)Come on, _ , wake up! It’s nearly lunch-time.

7.The following are parts of newspaper reviews of visual and performing arts and literature. Identify the subject of each (film, novel, etc.) and mark at least six words which helped you to decide.

a)The first movement is dominated by the strings with only occasional percussion participation. So many bows dancing in unison made this a visual as well as an aural delight and I abandoned my score to watch. In the second movement the wind section takes command, and with such vigour that the baton seems to struggle to keep up rather than the reverse. For once I did not envy the man on the rostrum, and was content with my seat in the stalls.

b)His favourite medium is now oil, and the canvas which dominates this show, a still-life of bottles, is a masterpiece of representational skill (his early abstracts and collages were never good). His technique is superb. The brushstrokes are invisible, the bottles real. Every section of his palette is used. I shall never again think of bottles as colourless. Every hue of the spectrum is there.

c)Her weaknesses are characterisation and dialogue. Her strengths are plot and feeling for place. Her characters are two-dimensional, their words wooden, but the events are plausible and the places vividly depicted. The setting is now Mexico City, now Tokyo, now Johannesburg. The twist at the end defies prediction. For once the blurb on the back is true. It says, ’Unputdownable’.

d)This new young choreographer has given us an exciting and unconventional piece. Called simply Mixture, it is indeed influenced by classical, folk, progressive and even tap and ballroom besides. The men are agile and athletic, the girls loose-limbed and supple. The leaps are high, the pirouettes prolonged. What more can you want? The night I went they received a standing ovation.

e)First-night nerves are notorious, but I have never heard so many lines fluffed, so many cues missed. The promoter was busy last night and the director (and doubtless the backers) in tears. I do not expect this piece to have a long run, but critical reception and box-offices success are often two very different things and, if it does survive, it will have been saved by a number of well-played supporting roles and a stunning set. But the final final curtain cannot, I think, be far off.

III 1.Which do you think is more important in an actor’s performance – the

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voice or the eye? Or maybe something else? Give an example from your own experience.

2.Write a review of a play or a film. Be sure to describe the actors’ performance. Some of these expressions might help:

… was directed by … … is based on the life of a notorious bank robber/the author’s experience in … It is based on a book of the same name. … tells the story of…, and as the story unfolds, we see … It stars X in the title role of the Y. It’s set in rural England at the beginning of the 19th century. It is about A’s relationships with her ex-husband. In the end B … What we don’t learn until the end is that …There are several flashbacks to when he was a child …

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.Воронина Л.Н., Михайлова Т.М. Великобритания. Искусство. М.: Просвещение, 1978.2.Искусство США. Живопись. Скульптура / Сост. И.П. Турошев. М.: Просвещение, 1986.3.Современные американские пьесы. М.: Просвещение, 1981.4.Чтение ради пользы и удовольствия: Учеб. пособие /Сост. Д.Н.Белл, Б.Н.Белл. М., Высш. шк., 1977.5.Юмористические рассказы английских и американских писателей. / Сост. Г.М.Беляев, Р.И. Сорокина. М.: Просвещение, 1978.6.Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Stories by Modern British and American Writers. Moscow, 1979.7.Carroll L. Alice in Wonderland. Moscow, 1967.8.Challenge to Think. Oxford Univ. Press, 1986.9.Duffy G., Roehler L.K. Improving classroom reading instruction: A decision making approach. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1993.

10.Fielding H. Briget Jones’s Diary. Picador, 1997.11.Grellet F. Developing Reading Skills: A practical guide to reading

comprehension exercises. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981.12.International Student Handbook. Pacific Intercultural Exchange.13.Jones C., Bastow T. Inside Out. Student’s Book Advanced. Oxford, 2001. 14.Maugham W.S. Theatre. М: Междунар. отношения, 1979.15.McConochie S.A. Twentieth Century American Short Stories. М.: Высш. шк.,

1979.16.Milan D. Developing reading skills. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.17.Schooling // Guardian Education. April, 20, 1993.18.Theatre World: Reader for Art Students. Moscow, 1978.

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