河南大学古建筑-计划生育证
Unit 8
Housewifely Arts
Megan Mayhew Bergman
Additional Background Information
What is this story about?
One answer is simply that it is about love.
Because of the protagonist’s
strong
maternal love for her son, Ike, she worries about
genetic weaknesses she might have passed
on
to
him
—
“
cancer
genes, hay
fever, high
blood
pressure,
perhaps
a
fear
of math
”,
plus
being
undersized for his age
making him an easy target for bullies. Being a
single parent, she knows that
she is
all her son has. She takes care to shelter him
from bad examples and possible harm. The
desire to be a good mother, to help her
child grow up happy, healthy, and productive is so
intense
that she is sometimes haunted
by nightmares.
The
experience
of
parenting
her
child
gradually
makes
the
protagonist
more
aware
of
her
relationship with her mother:
Will you love me forever? I
think to myself. Will you love me when I’m old? If
I go crazy?
Will you be embarrassed by
me? Avoid my calls? Wash dishes when you talk to
me on the
phone, roll your eyes, lay
the receiver down next to the cat?
These
were
exactly
the
things
she
did
to
her
mother.
Loving
her
son,
she
finally
realizes
how
much her
parents also loved her. Her father’s love was
easier to understand. He tried his best to
give her opportunities in life, but
when she failed in the year at a private college,
which he had
funded for her with
considerable difficulty, he did not judge or
reproach her. She loved her father,
but
she regarded her mother as cold and harsh and
fought constantly with her, reacting like her
former self, the rebellious teenager,
being neither mature nor compassionate in looking
after her
mother in old age,
understanding her, forgiving her weaknesses, and
loving her.
But now that
her mother is dead, she begins increasingly to
miss her, and the decision to drive
nine hours with her son for the sake of
hearing her mother’s voice again through the
imitations of
Carnie,
the
African
parrot,
shows
how
much
she
needs
this
connection.
“I
realize
how
badly
I
need a piece of my mother. A scrap, a
sound, a smell
—something.”
She knows she has not been a
good daughter, and
the parrot her mother loved and which she hated so
much, always seemed to
come between
them. Now, however, Carnie has become her only
avenue to the kind of memory
she
craves. But the bird does not give her that
satisfaction, remaining completely silent. Perhaps
it
could not forgive her unkind
treatment of it in the past.
Nonetheless, the journey proves
successful. In the tradition of the American “road
trip”, anothe
r
way of thinking
about this story, the protagonist does not merely
make an actual journey with her
son
in
a
car,
during
which
various
things
happen
along
the
way,
she
also
makes
a
personal,
emotional
journey
in
which
she
achieves
a
measure
of
enlightenment.
It
is
a
typical
feature
of
“road
trip”
journeys
that
they
teach
the
characters
things
about
themselves
that
they
did
not
previously know.
Driving toward
home, they stop at the house in which the
protagonist grew up
–
-
“
a deserted, plain
house
for plain folks
…”
…I
lead him to the back of the house, down the
hallway which still feels more familiar to
me than any I know…I remove the
valances Mom made in the early eighties, dried
bugs
falling from the folds of the
fabric into the sink below. These are the things
with which she
made
a
home.
Her
contributions
to
our
sense
of
place
were
humble
and
put
forth
with
great
intent,
crafts
which
took
weeks
of
stitching
and
unstitching,
measuring,
cutting,
gathering. I realize how much in the
home was done by hand and sweat. My father had
laid the carpeting and linoleum. Mom
had painted the same dinner chairs twice, sewed
all
the window treatments…I scan the
kitchen and picture Mom paying bills, her perfect
script,
the way she always listed her
occupation with pride: h
omemaker…
Recalling how her parents had created a
home that she describes to Ike by saying, “This
was a
beautiful house”, she understands
that her parents were not demonstrative people,
not people who
talked about love, but
people who had shown it to her in all their
actions and these things they had
made.
And here, also, she finds the clear recollections
of her mother that she had been seeking:
“…
Now
I
can
hear
my
mother
everywhere
—
in
the
kitchen,
in
my
bedroom,
on
the
front
porch…”
This visit also
helps the protagonist to make a major decision
around which one part of the plot is
constructed:
should
she
and
Ike
move
to
Connecticut,
a
state
to
which
her
firm
has
offered
to
transfer her? Ike is reluctant.
“…What if we live here forever? He
asked. Peop
le used to do that, I said. Lived in
one house their entire life.
My mother, for instance…”
In
revisiting
the
house
of
her
childhood,
she
has
grasped
the
profound
sense of
home
that
growing up in this single place has
given her
.
She concludes
:
“Together
,
we
can
make
a
solid
grilled
cheese,
prune
shrubs,
clean
house.
Together,
maybe
we’re
the
housewife
this
house
needs.
Maybe
our
best
life
is
here.”
And, significantly, she comes, finally,
to a true understanding of her mother’s courage
and
strength, granting her respect and
admiration:
“Steamrolled by the world, but in the face of defeat,
she threatened
us all.” And the last three sentences of the
story
—
My
heart, she’d said. I can turn it off.
For years, I’d believed her.
But I know the truth now. What maniacs
we are
—
sick with love, all of us.
—
make clear her final realization that her mother loves and has always loved her, and that she, too,
loves and has always loved her mother.
Structure of the Text
Part I (Paras. 1-11)
The
protagonist introduces herself and tells us that
she is driving nine hours with her 7-year-old
son so that she can hear her mother’s
voice again.
Part II
(Paras. 12-22)
The protagonist
describes how she had to sell her mother’s house
and how the house brought back
memories
of her dead mother with her African parrot.
Part III (Paras. 23-34)
On their way to the Zoo, the
protagonist and her son come to a rest stop and
what she sees makes
her think about her
responsibilities as a mother.
Part IV (Paras. 35-51)
The
protagonist remini
sces about how she first saw the parrot at her mother’s home and how they
developed a hostile relationship from
the very beginning.
Part V
(Paras. 52-58)
The
protagonist
tells
her
son
where
they
are
going
and
for
what
purpose.
We
learn
from
this
section w
hat kind of person her son’s father is and how she became a single parent.
Part
VI
(Paras. 59-65)
The
protagonist’s son, Ike, tells her a story about
his classmate Louis’ crazy mother and this once
again
makes
her keenly
aware
of
her
desire
to
protect her
son
against
even
the
knowledge
that
such
people exist.
Part VII
(Paras. 66-97)
This
is
a
most
revealing
and
touching
part
of
the
story
in
which
we
learn
the
reasons
for
the
intense disagreements
between the protagonist and her mother. She does
not understand why her
mother often
appears harsh and cold, unlike her father, who was
kind and did not judge her, nor
can she
understand why her mother gave so much of her care
and attention to a bird so soon after
her father’s death.
Part VIII (Paras. 98-110)
The protagonist and her son check into
an inn and there she remembers how her mother
cried over
her grandmother’s death. She
also hears in the news about a python strangling a
toddler, which
reminds her of a video
of a similar event Ike’s father showed her.
T
he fear that this could really
happen to her son keeps her awake that
night.
Part IX (Paras.
111-123)
In this section, the
protagonist recalls how cruelly she hurt her
mother’s feelings over the parrot
when
it was time to send her mother to a nursing home.
Part X (Paras.
124-143)
These memories show why the
protagonist misses her mother so much and wants so
much to hear
her dead mother’s voice
once again through the imitations of the parrot,
but the bird refuses to talk,
as though
her mother still will not forgive her for the way
she treated the bird.
Part
XI (Paras. 144-150)
The protagonist now
remembers the day her mother finally had to part
with her beloved bird and
go to the
nursing home. It was a heart-breaking day for her.
Part XII (Paras.151-177)
As the protagonist revisits her home,
happy memories come to her and she recalls her
deceased
parents. Her son feels sorry
that his mother has been brought up in this place;
in its rundown state,
he sees it as
miserable, but his mother tells him that it
w
as “a beautiful house”.
（
提醒：因编辑的疏忽，教材
(184
页
)1-4
行漏标了段落序号，造成
176-179
序
号缺失，并非文字缺失，特此说明。编者为此疏忽表示歉意，并将在教材重印时
修正。）
Part XIII
(Paras. 178-192)
A realtor comes for a
preview, then a couple come for an inspection. As
they check the house, they
jot down
critical observations. The protagonist thinks that
perhaps this is just the right place for
her and her son.
Part XIV
(
Paras. 193-211)
The protagonist again remembers the day
she was to send her mother to the nursing home.
She
kept asking her mother whether she
would like to keep a few things as souvenirs, but
her mother’s
answer was always no,
saying that she “could turn her heart off”.
Looking back, the prota
gonist
realizes that this was not true, and
that they were all “sick with love”.
Detailed Analysis of the Text
1.
I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. (Para. 1)
The
protagonist is a single parent and has to take
care of everything because there is no one
else around to help her. In Chinese
“single parent” is translated as
单亲，
It is very close, also,
to the expression
“
又当爹，又当娘
” or “
里里外外就靠她一个人
”
2.
I
can
make
a
pie
crust
and
exterminate
humpback
crickets
with
a
homemade
glue
board, though not at the same time.
(Para. 1)
The protagonist is
being humorous: it would be awkward if she were to
exterminate crickets
and cook at the
same time.
3.
I’d like to compliment myself on these things… (Para. 1)
to compliment sb on
something: to praise sb for (doing) something
Notice the subtle differences between
these two and the following expressions:
to pride oneself on something
to take pride in something
to be proud of something
4.
Turn left, Ike says. (Para. 2)
Ike
is
pretending
to
be
the
GPS
(global
positioning
system
全球定位系统
)
lady,
giving
directions to his mother. (This is made
clear in the original, unedited story, which
includes
more of Ike’s conversation
with his mother during the trip.)
5.
If
I were
a
better
mother,
I would
say
no,
there would
be
bread,
carrot,
and seedless
grapes. If I were a better
daughter, Ike would have known his grandmother,
spent more
time in her arms. (Para. 6)
Ike is obviously particularly fond of
chicken nuggets, but his mother knows that they
are junk
food and not good for him. If
she were a better mother she would stand firm and
make her
son eat more healthy food, but
she doesn’t have the heart to say no to him. The
protagonist
also
regrets
not
having
been
a
better
daughter,
which
has
resulted
in
her
deceased
mother
having
remained an almost total stranger to her son.
6.
I’ll come over for a walk
-through before the inspection. (Para.16)
The
realtor
said
he
would
walk
through
the
house
prior
to
the
inspection,
to
make
sure
it
would make a good
impression on the potential buyers.
7.
…
Ike
and
I
covered
scrap
siding
in
glue
and
flypaper
and
scattered
our
torture
devices
throughout the basement…
(Para. 17)
siding
：板壁，挡板；
scrap siding
:
边角料做的挡板
8.
I pictured her house, a two-bedroom white ranch with window boxes,
… (Para. 21)
to picture
: to imagine; to see in one’s mind’s eye
ranch
: This refers to a ranch house, that is, a house which consists of a single storey
牧场式
的房子
window boxes
: long narrow containers for growing plants outside windows
9.
Mom
had
tended
her
azaleas
and
boxwoods
with
halfhearted
practicality,
in
case
the
chickens or sheep broke
loose. (Para. 21)
The protagonist’s
mother grew azaleas and boxwoods
to make the yard look beautiful. It was
practical
for
her
efforts
to
be
half- hearted
because
if
the
chickens
or
sheep
got
loose,
they
would damage
her shrubbery.
10.
I pull into a rest stop, one of those suspicious gas station and fast-food combos. (Para.
23)
gas station and
fast-food combos:
配有速食店的加油站
Question:
Why does the protagonist use the word “suspicious” here?
We can’t be sure, but we might guess
that it is because “gas station and
fast
-
food combos”
are
notorious for having food that is bad as well as
unhealthy. Also, the washrooms are
not
very clean. She would prefer to have
taken her son somewhere better.
11.
He
is
sweet
and
unassuming.
He
does
not
yet
know
he
will
be
picked
on
for
being
undersized. (Para. 25)
unassuming:
behaving in a quiet and pleasant way; modest
谦逊低调的，不爱招摇的
12.
I want to wrap him in plastic and preserve him so that he can always be this way, this
content.
(Para. 26)
I want to wrap him in
plastic and preserve him as I do with food so that
he can always be
content like this,
happy and satisfied with life.
The
protagonist is worried about how her pale
undersized son will fare in the adult world.
13.
A burly man with black hair curling across his shoulders hustles into the rest room. He
breathes
hard,
scratches
his
ear,
and
checks
his
phone.
Next,
a
sickly- looking
man
whose pants are too
big shuffles inside. He pauses to wipe his
forehead with an elbow. I
think, these
people are someone’s children. (Para. 27)
These men do not look nicely dressed,
properly educated, or well brought up. But they were
once
someone’s
sma
ll
children
too,
the
protagonist
reminds
herself;
she
wants
to
do
everything possible to avoid
her son growing up to be like them.
14.
I could see a whorl of hair on the crown of his head like a small, stagnant hurricane.
(Para. 31)
When Ike was born, the protagonist
could see a coil of hair at the top of his head;
this is a
cowlick, hair that tends to
stand up when it should lie flat.
15.
Cancer genes, hay fever, high blood pressure, perhaps a fear of math
—
these are my
gifts. (Para. 32)
The
protagonist ponders what she may have passed on to
her son genetically.
16.
I… let him skip into the fluorescent, germ
-infested cave, a room slick with mistakes and
full of the type of men I
hope he’ll never become. (Para. 34)
a room slick with mistakes
: a room slick with spilled urine
17.
I
was
still
grieving
Dad,
and
it
was
strange
to
watch
Mom
find
so
much
joy
in
this
ebony-
beaked
wiseass.
（
Para.40
）
much joy in this silly bird.
The
protagonist
appears
not
to
have
understood
that
it
was
precisely
because
her
fath
er’s
death had created such an absence in
her mother’s life that she found it necessary to
fill that
void with a creature she
could love.
18.
You can’t take anything personally, Mom warned. (Para. 42)
Don’t be upset or offended
by what the bird says. (You
must not think anything the bird says
refers to any
particular person. The bird is only mimicking. So
don’t be angry with it.)
19.
the man of the house (Para. 43)
the bread winner; the protagonist’s
father
20.
His
tricks
seemed
cheap,
and
I
hated
the
ea
sy
way
he’d
endeared
himself
to
Mom.
(Para. 44)
His behavior seemed false, and I hated
how easily the bird had won my mother’s
heart
.
21.
Louis’s mom is a born
-again Christian with two poodles and a coke habit, the kind of
person I avoid at open houses
at school. (Para. 61)
Born-again
Christian
: See notes to the Text.
open house:
a social event at which you may arrive and leave freely at any time between two
fixed
hours
—
in this case, held by a school.
22.
Really, Ike says. Louis pretended not to know her when she got on, but his mom held
on to that
chrome bar at the front of the bus and said,
“Lord, I’ve been places where
people
don’t put pepper on their eggs.” And she started
to dance. (Para. 64)
Louis
always
pretended
not
to
know
his
crazy
Mom
in
public
places
because
he
was
so
embarrassed.
23.
I don’t want him to know that…
people fall into landmines of pain and can’t crawl back
out.
（
Para. 65
）
I don’t want him to
know that people often fall into terrible trouble
and are unable to recover.
The
protagonist hopes that she can shield her son from
the ugliness of reality.
Notice the
metaphorical use of the word “landmines”.
24.
…
I
took
him
by
for
Mom
to
hold
while
I
emptied
the
old
milk
from
her
fridge
and
scrubbed her
toilets. The house was beginning to smell; Mom was
not cleaning up after
the
bird.
Suddenly
the
woman
who’d
ironed
tablecloths,
polished
silver,
bleached
dinner napkins, and rotated mattresses
had given up on decorum.
（
Para. 66
）
I took him by:
I took him along
polish silver:
polish silverware; make silverware shine by rubbing it with polish
rotate
mattresses:
turn mattresses over or end-to- end
25.
I brought cartons of cottage cheese…, only to find them spoiled the fo
llowing month.
（
Para. 68
）
only to find:
infinitive phrase used as an adverbial of result
26.
Are you giving realtors my number? They’re calling with offers.
（
Para. 69
）
Are you giving realtors my phone
number? Are you telling them my
house
is
for
sale?
People are calling to tell me how much
they are willing to pay for it.
offer:
the price they offer to pay
报价
27.
There’s a shopping center going in next door
.
（
Para. 70
）
A new shopping center is going to be
built next door.
28.
There was heat between us, long-standing arguments we could still feel burning.
（
Para.
73
）
heat:
hot debate; harsh disagreements
29.
Dad was hard to anger (Para. 75)
Paraphrase:
Dad did not lose his temper easily.
30.
I knew later she’d berate him
for taking it easy on me, and I hated her for it. (Para. 75)
for taking it easy on me:
for not being harsh and severe enough with me
31.
I could almost hear the echoes of men moving and talking, their spoken lives bouncing
from the plant
rafters as their hands worked. (Para. 81)
spoken
lives
bouncing
from
the
plant
rafters:
echoes
of
men
talking
–
the
unimportant,
daily talk that
accompanies the movements of their hands as they
work
32.
While you’re at it, would you…? (Para. 83)
Since you
are cleaning, would you also …?
33.
newsprint (Para. 88)
pages from a newspaper
34.
…
while the toothless snake struck him repeatedly on his downy head, snapping down
upon his body like
a whip. (Para. 106)
snap
down
：
to move with quick, short downward movements
35.
It was time to plan. (Para. 112)
It was time to plan to send her mother
to a nursing home.