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李子仪
201506712
NEVER GIVE IN, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER
When Churchill visited
Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs
again,
he discovered that an additional
verse had been added to one of them. It ran:
“
Not less we praise in
darker day
The leader of our nation,
And Churchill's name shall win acclaim
From each new generation.
For you have power in danger's hour
Our freedom to defend, Sir!
Though long the fight we know that
right
Will triumph in the end,
Sir!
”
Almost
a
year
has
passed
since
I
came
down
here
at
your
Head
Master's
kind
invitation
in
order
to
cheer
myself
and
cheer
the
hearts
of
a
few
of
my
friends
by
singing
some
of
our
own
songs.
The
ten
months
that
have
passed
have
seen
very
terrible catastrophic events in the
world -ups and downs, misfortunes- but can anyone
sitting here this afternoon, this
October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for
what
has happened in the time that has
passed and for the very great improvement in the
position of our country and of our
home? Why, when I was here last time we
were
quite alone,
desperately alone, and we had been so for five or
six months. We were
poorly armed. We
are not so poorly armed today; but then we were
very poorly armed.
We had the
unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air
attack still beating upon us,
and you
yourselves had had experience of this attack; and
I expect you are beginning
to feel
impatient that there has been this long lull with
nothing particular turning up!
But we
must learn to be equally good at what is short and
sharp and what is long
and tough. It is
generally said that the British are often better
at the last. They do not
expect
to
move
from
crisis
to
crisis;
they
do
not
always
expect
that
each
day
will
bring up some noble
chance of war; but when they very slowly make up
their minds
that the thing has to be
done and the job put through and finished, then,
even if it takes
months - if it takes
years - they do it.
Another lesson I
think we may take, just throwing our minds back to
our meeting
here
ten
months
ago
and
now,
is
that
appearances
are
often
very
deceptive,
and
as
Kipling
well
says,
we
must
with
Triumph
and
DisasterAnd
treat
those
two
impostors just the same.
You
cannot
tell
from
appearances
how
things
will
go.
Sometimes
imagination
makes things out far worse than they
are;
yet without imagination not much
can be
done. Those people who are
imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps
exist;
certainly many more than will
happen; but then they must also pray to be given
that
extra courage to carry this far-
reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely,
what we
have gone through in this
period - I am addressing myself to the School -
surely from
this period of ten months
this is the lesson: never give in, never give in,
never, never,
never,
never-
in
nothing,
great
or
small,
large
or
petty
-
never
give
in
except
to
convictions
of
honour
and
good
sense.
Never
yield
to
force;
never
yield
to
the
apparently overwhelming
might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago,
and to
李子仪
201506712
many
countries
it
seemed
that
our
account
was
closed,
we
were
finished.
All
this
tradition of ours, our
songs, our School history, this part of the
history of this country,
were gone and
finished and liquidated.
Very
different
is
the
mood
today.
Britain,
other
nations
thought,
had
drawn
a
sponge
across
her
slate.
But
instead
our
country
stood
in
the
gap.
There
was
no
flinching
and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed
almost a miracle to those
outside these
Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we
now find ourselves in
a position where
I say that we can be sure that we have only to
persevere to conquer.
You sang here a
verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse
written in my
honour,
which
I
was
very
greatly
complimented
by
and
which
you
have
repeated
today. But there is one word in it I
want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I
did
not venture to. It is the line
-
I have obtained the Head Master's
permission to alter darker to
sterner.
we praise in sterner
days.
Do not let us speak of darker
days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These
are
not dark days; these are great days
- the greatest days our country has ever lived;
and
we must all thank God that we have
been allowed, each of us according to our
stations,
to play a part in making
these days memorable in the history of our race.
李子仪
201506712
Analysis of
“NEVER GIVE IN,
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER”
I.
Abstract of
the speech:
First, Churchill summarized
the great events that had happened in the world
with
Great Britain in particular and
then talked about the purpose of his visit to
encourage
the whole nation to fight
against the Nazis. In the second part, Churchill
analyzed the
world
situation
and
how
other
countries
looked
at
Britain
and
then
called
on
the
British people not to
give in. At the last, by changing a word in the
additional verse of
the school song,
Churchill expressed his conviction that this
nation was determined to
fight for the
victory of this great war.
II.
The language
features of Churchill's speech.
(1)
In
such
speeches,
the
most
important
thing
is
to
inspire
people.
Therefore,
Churchill was
adept of using
parallelism to
emphasize his points.
For example,
each day will
bring up some noble chance of
war
determination of British enough.
(2)
Another special feature is the
comparison. Churchill used a lot of comparisons in
this speech to make his speech more
infectious. Such as the situations 10 months
ago
and
now,
the
normal
people
and
the
British,
and
so
on.
Then,
it
is
about
quotation. He quoted
Kipling's words
those two impostors
just the same.
emphasize his own ideal
-- try to be brave when you face everything and
never
give in
(3)
Suitable
diction.
Churchill
used
a
lot
of
thought-provoking
and
motivational
words
to
make
people
begun
to
think
deeply
and
achieve
his
goal
of
encouragement. For
example, he use,
the
enemy
to
let
people
know
the
difficulties
they
have
to
face
and
encourage
them to become braver.
(4)
The last one
is periodic sentence. Churchill is really a master
of periodic sentence.
This
method he used to enrich his
language can
be found in
everywhere of his