1、,12 THE LOONS,Loons,State bird of Manitoba (Canada) and is depicted on the Canadian one-dollar coin Any of several fish-eating, diving birds of the genus Gavia of northern regions, having a short tail, webbed feet, and a laughlike cry. 潜鸟一种生活在北部地区的潜鸟属食鱼潜水鸟,尾部短、脚上有蹼、叫声象人的笑声,How much do you know about
2、 American Indians?,Indians (b),American Indians,Native Americans,Aboriginals,First NationsIndians , American Indians Asian ancestry Bering Strait:from Eurasia to the Americas,The American Indians -A People in Crisis (i),Indians were the first Americans. They lived in North America long before the co
3、ntinent was settled by Europeans. Through a long and difficult struggle that continues to this day, the Indians have striven to preserve their traditions, their religion, and their culture. In this they have shown great determination, continuing to hunt and fish or to manage small farms just as thei
4、r ancestors did. But compared to other Americans, most Indians are poor. And this is their problem. Conditions which favored the old life are gone for ever, and yet many Indians are unable to adopt the white mans ways. Now some of them are in trouble with the law. How did this trouble start? Who are
5、 the Indians? Where did they come from? Where do the live today? Why is it so difficult for them to assimilate? The American Indians are of Asian ancestry. Thousands of years before Columbus came to the New World, they entered North America by crossing a narrow strip of land that one connected Alask
6、a and Siberia. Ancient geological changes raised the level of the oceans covering this natural bridge with water. Today this place is called the Bering Strait. At its narrowest point, the Strait is only 56 miles wide. In ancient times as today, a crossing there, even by primitive boat, must have bee
7、n comparatively easy.,The American Indians (ii),The migrants entered a new world in which there were no people at all. But there were many animals to hunt, and there were forests where nuts, roots, and berries could be gathered. Living comfortably on this food supply, the newcomers spread out. Some
8、moved south into Central and South America. Others traveled east of the Atlantic Ocean. These migrations were gradual, probably taking thousands of years. Eventually, the people who became the American Indians had spread across North America. These migrants contained groups of quite different cultur
9、al ancestry. This is evident in the variety of languages they spoke. There are at least 200 separate Indian languages in North America, each with its own grammar and vocabulary. And none is related in any way to English or any other European language.,The American Indians (iii),The regions of North
10、America where the newcomers lived varied greatly in climate and food supply. In the plains and eastern forests where game was plentiful, the Indians hunted and fished. In the dry Southwest, they farmed. These regional differences explain the richness and variety of Indian culture: dissimilar economi
11、cs produced quite different systems of society.For instance, many Indians of the Southwest, such as the Hopi and the Zuni, were village Indians. They built mud brick houses and developed agriculture. Man of them learned to irrigate; others became expert dry farmer. They grew beans, corn, and other v
12、egetables. They made baskets, raised and wove cotton, and made beautiful pottery.,The American Indians (iv),The Sioux, on the other hand, were Plains Indians. They were nomads who moved from place to place in the area that is now North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Being great hunters,
13、they were able to kill the buffalo. There was plenty of meat for everyone. They made tents from the buffalo skins, and also used it for clothes and shoes. From the European viewpoint, the Indians were a primitive stone-age people, who made their tools from stone, bone or wood. The Indians did not kn
14、ow how to work metal. Their farms, if they had any, were small. And they did not ranch. These were all enterprises which the whites were eager to start but the Indians were in the way. A cultural clash was unavoidable.,The loons in the story “ The loons“, symbolizes the Piquette. Throughout the stor
15、y the author uses the powerful tool of symbolism to help us better understand the characteristics of the Piquette. The author in this story has used the loons as the extended metaphor in order to depict the Piquettes environment and the society in which she lives. By drawing the parallels between th
16、e loons and the Piquette we can certainly better understand the meaning of this story. The author has chosen the title of this story as “ The loons“, because that enhances the understanding of the image of the Piquette. The loons we all know are shy. They dont like crowds. They are harmless, and if
17、someone tries to get close to them they would dive in the water and no one can predict where they would come out. This understanding of the loons behaviour helps us to improve our understanding of the Piquettes behaviour. We can draw an analogy between the behaviour of the loons and the Piquette, an
18、d say that the Piquette is a girl who is shy and does not like to mingle with other people. She prefers solitude and wants to live a harmless life.,If someone tries to get close to her and forces her to spend her life in a different way, she would leave that place and nobody can predict where she wo
19、uld go. Hence the parallels drawn between the loons and the Piquettes image reveal the hidden psychological state of the Piquettes mind. The loons and the Piquette are similar in terms of their inability to change their environment. They are similar because the loons, we all know, are neither able t
20、o adapt to the modern human invasion nor do they possess the physical means to change their environment. Similarly the Piquette having risen in an Indian family is neither able to change herself according to the modern culture nor can she escape from the cultural stereotypes imposed on her. Therefor
21、e, this analogy of the loons and the Piquette certainly broadens our horizon about the situation that the Piquette is confronting.,The story “The Loons” is set in Canada in 1930, and the action takes place in Manawaka and by the Diamond Lake. Manawaka is a small city, mostly containing Eurpoean citi
22、zens, who do not really like the Indians, or their way of living. The Tonnerre family live just below Manawaka, by the Wachakwa River. They have a shack based on a small square cabin made of polar poles and chinked with mud, which Jules Tonnerre built fifty years ago. The Diamond Lake is a place whe
23、re the MacLeod family has a cottage. This is where Piquette, on of the indian kids, spends her summer when she is 13 years old, sick from the tuberculosis in the bone. The setting is important to the story. It is about Native Americans lives, which was not very easy because of the Europeans that did
24、 not really like them. The lives of the Tonnerre family members would have been completely different if it was not for the setting. They behaved as they did because they were not accepted, and it was hard to live with that. The story would take a completely different direction if the Tonnerres were
25、accepted and lived a place where they could work and live as other Europeans, or if they could live together with other Native American,That summer, Vanessa went to Diamond Lake a few days together with Mavis, a friend. She went down to the lake, but it was not the same. The small pier her father bu
26、ilt was replaced with a bigger pier built by the government, and the loons and wild animals were gone. While she is sitting there, she is thinking about Piquette, and how maybe she was the only one who really had heard the crying of the loons.,The story is told from Vanessas point of view. This has
27、both advantages and disadvantages. We never really get to know Piquette. She is a mystery to us, and that is exiting as well as it makes us use our own imagination, which in one way makes the story better. In another way, it is a bit boring that we never get to know Piquettes feelings and thoughts,
28、which would have been very interesting in many ways because it is she the story is about. Another advantage of Vanessa having the point of view is that we get the sammenligning between Piquette and the loons, and the Indian way of living and the European way of living. Another thing is that it is in
29、teresting for us to get to know how the Europeans and another girl, almost at her age, looks at Piquette and the Native Americans, and we would not get that in the same way if Piquette told the story.,The main conflicts are many. First of all, we have the conflict between the Indian way of living, a
30、nd the European way of living. The Indians are much more concerned about the nature, and live much closer to it. They probably have a different and bigger respect for it, and are not so materialistic as the Europeans seem to be. Their life philosophy is very different from the European, and they car
31、e more about being happy than about being rich. Here comes another conflict in. The Indians do not really get their permission to live like the want to live. The average way of living had changed a lot the last years, and after the Europeans invaded their country, they started to take control of eve
32、rything and everybody, and lost respect for the Indian way and people, and believed their own way was the right way to do everything. The Europeans were the majority in Manawaka, and that led to a European way and life, and to the Native Americans being disrespected and undertrykket. Another conflic
33、t is between human beings and the nature. At this time, the industry began to increase, and people became more and more familiar with the fact that money brought power, and that industry might be the way to this thing.,I. Background knowledge,Margaret Laurence, one of the major contemporary Canadian
34、 writers, was born in 1926. She was educated in Manitoba, a province in south central Canada. After marrying an engineer, she moved with her husband to Africa and lived there for a number of years. She died of lung cancer in 1987 and her ashes were buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Neepawa, Manito
35、ba.,I. Background knowledge,About the Novel: THE LOONS is included in the 2nd section of her Norton Anthology (collection) of Short Fiction. Its also included in A Bird in the House (1970), a serial of stories told through the mouth of Vanessa. Margaret Laurence wrote 5 separate short stories about
36、this community. The Tonnerre family is one of the central families.,I. Background knowledge,The touching story tells of the plight of Piquette Tonnerre, a girl from a native Indian Family. Her people were marginalized by the white-dominating society. They were unable to exist independently in a resp
37、ectable, decent and dignified way. They found it impossible to fit into the main currents of culture and difficult to be assimilated comfortably.,I. Background knowledge,At school, Piquette felt out of place and ill at ease with the white children. When she had grown up she didnt have any chance to
38、improve her life. In fact her situation became more and more messed up. In the end she was killed in a fire.,I. Background knowledge,Her death is like the disappearance of the loons on Diamond Lake. Just as the narrators father had predicted, the loons would go away when more cottages were built at
39、the lake with more people moving in. The loons disappeared as nature was ruined by civilization. In a similar way, Piquette and her people failed to find their position in modern society.,II. Structure of the text,Part I. Para 1 - 2 Introduction to the novel, when, where, who, etc. Part II. Para.3 P
40、ara.71 Section 1. Para.3 Para.15 Introducing Piquette. Section 2. Para.16 Para.47 Days together with Piquette at Diamond Lake Section 3. Para.48 Para.62 Second meeting with Piquette several years later Section 4. Para.63 Para71 Piquettes death Part III. Para. 72 end.,. Detailed Study,(P1-P2) Introdu
41、ction Questions:a. Where did the family live? b. What do you know about the Tonnerres?,II. Detailed Study,scrub oak: short, stunted (short, not-fully-grown) oak tree bush: (large) low growing plant with several or many woody stems coming out from the root tree: with a single trunk shrub: (small) pla
42、nt with woody stem, lower than a tree, & usu. with several separate stems from the root,II. Detailed Study,Batoche:巴托什, a village at the centre of Saskatchewan Province, Canada. The battle ground where the Canadian militia beat the rebellious army in 1885. Its been established as the National Park o
43、f History now.,II. Detailed Study,Mtis: meiti:s half-breed, one of mixed blood, esp. (often cap.) half breed 混血儿，尤指法国人与印第安人的混血后裔，杂种动物,II. Detailed Study,broken: (of a foreign language) spoken imperfectly; not fluent speak in broken English (of land) having an uneven surface; rough an area of broken,
44、 rocky ground,II. Detailed Study,(of a person) weakened and exhausted by illness or misfortune He was broken-hearted when his wife died. broken home: family in which the parents have divorced or separated He comes from a broken home.,II. Detailed Study,neither fish, flesh nor good red herring / neit
45、her flesh, fowl, nor good salt herring:difficult to identify or classify; vague; ambiguous,II. Detailed Study,relief: aid in the form of goods, coupon or money given, as by a government agency, to persons unable to support themselves on relief: receiving government aid because of poverty, unemployme
46、nt, etc. a relief teacher,II. Detailed Study,quarter: 25 cents dime: 10 cents buck: 1 dollar, loon, loony yard: 100 / 1000 dollars,II. Detailed Study,Mountie: member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police mount: sb (on sth) get onto or put (sb) onto a horse, etc for riding; provide (sb) with a horse f
47、or riding He quickly mounted (his horse) and rode away. He mounted the boy on the horse. The policemen were mounted on (ie rode) black horses.,II. Detailed Study,(P3-P6)What do you know about Piquette? What impression did Piquette give on the narrator? Whats the narrators attitude toward Piquette?Wh
48、at idea did the father have about Piquette? And what are the ideas of the family on her? Whats relations between the mother- in-law and the daughter-in-law?,II. Detailed Study,negligible: too slight or unimportant to be worth any attention, of little importance or size; not worth considering a negli
49、gible amount, error, effect This years deficit in foreign trade is negligible. negligent: not taking or showing enough care, careless He has been negligent in not locking the doors as he was told to. She was negligent in her work.,II. Detailed Study,limp: walk unevenly, as when one foot or leg is hu
50、rt or stiff That dog must be hurt; hes limping. The injured footballer limped slowly off the field. cf: shuffle: walk without lifting the feet completely clear of the ground The prisoners shuffled along the corridor and into their cells. totter: walk or move unsteadily hobble: walk with difficulty because the feet or legs hurt stagger: walk or move unsteadily as if about to fall (from carrying sth. heavy, being weak or drunk,etc) stumble: strike ones foot against sth. and almost fall flop: move or fall clumsily,
