americanshortstorymasterpieces课件13agoodmanishardtofind

Passage Thirteen Flannery OConnor1925-1964 OConnor, a Catholic from Georgia, always insisted that her faith informed her fiction, despite her stories being filled with grotesques(奇异风格) and violence. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” she explained, is grotesque the way a childs drawing is. The child doesnt intend to distort but to set down exactly what he sees. OConnor advised readers to be on the lookout not for dead bodies but for the action of grace, which as OConnor explained, can and does use as its medium the imperfect, purely human, and even hypocritical（伪善的；虚伪的）. The choice facing the characters in this story, as for the characters in most of OConnors stories, is to accept or cut oneself off from grace.A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND1. The grandmother didnt want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing every chance to change Baileys mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. “Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldnt take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldnt answer to my conscience if I did.2. Bailey didnt look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the childrens mother; a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green headkerchief that had two points on the top like rabbits ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots （杏仁） out of a jar. The children have been to Florida before, the old lady said. You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee.3. The childrens mother didnt seem to hear her, but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky （short and strong and solid）child with glasses, said, If you dont want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home? He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.4. She wouldnt stay at home to be queen for a day, June Star said without raising her yellow head.5. Yes, and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you? the grandmother asked.6. Id smack his face, John Wesley said.7. She wouldnt stay at home for a million bucks, June Star said. Afraid shed miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.8. All right, Miss, the grandmother said. Just remember that the next time you want me to curl your hair.9. June Star said her hair was naturally curly.10. The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise (a small leather bag, esp. for traveling) that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, Sing is a character in Gilbert and Sullivans comic opera The Mikado (1885) the cat, in it. She didnt intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of the gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate (窒息) himself. Her son, Bailey, didnt like to arrive at a motel with a cat.11. She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the childrens mother and the baby sat in the front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city.12. The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The childrens mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets （白色紫罗兰） on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print （印好的）. Her collar and cuffs were white organdy （蝉翼纱） trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets （一簇紫色的布制紫罗兰）containing a sachet （封口塑料袋）. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.13. She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite （花岗岩） that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple （有紫色条纹）; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlights and the meanest （best）of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother had gone back to sleep.14. Lets go through Georgia fast so we wont have to look at it much, John Wesley said.15. If I were a little boy,” said the grandmother, I wouldnt talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills.16. Tennessee is just a hillbilly (please guess the meaning of the word) dumping ground, John Wesley said, and Georgia is a lousy (disgusting) state too.17. You said it, June Star said.18. “In my time, said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny (黑人小孩)! she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. Wouldnt that make a picture, now? she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved.19. He didnt have any britches on, June Star said.20. He probably didnt have any, the grandmother explained. Little niggers in the country dont have things like we do. If I could paint, Id paint that picture, she said.21. The children exchanged comic books.22. The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the childrens mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland (无表情的) one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway （恍惚的，走神的） smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. Look at the graveyard! the grandmother said, pointing it out. That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation.23. Wheres the plantation? John Wesley asked.24. Gone With the Wind,” Title of the best-selling novel (1936) by Margaret Mitchell about the passing of the old South. said the grandmother. Ha. Ha.25. When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didnt play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother. 26. The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E.A.T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E.A.T.! This story tickled John Wesleys funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didnt think it was any good. She said she wouldnt marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentleman and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man. 27. They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sandwiches. The Tower was a part-stucco （毛水泥的） and part-wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMYS FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMYS! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMYS YOUR MAN!28. Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry （楝树） tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.29. Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other, and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a broad table next to the nickelodeon Jukebox and Red Sams wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The childrens mother put a dime in the machine and played The Tennessee Waltz, and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didnt have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmothers brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the childrens mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.30. Aint she cute? Red Sams wife said, leaning over the counter. Would you like to come be my little girl?31. No, I certainly wouldnt, June Star said. I wouldnt live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks! and she ran back to the table.32. Aint she cute? the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely.33. Arent you ashamed? hissed the grandmother.34. Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these peoples order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination of sigh and yodel （一种小调）. You cant win, he said. You cant win, and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. These days you dont know who to trust, he said. Aint that the truth?35. People are certainly not nice like they used to be, said the grandmother. 36. Two fellers come in here last week, Red Sammy said, driving a Chrysler. It was an old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?37. Because youre a good man! the grandmother said at once.38. Yesm, I suppose so, Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.39. His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. It isnt a soul in this green world of Gods that you can trust, she said. And I dont count nobody out of that, not nobody, she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.40. Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, thats escaped? asked the grandmother.41. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if he didnt attack this place right here, said the woman. If he hears about it being here, I wouldnt be none surprised to see him. If he hears its two cent in the cash register, I wouldnt be at all surprised if he.42. Thatll do, Red Sam said. Go bring these people their Co-Colas, and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.43. A good man is hard to find, Red Sammy said. Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.44. He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy （having laces） chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.45. They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors (木质的格子凉亭) on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor （求婚者） after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. There was a secret panel （镶/嵌板） in this house, she said craftily （cunningly）, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found.46. Sherman: In 1864 the Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and his army marched from Atlanta to Savannah, burning many civilian farms and houses along the way.47. Hey! John Wesley said. “Lets go see it! Well find it! Well poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, cant we turn oft there?”48. We never have seen a house with a secret panel! June Star shrieked. Lets go to the house with the secret panel! Hey, Pop, cant we go see the house with the secret panel!49. Its not far from here, I know, the grandmother said. It wouldnt take over twenty minutes.50. Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horse-shoe. No, he said.51. The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mothers shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blow in his kidney.52. All right! he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you dont shut up, we wont go anywhere.53. It would be very educational for them, the grandmother murmured.54. All right, Bailey said, but get this. This is the only time were going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time.55. The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back, the grandmother directed. I marked it when we passed.56. A dirt road, Bailey groaned.57. After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other points about the house, the beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in the fireplace.58. You cant go inside this house, Bailey said. You dont know who lives there.59. While you all talk to the people in front, Ill run around behind and get in a window, John Wesley suggested.60. Well all stay in the car, his mother said.61. They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along, in a swirl of pink dust. The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a days journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments (banks). All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.62. This place had better turn up in a minute, Bailey said, or Im going to turn around.63. The road looked as if no one had traveled on it in months.64. Its not much farther, the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated (瞪着眼睛) and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise （推翻了履行箱） in the corner. The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Baileys shoulder.65. The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch （干沟/渠/谷） on the side of the road. Bailey remained in the drivers seat with the catgray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose (appearance of the cat)clinging to his neck like a caterpillar (毛虫). (A car accident!)66. As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, Weve had an ACCIDENT! The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard （仪表盘）, hoping she was injured so that Baileys wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee.67. Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it out the window against the side of a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and started looking for the childrens mother. She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch （红色的狭窄沟渠）, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder. Weve had an ACCIDENT! the children screamed in a frenzy of delight.68. But nobodys killed, June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty （轻快的，快活的） angle and the violet spray（紫色花簇） hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking.69. Maybe a car will come along, said the childrens mother hoarsely.70. I believe I have injured an organ, said the grandmother,