1. Marrakech：马拉喀什，摩洛哥历史古城，全国第三大城市，南部地区政治中心。中世纪时曾两度为摩洛哥王朝的都 城。该城虽然地处沙漠边缘，但气候温和，林木葱郁，花果繁茂，以众多的名胜古迹和幽静的园林驰名于世，被誉为“摩 洛哥南部明珠”。

2. Finally he said shyly in French: “I could eat some of that bread”：该句形式上是陈述句，但实际上却是表示请求的疑问句， could此处表礼貌和委婉。

3. This man is an employee of the municipality：此处作者给“这个挖土工人是市政当局的一名雇工”这一信息，是为了暗示马 拉喀什当地居民生活的艰辛—连市政雇员都尚且食不果腹，一般人民的生活的困苦就可想而知了。

4. …and after centuries of this treatment they have ceased to bother about overcrowding：bother about sth/sb关心某人或某事物。 例：Don’t bother about us—we’ll join you later.别惦记我们——我们不久就和你们在一起了。

5. …many of them old grandfathers with flowing gray beard, all clamoring for a cigarette：clamor for sth“大声要求某物”，例： They public are clamoring for a change of government.公众大声疾呼要求撤换政府。

6. A good job Hitler wasn’t here：该句释义为it’s lucky for the local Jews that Hitler wasn’t here.希特勒统治时期迫害犹太人，对 犹太人进行民族屠杀。如果希特勒到了马拉喀什这个犹太人聚居地，当地必定会生灵涂炭。短语a good job用作对行动或事 情的评语，意为“幸运之事”。例：She’s stopped smoking, and a good job too! 她戒烟了，真是好事！

7. mon vieux：法语，相当于英语的my old fellow。摩洛哥当时还是法国殖民地，因此语言中掺杂了许多法语词汇。

8. Ah, that’s only for show：短语for show指“为了给人看”，例：She only has these books for show—she never reads them.她的 那些书只是装门面的——她从来不看。

9. In a tropical landscape one’s eye takes in everything：词组take in意项很多，此处作“注意、观察”之意。例：He took in the scene at a glance.他看了一眼那里的景色。

10. …an endless back-breaking struggle to wring a little food out of an eroded soil：wring sth out of指“费力榨出或取得某事物”。 例：They managed to wring a promise out of her.他们多方设法挤兑她应允了。

11. St. Bernard dog：圣伯纳犬，被训练用来抢救旅行家。这种狗性情温和，十分忠诚。

12. This kind of thing makes one’s blood boil：短语make one’s blood boil指“使某人非常生气”；与之相关的另一个短语make one’s blood run cold，意为“使某人感到惧怕和恐怖”。

13. People with brown skin are next door to invisible：next door to意为“几乎，近乎，差不多”。例：I’m afraid it’s next door to impossible that we’ll be there on time.看来我们几乎不可能按时到达那里了。

14. Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms：句中reach-me-down相当于hand-me-down，指“某人用 旧的或不要的”，名词形式为hand-me-downs，指“某人用旧的或不要的东西”。

1. 文体

本文是一篇对Marrakech的说明文（a piece of exposition）。

乔治奥威尔抒发了他对殖民主义及其影响的担忧。文章首先用一个当地普通居民的简单葬礼向读者生动展示了殖民统治下 当地人的贫困以及遭受的非人待遇。接下来，文章用具体事例讲述了Marrakech殖民地数百万人被忽略，过着非人的生 活。文章中对被殖民者悲惨境遇的描述中透露出了奥威尔对他们的同情以及对殖民统治者的愤怒。奥威尔在举例的过程中 运用了多种修辞手法，向读者生动展示了Marrakech人的悲惨遭遇以及殖民者的残酷。

2. 修辞

本文涉及的修辞手法主要有rhetorical question（反问），transferred epithet（移位修饰），symbolism（象征）， synecdoche（提喻），simile（明喻），onomatopoeia（拟声）等。

（1）rhetorical question

Rhetorical question是一种表示强调的句子。陈述句和各种疑问句都可以构成反问句。它的特点是用肯定的形式表示否定的 意义；用否定的形式表示肯定的意义，以加强语气。句尾可以用问号，也可以用感叹号。这种句子不需要回答，常为说服 效果而使用。如：How can I forget such an experience? 我不会忘记这次经历的事情的。

（2）transferred epithet

Transferred epithet即把本属于甲事物的性状的词移用于乙事物，而且一般说来，指的都是形容词的移用，并且一般是把原 用于修饰人的形容词用来修饰物。这种修辞手法与汉语中的移就基本相似。如：He closed his busy life at the age of sixty.他 在六十岁时结束了忙碌的一生。这种修辞格的运用，使语言描绘的一切变得形象生动、细腻微妙起来，而且融情于景、富 于联想，表现力极强，能在具体的语言环境里起到意想不到的效果，“言不言之意，传难传之音”，读来意味隽永，发人深 思。

（3）symbolism

Symbolism不是直接地表述抽象的事理或深厚的感情，而是用具体事物代表抽象事理，用具体形象表达深厚的感情。如文 章中用白鸟和纸屑象征自由。

（4）synecdoche

Synecdoche又可称“举隅法”，它以局部代表整体，以整体代表局部，以特殊代表一般，以一般代表特殊。如：America beat Canada at cricket. 在板球比赛中美国队战胜了加拿大队。

（5）Onomatopoeia是模仿事物发出的声响的修辞手法。如：The door banged shut.门砰地一声关上了。

（6）Simile修辞手法在第一单元已介绍，在此不再累述。

Exercises

I. Oral Presentation Make a five-minute presentation in class based on your research.

Suggested topics: 1. George Orwell 2. Morocco

II. Questions

A. Questions on the Content

1. Like other good writers, Orwell is good at showing rather than telling. What details or examples does the writer use to show how poor the natives in Marrakech were?

2. What is the main idea of Paragraphs 1-2? How were people buried in Marrakech? What does this show?

3. What was the Jewish quarter like in Marrakech? How were the Jews treated in this country?

4. What does the writer describe in Paragraph 10?

5. What did the Arabs and poorer Europeans think of the Jews? How does the writer respond to the remarks about the Jews?

6. What kind of people, according to Orwell, are partly invisible? Why does he stress this point?

B. Questions on Structure and Style

1. What is the theme of this essay?

2. How does the essay begin? Do you think this is an efficient way of rousing a reader’s interest in reading the whole essay?

3. Orwell describes human suffering and misery rather factually. How then can you tell that he is outraged at the spectacle of misery?

4. Why does the writer talk about the invisibility of the natives at length? What is he driving at?

5. In Paragraph 21, the author says, “I am not commenting, merely pointing to a fact.” Do you think the writer makes comments in this essay? How can you tell?

6. The things of value, Orwell says in “Why I Write,” are always political. Is this essay political? Has the writer said anything of value?

7. Comment on Orwell’s fine attention to significant descriptive details and lucid style.

III. Paraphrase

Explain the following sentences in your own words, bringing out any implied meanings. 1. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lot. (Para. 2) 2. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon this fact. (Para. 3) 3. They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard... (Para. 3) 4. A carpenter sits cross-legged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chair-legs at lightning speed. (Para. 9) 5. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews... (Para. 10) 6. ...every one of them looks on a cigarette as a more or less impossible luxury. (Para. 10) 7. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous. (Para. 16) 8. Ina tropical landscape one’ eye takes in everything except the human beings. (Para. 16) 9. No one would think of running cheap trips to the Distressed Areas. (Para. 17) 10. ...for nine-tenths of the people the reality of life is an endless, back-breaking struggle to wring a little food out of an eroded soil. (Para. 17) 11. She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say, as a beast of burden. (Para. 19) 12. People with brown skins are next door to invisible. (Para. 21) 13. Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms... (Para. 23) 14. How long before they turn their guns in the other direction? (Para. 25) 15. Every white man there had this thought stowed somewhere or other in his mind. (Para. 26)

IV. Practice with Words and Expressions

A. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized words and phrases. 1. ...then lowered its head and tried to butt me... (Para. 5) 2.. An Arab navvy working on the path nearby... (Para. 6) 3. When you go through the Jewish quarters... (Para. 8) 4. ...his left leg is warped out of shape. (Para. 9) 5. As the Jews live in self-contained communities... (Para. 11) 6. ...they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal. (Para. 15) 7. The plough is a wretched wooden thing... (Para. 18) 8. All of them are mummified with age and the sun... (Para. 19) 9. There is no question that the donkeys are damnably treated. (Para. 20) 10. ‘Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms... (Para. 23) 11. It was the shy, wide-eyed Negro look... (Para. 24) 12. ...so had the officers on their sweating chargers... (Para. 26)

B. The author uses many specific words in his description. Give the specific word to match each of the following expressions. Paragraph numbers are given in brackets to indicate in which paragraph this specific word appears. 1. to move through a place by carefully going through things that are blocking your way ( ) (Para. 2) 2. to walk towards something or someone slowly and quietly, as if you do not want to be noticed ( ) (Para. 6) 3. to put or hide away as in a safe place ( ) (Para. 7) 4. to demand something loudly ( ) (Para. 10) 5. to move along on your hands and knees with your body close to the ground ( ) (Para. 10) 6. to try to find something that you cannot see by feeling with your hands(_ _) (Para. 10) 7. athin slow flow of liquid ( ) (Para. 18) 8. to become smaller ( ) (Para. 19) 9. to walk with difficulty, especially as a result of an injury to your legs or feet ( ) (Para. 20) 10. very hard to deal with, and-making you lose hope and confidence ( ) (Para. 20)

C. Discriminate between these synonyms. 1. wail, cry, weep, sob, whimper, moan 2. glisten, glitter, flash, shimmer, sparkle

D. Each of the following sentences may be made more compact by proper subordination. Rewrite them, using subordinate clauses, appositives, prepositional or verbal phrases. 1. The British army had lost all its equipment at Dunkirk, and there was only a single armored division left to protect the home island. 2. The dry prairie land will drift away in dust storms, but it is still being plowed for profitless wheat farming. 3. The educational program may succeed, but it has to have more than mere financial support from the government. 4. They have wasted their natural resources when they should have protected and conserved them. 5. The Caldwell family opened the first rough trail and soon other settlers were coming. 6. The Smithsonian Institution is constantly working for a better understanding of nature, and it gets little or no publicity. 7. Queen Mary was easily shaken by passions. They were the passions of love and the passion of hatred and revenge. 8. I dreaded opening the door of his office, but it was only for a few days.

9. It was early morning and there was a fog and so I crawled out and made my way to the beach. 10. I left the door of the safe unlocked and took the leather bag of coins and walked down the street toward the bank.

V. Translation

A. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1. When you walk through a town like this—two hundred thousand inhabitants of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in—when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings. (Para. 3)

2. When you go through the Jewish quarters you gather some idea of what the medieval ghettoes were probably like. (Para. 8)

3. Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are completely windowless, and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere in unbelievable numbers, like clouds of flies. (Para. 8)

4. Even a blind man somewhere at the back of one of the booths heard a rumour of cigarettes and came crawling out, groping in the air with his hand. (Para. 10)

5. Ah, that’s only for show! They’re all money lenders really. (Para. 14)

6. In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal. (Para. 15)

7. It takes in the dried-up soil, the prickly pear, the palm tree and the distant mountain, but it always misses the peasant hoeing at his patch. (Para. 16)

8. Most of Morocco is so desolate that no wild animal bigger than a hare can live on it. (Para. 18)

9. Except for a day or two after the rare rainstorms there is never enough water. (Para. 18)

10. It seems to be generally the case in primitive communities that the women, when they get beyond a certain age, shrink to the size of children. (Para. 19)

B. Translate Paragraphs 20 and 21 into Chinese.

Read, Think and Comment

Read the following paragraph and then answer the questions: What is the topic sentence? How does the writer develop the main idea? Has the writer succeeded in achieving unity? Give your reasons.

Life on the farm is an eternal battle against nature. There is always the rush to harvest the crops and to get next year’s grain planted before the fall rains start. To get this accomplished the farmer must be out at work by daybreak. Fruits and vegetables have to be gathered before the early frost; hence everyone is bustling around from morning till night. Fall is beautiful when the leaves on the trees change color and then fall off. Winter sends its warming cover over the frozen ground. This causes the animals to hunt for something to eat. There is nothing, so the farmer has to feed them. After his day's work is done, the farmer puts on his slippers, reclines on the davenport in front of the fireplace, and spends a peaceful evening reading. Within a few months spring begins with its beautiful flowers and green grass. The cows give more milk so the farmer has more work to do. After the first spring rain, the corn must be cultivated. As summer approaches the farmer begins to worry for fear that the sun will come up and cook the grain before it is fully developed, or maybe a thunderstorm will come up thus causing his hay crop to rot.

A.

1. There are quite a few examples showing the poor reality of the natives in Marrakech: 1) the burial of the native people; 2) an Arab Navy, an employee of the municipality, begging for a piece of bread; 3) the miserable and suffering lives of the Jews in the ghettoes; 4) cultivation of the desolate land; 5) the old women carrying firewood.

2. Paras.1 and 2 describe how people are buried in Marrakech.

The corpses are merely wrapped in a piece of rag and carried on a rough wooden bier on the shoulders of four friends. When the friends get to the burying ground they hack an oblong hole a foot or two deep, dump the body into it and fling over it a little of the dried-up, lumpy earth. There will be no gravestone, nor name, nor identifying mark of any kind.

It indicates that in a poor country like Morocco, life is cheap and the natives are poor.

3. The Jewish quarters in Marrakech are like the medieval ghettoes: they are overcrowded; many of the streets there are narrow; houses are completely windowless; the whole area is dirty and unhygienic.

Under the Moorish rulers the Jews were only allowed to own land in certain restricted areas.

4. In Para. 10, the writer describes the scene in which Jewish people clamour for a cigarette.

5. The Arabs and poorer Europeans did not like the Jews. In Marrakech, one could sense the anti-Semitic sentiments both from the Arabs and poorer Europeans.

When hearing these dark rumors, the writer responded by saying, “But, isn’t it a fact that the average Jew...a penny an hour?” The writer uses this rhetorical question to mean that there might be some Jews who have money but most of the Jews just have to struggle to survive like others in Marrakech. This indicates that Orwell questions the remark that the Jews are the true rulers of the country.

6. All the people who work with their hands are partly invisible.

It’s only because of this that the starved countries of Asia and Africa are accepted as tourist resorts. These people are not treated as human beings, and it is on this fact that all colonial empires are in reality founded.

B.

1. The theme of this essay is the evils of colonialism or imperialism, the poverty, misery and degradation of the native people in the colonies.

2. The essay begins with the detailed description the burial of a native.

The opening paragraph is about the flies leaving the restaurant table in a cloud and rushing after the corpse. The one-sentence opening paragraph is dramatic, and the reader cannot help wondering about what happened. This is an efficient way to arouse the reader’s interest in the whole essay.

3. He manages to show that he is outraged at the spectacle of misery, first, through the clever choice of the scenes he describes; second, through the careful and appropriate choice of words; third, through the tone in which he describes these scenes; and finally, by contrasting the indignation at the cruel handling of the donkey with the indifference towards the fate of the human beings.

4. The writer talks about the invisibility of the natives at length because he is extremely bitter and ironical. Instead of openly blaming

the white colonialists who don’t pay the least attention to the people who suffer from poverty, he pretends that they have a sound reason to ignore such people. The people cannot be seen simply because their color is the same as that of earth. Orwell is very cleverly revealing in these two paragraphs the real inner workings of the colonialists’ mentality. Such people take their presumed superiority so much for granted and it’s so deep within them that they literally don’t even see the wretched poor people of the Third World and are so insensitive that they actually treat those countries as tourist resorts where they vacation and enjoy themselves oblivious of the sufferings all around them.

5. What the author says here is actually an understatement. It is true that Orwell has been pointing out the facts. These facts, and their presentation, however, serve to denounce the inhuman nature of colonialism.

6. Yes, it is. In this essay Orwell denounces the evils of colonialism or imperialism. He mercilessly exposes the poverty, misery and degradation of the native people in the colonies.

7. Orwell is good at choice of words and the scenes he describes. His words are usually simple but forceful. Orwell’s lucid style and fine attention to significant descriptive details efficiently conveyed to the readers the central idea—“all colonial empires are in reality founded upon this fact”, namely, the fact that the people are not considered nor are they treated as human beings.

1. The burying-ground is nothing more than a huge piece of wasteland full of mounds of earth looking like a deserted and abandoned piece of land on which a building was going to be put up.

2. All the imperialists build up their empires by treating the people in the colonies like animals (by not treating the people in the colonies as human beings)

3. They are born. Then for a few years they work, toil and starve. Finally they die and are buried in graves without a name.

4. Sitting with his legs crossed and using a very old-fashioned lathe, a carpenter quickly gives a round shape to the chair-legs he is making.

5. Immediately from their dark hole-like cells everywhere a great number of Jews rushed out wildly excited.

6. Every one of these poor Jews looked on the cigarette as a piece of luxury which they could not possibly afford.

7. However, a white-skinned European is always quite noticeable.

8. If you take a look at the natural scenery in a tropical region, you see everything but the human beings.

9. No one would think of organizing cheap trips for the tourists to visit the poor slum areas (for these trips would not be interesting).

10. Life is very hard for ninety percent of the people. They can produce a little food on the poor soil with hard backbreaking toil.

11. She took it for granted that as an old woman she was the lowest in the community, that she was only fit for doing heavy work like an animal.

12. People with brown skins are almost invisible.

13. The Senegalese soldiers were wearing readymade khaki uniforms which hid their beautiful well-built bodies.

14. How much longer before they turn their guns around and attack us?

15. Every white man, the onlookers, the officers on their horses and the white NCOs marching with the black soldiers, had this thought hidden somewhere or other in his mind.

A.

1. butt: to strike or push with the head or horns

2. navvy: abbreviation of “navigator”, a British word meaning an unskilled laborer, as on canals, roads, etc.

3. quarters: an area of a town or city where a particular kind of people typically live or work

4. warp: bend, curve, or twist out of shape

5. self-contained: self-sufficient, as a community; having within oneself or itself all that is necessary

6. square: (colloquial) satisfying; solid; substantial

7. wretched: poor in quality, very inferior

8. mummified: thin and withered, looking like a mummy

9. damnably, outrageously, detestably

10. reach-me-down: (British colloquialism) second-hand or ready-made clothing

11. wide-eyed: with the eyes opened widely, as because of surprise, fear, lack of sophistication, etc.

12. charger: a horse ridden in battle or on parade

B.

1. to thread one’s way

2. to sidle

3. to stow

4. to clamor

5. to crawl

6. to grope

7. trickle

8. to shrink

9. to hobble

10. crushing

C.

1. wail主要指的是持续的、口齿不清的哀悼声；cry和weep都与流眼泪有关；cry则更强烈地表示伴随的声音；sob描述的是 哭泣或者以强烈的呼吸声或喘气声为特征的断断续续的讲话和哭泣声的混合；whimper指的是低声的、伤心的、断断续续 的或受压抑的哭泣，如小孩发出的哭声；moan指因悲伤或痛苦而发出很低的长声哀叹。

2. glisten指由反光反射引起的闪光；glitter指由物体反射出的星星点点的闪光；flash指的是突然的、明亮的但短暂的发光； shimmer指由微波荡漾的水面反照出的柔和的闪光；sparkle指一系列迅速闪动的高亮度小闪光。

D.

1. After the British army had lost all its equipment at Dunkirk, there was only a single armored division left to protect the home island.

2. Although the dry prairie land will drift away in dust storms, it is still being plowed for profitless wheat farming.

3. If the educational program is to succeed, it has to have more than mere financial support from the government.

4. They have wasted their natural resources, which they should have protected and conserved.

5. Soon other settlers were coming in over the first rough trail which the Caldwell family had opened.

6. The Smithsonian Institute is constantly working, with little or no publicity, for a better understanding of nature for man’s benefit.

7. Queen Mary was easily shaken by passions—passions of love and of hatred and revenge.

8. For a few days I dreaded opening the door of his office.

9. Concealed by the fog of early dawn, I crawled out and made my way to the beach.

10. Leaving the door of the safe unlocked and taking the leather bag of coins, I walked down the street toward the bank.

V. See the translation of the text.

1. “Life on the farm is an eternal battle against nature” is the topic sentence.

2. The writer develops the main idea by a topic sentence in the opening paragraph followed by detailed examples and descriptions.

3. This paragraph lacks unity. It is a bad piece of writing. The writer of this paragraph has completely forgotten what he had started out to say. Instead of being an “eternal battle”, life in this paragraph becomes a pleasant and exciting experience—which it probably is, but that is not what the writer set out to prove.