This Was My Mother

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

• Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens• Samuel Langhorne Clemens once worked

as a steamboat pilot, and he got his pen name from this job.

• “Mark Twain” is a boatman’s signal called up from the bow where the leadsman was sounding the river’s channel with his line. It means “two fathoms deep” or “safe water” (12 feet deep).

Twain works

• The Gilded Age （镀金年代）

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer（汤姆 .索耶历险记）

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn（哈克贝利 .费恩历险记）

• Life on the Mississippi（密西西比河上）

Structure of the Text

• Part 1: My mother, Jane Lampton Clemens who died at the age of 88th , is an amazing person.

• Part 2: She was concerned with everyone's griefs and joys and could find every excuses to love even the toughest human beings or animals. Even the wild cats could be taken care of by her and had a friend in her.

Structure of the Text

• Part 3: She feared nothing except for the snakes and bats which I hid in pockets and sewing baskets when I made mischief. Her fearlessness even conquered the most fierce and brutal man of the town who was afraid of by all of us, and they became friends later. She was also courageous enough to defend me when she heard the neighbor condemned me.

Structure of the Text

• Part 4: She would not allow others to abuse animals. When she saw a burly cartman beating his horse over the head with the butt of a heavy whip, she took the whip away from him and made a persuasive appeal.

Structure of the Text

• Part 5: She was fond of attending lectures, conventions and church revivals and always joined the parades and circus procession. She never missed a funeral and excused that if she did not go to other people's funerals, they would not come to hers.

Structure of the Text

• Part 6: She had a love which was concealed from us for 64 years. That was when she was 18 she had loved a young medical student. Their love ended with a misunderstanding and he left the country, while she had immediately married to show she did not care. At the year when she was 82, she heard that he was going to attend a convention of old settlers of Mississippi Valley. She went to there immediately. But she was 3 hours lat

Structure of the Text

• Part 7: From then on, her memory began to fail. And four years later she died. But to the last she was capable with her tongue. She refuted the kind of saying that she was uneasy about me when I was a sickly child.

Structure of the Text

• Part 8: My mother's character, striking and lovable, appears in my books as Tom Sawyer's Aunt Polly who kept the original color of my mother and, it is not necessary for me to make any improvement for her.

New words

invalid:

(1) adj. not legally or officially acceptable

eg. The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified.

(2) n. a person who needs other people to take care of them because of illness

eg. She had been a delicate child and her parents had treated her as an invalid.

New words

(be) destined (to do sth. /for sth): willed by God

eg. My letter was destined never to reach him.

They were destined never to meet again He seemed to be destined for great su

ccess. I never thought I would marry him, but I

suppose it was destined.

New words

beguile v. (into or out of): trick sb into doing sth especially by being nice to him

.eg. His pleasant ways beguiled me into thinki

ng that he was my good friend. What a pity it is that the son has beguiled

his mother out of her savings. He beguiled me into lending him my bicycl

e.

New words

lash

Eg.

• The rider lashed his horse to make it go faster.

• The rain was lashing (against) the window.

• The waves lashed rocks.

• The speaker lashed out against the government. (attacked violently with words)

New words

defy v

(1). To refuse to obey • I wouldn’t dare to defy my parents.• Hundreds of people today defied the ban on polit

ical gatherings.

(2). To successfully resist sb/sth to a very unusual degree

• The baby boy defied all the odds and survived.

fit out

• supply (esp. a person pr ship) with necessary things.

• Before he left home his father fitted him out with all the clothing he would need for the next year.

• The soldiers were fitted out with guns and clothing.

• The ship has been fitted out with a new engine.

Language Points

1. Para. [1] ： ... forgetful of selfHere “self ” means one’s own interests, profits or advantages ( 自我；私心 ).

① Knowledge of self increases as one gets older. ② She always thinks of others, never of self.

2. Para. [3] ： ... find something to excuse and as a rule to love in the toughest of human beings or animals ... The structure of this sentence is “find something ... in ... ”. “to excuse” and “to love” modify “something” ，“ as a rule” modifies “to love” ，“ the toughest of human beings” is a form of written language used to lay much emphasis. Its meaning is the same with that of “the toughest human beings”.

Language Points

3. Para. [8] ： embroidery n. It originally means the act or result of doing ornamental needle work on (cloth). Here it refers to the improvement of a story by adding ornamental details from the imagination.

Language Points

4. Para. [9] ： ... a vicious devil of a Corsican, ...Here “of a Corsican” doesn’t indicate the ownership. It introduces an apposition, i. e. , Corsican=vicious devil. Corsica is a Mediterranean island belonging to France. Corsicans are famous for their bravery and violence.

Language Points

5. Para. [9] ： but she only stood, straight and fine ， ...Here “straight and fine” modifies “she”, but functions as an adverbial. It is used for further emphasis. “Straight” here means “honest, truthful”; straight and fine 堂堂正正地

Language Points

Language Points

6. Para. [10] ： ... that he was tripped into saying ...Here “was tripped into saying” means “couldn’t help saying”.

7. Para. [12] ： She had never seen him since and ...Here “since” is used as an adverb, meaning “at a time between then and now”.

① He was sick last month but has since recovered. ② Her husband died 10 years ago, but she’s since remar

ried. ③ He left his native village twenty years ago and has sinc

e returned only twice. ④ Her father left home in 1980 and has not been heard o

f since.

Language Points