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1、高级英语（第三版）第一册第十一课 The Way to Rainy MountainA Short Introduction “The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969)” is a book by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday. It is about the journey of Momadays Kiowa ancestors from their ancient beginnings in the Montana area to their final war and surrender to the
2、 United States Cavalry at Fort Sill, and subsequent resettlement near Rainy Mountain, Oklahoma. The book is divided into three main parts: The Setting Out, which consists of early Kiowa legends and anthropological studies on the Kiowa people. The second part, The Going On, continues with the theme o
3、f Kiowa mythology, and discusses the origins of Tai-me and the Sun Dance Ritual. The last section, The Closing In, describes the end of the Kiowa golden age has a lot to do with the death of the Kiowa culture.Teaching Objectives1. To understand the authors special racial identity 2. To learn the his
4、tory of his Kiowa, to widen our knowledge of the Native Americans. 3. To appreciate this prose. Structure of the TextPart I: Paras 1-3: introduction to the whole textPart III: Paras 11-14: the authors vivid memoryPart IV: Paras 15-16: the author reports his reflections on the exploration into the ch
5、erished memory of the Kiowa peoplePart II: Paras 4-10: the author explores the threestages of the Kiowa culture emergence, evolution and decline.Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 1 The topic sentence: The hardest weather in the world is there. In summer the prairie is an anvils edge In summer,
6、the earth of the prairie is extremely hot and hard. Anvil: a metaphor. An anvil is an iron on which metal objects are hammered into shape. The grass turns brittle and brown “brittle” and “brown” begin with the letter “b.” alliteration. great green-and-yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall g
7、rass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in the plenty of time. The grasshoppers on the plain are large and everywhere. When a grasshopper hops, it pops up like the growing corn in the fields, making a sudden, explosive movement to stin
8、g the flesh. Tortoises crawl about the red earth aimlessly in no hurry for they have all the time to themselves. Loneliness is an aspect of the land Loneliness is a major quality of this landscape. The author emphasizes loneliness, perhaps because this quality enables one to concentrate ones mind on
9、 the earth. There is no confusion of objects in the eye “eye” is used in the singular not to mean the concrete organ of the sight, but the power of seeing or observing. One hill or one tree or one man: The use of “one” instead of an indefinite article “a” emphasizes the fact that there is only one h
10、ill, only one tree or only one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. When you look upon the landscape in the early morning with the rising sun at your back, the objects you see may seem larger (or smaller) than they real
11、ly are. And the sense of proportion is about life, creation, and so it is a philosophical comment, not just about the physical. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation began. The landscape makes your imagination vivid and lifelike, and you believe that the creation of
12、the whole universe was begun right here. Here the author capitalizes the word but omits the article “the,” perhaps to show that he is talking about the creating of the universe as a Kiowa imagines. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 2 The author explains his purpose of his visit to Rainy Mountai
13、n: to be at his grandmothers grave. This paragraph serves as a transitional link between the description of the land in Paragraph 1 and the narration of his grandmothers and his peoples stories in the following paragraphs. I was told that in death her face was that of a child In death, she was peace
14、ful and free from all earthly worries and miseries. Her face looked like that of a child. Only in death can one return to childhood innocence and peacefulness. The word “child” is repeated in the next sentence of the next paragraph: I like to think of her as a child. Structurally the two paragraphs
15、are smoothly connected. In meaning, the author seems to say that life is but a cycleone begins as a child and ends like a child, and in death one returns to where one begins. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 3 Paragraph 3 sums up the history of the Kiowa as a Plains Native tribethe golden time
16、 and the decline in their history. I like to think of her as a child. His grandmother was born (around 1880) at a time when the Kiowa were still living in their golden time or to be more exact, the last moment of their golden time. Starting from Paragraph 3, the author links his grandmother with the
17、 history of the Kiowa. Warfare for the Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival. The Kiowa often fought just because they felt that war was sacred because it could demonstrate their courage and strength, because they were good warriors, because they fought out of habit
18、, character, nature, not because they needed extra lands or material gains for the sake of surviving and thriving. They never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. The Kiowa never figured out why the U.S. Cavalry kept advancing toward them so cruelly and relentlessly. Wars we
19、re common among different Indian tribes. The cause of war was simple. They fought either for the simple necessity of survival or to display their bravery. When one side won a battle, they would typically stop advancing upon their defeated enemy but would celebrate their victory. Yet, the U.S. Cavalr
20、y seemed different. They never gave up advancing even when they won. This puzzled the Indians. The truth is that the U.S. Cavalry was sent to accompany and protect the non-Indian, mostly white, settlers. My grandmother was spared the humiliation of those high gray walls by eight or ten years, but sh
21、e must have known from birth the affliction of defeat, the dark brooding of old warriors. Luckily, my grandmother did not suffer the humiliation of being put into a closure for holding animals, for she was born eight or ten years after the event. But she must have heard what had happened from her pa
22、rents and grandparents. Therefore she must have known the great pain and distress brought by defeat, and she must have seen how they had kept thinking about their defeat in a gloomy and hopeless way. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 4 Paragraph 4 is mainly about how the Kiowa migrated from wes
23、tern Montana and how the migration transformed the Kiowa. Like Paragraph 3, this part uses the authors grandmothers story as a focal point, but quickly moves on to the story of the Kiowa people. The use of words like “she belonged to the last culture” and “her forebears” smoothes the transition. The
24、 last culture to evolve in North America Before the arrival of the Europeans, numerous native Indian cultures had existed for a long time in North America. Whose language has never been positively classifiedThe native Indian languages are classified mainly geographically, not linguistically. Perhaps
25、 because of the migration of the Kiowa, their language has never been definitely classified in any major group of the Native Indian languages. It was a long journey toward the dawn and it led to a golden age. They moved toward the east, where the sun rises, and also toward the beginning of a new cul
26、ture, which led to the greatest moment in their history. Dawn has two meanings: the beginning of daylight; daybreak and the beginning of something. The Kiowa people not only moved toward the sun from a sunless mountain area, but also toward the beginning of a new era in their history. Along the way
27、the Kiowas were befriended by the CrowsIndian wars were frequent in history. Yet, in the process of their migration, the Crow helped the Kiowa by giving them horses and introducing them to the religion of the Great Plains, both of which were essential for the transformation of the Kiowa from a mount
28、ain people to a plain people. And their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground. As a nomadic people, they had no permanent home and were constantly on the move. When they lived in the mountains in Montana, they had no horses and therefore they had to walk on foot all the time. In a s
29、ense, they were tied to the ground. They acquired Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, from that moment the object and symbol of their worship, and so shared in the divinity of the sun. They came into possession of Tai-me, the object and symbol of their worshipthe Sun Dance religion. This object was w
30、orshipped by all tribes that regarded the sun as deity. They entered the world through a hollow log. In the first chapter of his book The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday writes, “everything had to begin, and this is how it was: The Kiowas came one by one into the world through a hollow log.” “There w
31、ere many more than now, but not all of them got out. There was a woman whose body was swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the log. After that, no one could get through, and that is why the Kiowas are a small tribe in number.” From one point of view, their migration was the fruit of an old pr
32、ophecy, for indeed they emerged from a sunless world. In a sense, their migration confirmed the ancient myth that they entered the world from a hollow log, for they did emerge from the sunless mountain forests. Those mountains were so high and forests so dense that the sunlight could not penetrate t
33、hem. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 5 This paragraph explains the purpose of the authors journeys to places where his ancestors lived. Although my grandmother lived out her long life in the shadow of Rainy Mountain, the immense landscape of the continental interior lay like memory in her blo
34、od. Although my grandmother never left Rainy Mountain in her long life, the immense landscape of the Great Plains existed clearly in her memory as if she had lived there herself. I wanted to see in reality what she had seen perfectly in the minds eye, and traveled fifteen hundred miles to begin my p
35、ilgrimage. In the minds eye: in imagination For Momaday, the journey is indeed aimed at a holy place, a place where his ancestors lived and thrived in their golden age.Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 6 There is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but it belongs to the eagle and the elk, the b
36、adger and the bear. I admit there is a perfect freedom in the mountains, but only animals can enjoy this freedom thoroughly. The Kiowa people did not feel free at all. The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness. As hunters, it was
37、 very important for the Kiowa to be able to see long distances. So if a Kiowa could see a long way, he would be respected by his fellow Kiowa. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 7 It is a depiction of the landscape which they came upon when they got out of the highlands in Montana. This new land
38、scape is open, limitless and sunlit, allowing them a new vision into unknown distances. This forms a sharp contrast with the sunless mountain landscape of Yellowstone. The sense of confinement and limitation in the mountain gave way to a sense of freedom in the plains.Ranging after the solstices The
39、 sun plays the dominant role after summer and winter solstices. We notice the movement of the sun more after the solstices because the days lengthen or shorten. Nor yet would they veer southward to the caldron of the land that lay below; they must wean their blood from the northern winter and hold t
40、he mountains a while longer in their view. They would not yet change the direction southward to the land lying below which was like a large kettle, implying the idea of heat as well as the bowl shape. Wean:断奶 metaphor. The Kiowa paused on their way, not in a hurry to go on toward the southeast becau
41、se they wanted to give their bodies some time to get accustomed to the change of weather and other physical conditions. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 8 The author describes Devils Tower and tells the Kiowa legend about it. Devils Tower Two centuries ago, because they could not do otherwise,
42、 the Kiowas made a legend at the base of the rock. Two centuries ago, because the Kiowas could not explain how Devils Tower was formed in scientific terms, the only thing they could do was to make up a story at the base of the rock. Directly there was a bear the boy had been. The boy had turned into
43、 a bear. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The bear rose upright on its back legs and scratched the bark of the tree around with its sharp claws. In this legend, Devils Tower was that tree, and the marks on the rock were scratches left by the bear. Detailed An
44、alysis of the TextParagraph 9 The symbolic meaning of the legendIn the legend the seven sisters are immortalized. With this legend, the Kiowa established a kinship with the stars. They were already allied with the sun through Tai-me. Whatever they were in the mountains, they could be no more. They h
45、ad been a mountain people in Montana, and now they had been completely transformed into a plains people.Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 10The author tells about the last days of the Sun Dance culture by using his grandmother as a witness. My grandmother had a reverence for the sun, a holy reg
46、ard that now is all but gone out of mankind. The author is criticizing modern humans who, almost without exception, have no holy regard for nature. She had come a long way about, and she never forgot her birthright. She had experienced a lot before becoming a Christian but she never forgot her cultu
47、ral heritage as a Kiowa. They could find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree. As they were unable to find any buffalo, they had to substitute the head of a buffalo with an animals skin. This shows how the Kiowa culture was weakened by the disappearance of buffalo. Forbidden
48、 without cause the essential act of their faith, having seen the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground. They were forbidden to perform the most important part of their religion and no reason was given for abolishing the Sun Dance religion. Without bitterness, and for as long as she
49、lived, she bore a vision of deicide. deicide: the killing of a god. Why without bitterness? Maybe the Kiowa had suffered too much to feel bitter, or maybe they accepted this as their fate. Detailed Analysis of the TextParagraph 11 For the first time, the author concentrates only on his grandmothers
50、story rather than mixing it with the history of the whole Kiowa tribe. Also for the first time, the author shifts the focus of depicting the landscape to describing a personhis grandmother Aho as an old woman. That was illusion; I think I knew then that I should not see her again. That she was timel