IV. Text Analysis
1.Writing style:
A biography is, by definition, an account of someone's life that has been written by someone else, or a written history of someone's life. Generally, a biography is about sb. who enjoys certain reputation, who has acquired certain fame by his / her success in certain area. The protagonist can be a positive or negative character.
2.Paraphrase (difficult sentences)
1)A man who become obsessed with the frailties of the human race.
2)Mark twain digested the new American experience before sharing it with the world as lecturer and writer.
3)The cast of characters set before him in his new profession was rich and varied- a cosmos.
4)Mark twain began digging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter and humorist.
5)Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh.
3.Rhetorical devices
1)Metaphor:
Mark Twain --- Mirror of America
saw clearly ahead a black wall of night...
main artery of transportation in the young nation's heart
the vast basin drained three-quarters of the settled United States
All would resurface in his books...that he soaked up...
Steamboat decks teemed...main current of...but its flotsam
When railroads began drying up the demand...
...the epidemic of gold and silver fever...
Twain began digging his way to regional fame...
Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles...
...took unholy verbal shots...
2)Simile:
Most American remember M. T. as the father of...
...a memory that seemed phonographic
3)Hyperbole:
...cruise through eternal boyhood and ...endless summer of freedom...
The cast of characters... - a cosmos.
4)Parallelism:
Most Americans remember ... the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure.
5)Personification:
the river had acquainted him with ...
...to literature's enduring gratitude...
the grave world smiles as usual...
Bitterness fed on the man...
America laughed with him.
Personal tragedy haunted his entire life.
6)Antithesis:
...between what people claim to be and what they really are...
...took unholy verbal shots at the Holy Land...
...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever
7)Euphemism:
...men's final release from earthly struggle
8)Alliteration:
...the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home
...with a dash and daring...
...a recklessness of cost or consequences...
9)Metonymy:
...his pen would prove mightier than his pickaxe
4.Language points
1)idyllic: [i / ai] a simple happy period of life, often in the country
2)cruise: A cruise is a holiday during which you travel on a ship and visit lots of places. When it is used as a verb, it means to move at a constant speed that is comfortable and unhurried.
3)cynical: A cynical person believes that all men are selfish. He sees little or no good in anything and shows this by making unkind and unfair remarks about people and things.
4)obsess: to worry continuously and unnecessarily.
5)frailty: a weakness of character or behaviour.
6)prospector: a person who examines the land in order to find gold, oil, etc.
7)delta country: Delta is the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet, which is shaped like a triangle. Therefore anything in the shape of a delta, esp. a deposit of sand and soil formed at the mouth of some rivers is called a delta.
8)drain: to cause to become gradually dry or empty
9)cast of characters: the cast of a play or a film consists of all the people who act in it
10)flotsam: rubbish, wreckage such as bits of wood, plastic, and other waste materials that is floating on the sea, parts of a wrecked ship or its cargo found floating in the sea
11)perceive: realize, notice, see or hear sth. esp. when it is not obvious to other people
12)succumb: vi. (fml) stop resisting (temptation, illness, attack, etc)
13)mining strike: sudden discovery of mine
14)scathing: (of speech or writing) bitterly cruel in judgement, sharp and hurtful; cutting, scornful
15)debunk: (infml) to point out the truth about (over-praised people, ideas, etc).
16)四书（大学，中庸，论语，孟子）: The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of Mean, The Analects of Confucius and Mencius)
五经（诗经，书经，易经，礼记，春秋）: The Five Classics (The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn Annals)
17)panorama: a complete view of a wide stretch of land; continuously changing view or scene; a thorough representation in words or picture
