21世纪大学实用英语第四册Unit_1

21st Century College English: Book 1

Unit 4: Text A

The Washwoman

Unit 4: Text A

Lead-in Activities Lead Text Organization Reading & Writing Skills Language Points Guided Practice Assignment

LeadLead-in Activities

Questions for Discussion Do your grandparents live with your parents? What’s the possible advantages and disadvantages of elders living together with their children’s families? Think of a person you know who continues to work hard in his / her old age. Describe this person to others. What is he / she like? What does he / she do? Why do you think he / she still work?

Text Organization The Structure of Text A

Washwoman and her job

Para. 1-4 1Para. 5

Mother and son

Sense of responsibility

Para. 6-14 6-

Text Organization I. Washwoman and her job

This part introduces the washwoman to readers by giving a brief description of her and shows readers the difference between her and other Jewish women at her

Text Organization II. Mother and son

From this paragraph, we can see how the washwoman was treated by his rich son and how kind, caring and loving she was to her son as a mother. mother.

Text Organization III. Sense of responsibility

Some episodes briefly but accurately tells readers how responsible the washwoman was although her health was declining as time passed by. by.

Reading & Writing Skills 1) Reading skill learning: Ss learn to get the needed information such as physical appearance by skimming the descriptive words and understand and generalize a person's personalities and qualities through some stores and life episodes 2) Writing skill learning Ss learn to write about a person by giving a description of what he or she looks like and telling some stories that shows what kind person he or she is.

Intensive Study

The Washwomanby Isaac Bashevis Singer

1 She was a small woman, old and wrinkled. When she wrinkled. started washing for us, she was already past seventy. Most seventy. Jewish women of her age were sickly and weak. All the old weak. women in our street had bent backs and leaned on sticks when they walked. But this washwoman, small and thin as she walked. was, was, possessed a strength that came from generations of peasant forebears. Mother would count out to her a bundle of forebears. laundry that had accumulated over several weeks. She would weeks. then lift the bundle, put it on her narrow shoulders, and carry it the long way home. home.

Intensive Study

2

She would bring the laundry back about two weeks later. later.

My mother had never been so pleased with any washwoman. washwoman. Yet she charged no more than the others. She was a real find. others. find. Mother always had her money ready, because it was too far for the old woman to come a second time. time.

Intensive Study

3

Laundering was not easy in those days. The old woman days.

had no running water where she lived but had to bring in the water from a pump. And the drying! It could not be done

pump. outside because thieves would steal the laundry. So it had to laundry. be carried up to the attic and hung on clotheslines. Only God clotheslines. knows what the old woman had to endure each time she did a wash!

Intensive Study

4

She could have begged at the church door or entered a

home for the penniless and aged. But there was in her a aged. certain pride and love of labor with which many members of the labor force have been blessed. The old woman did not blessed. want to become a burden, and so she bore her burden. burden.

Intensive Study

5

The woman had a son who was rich. He was ashamed of rich.

his mother, and never came to see her. Nor did he ever give her. her money. The old woman told this without bitterness. When money. bitterness. the son got married, the wedding took place in a church. The church. son had not invited the old mother to his wedding, but she went to the church anyway and waited at the steps to see her son lead the bride to the altar. altar.

Intensive Study

6

One day the washwoman, now nearly eighty years old,

came to our house. A good deal of laundry had accumulated house. during the past weeks. Mother gave her a pot of tea to warm weeks. herself, as well as some bread. The old woman sat on a kitchen bread. chair trembling and shaking, and warmed her hands against the teapot. Her fingernails were strangely white. These hands teapot. white. spoke of the stubbornness of mankind, of the will to work not only as one’s strength permits but beyond the limits of one’s power. power. It was sad to watch the old woman stagger out with the big bundle and disappear. disappear.

Intensive Study

7

Usually the woman brought back the wash after two or, at

the most, three weeks. But three weeks passed, then four and weeks. five, and nothing was heard of the old woman. woman. 8 For us the washwoman’s absence was a catastrophe. We catastrophe.

needed the laundry. We did not even know the woman’s laundry. address. address. It seemed certain that she had collapsed, died. died. Mother declared she had had a premonition that we would never see our things again. We mourned, both for the laundry again. and for the old woman who had grown close to us through the years she had served us so faithfully. faithfully.

Intensive Study

9

More than two months passed. One evening, while Mother passed.

was sitting near the lamp mending a shirt, the door opened and a small puff of steam, followed by a huge bundle, entered. entered. Under the bundle tottered the old woman, her face as white as a linen sheet. Mother uttered a half-choked cry, as though a sheet. halfcorpse had entered the room. I ran toward the old woman and room. helped her unload her bundle. She was even thinner now, more bundle. bent. bent. She could not utter a clear word, but mumbled something with her sunken mouth and pale lips. lips.

Intensive Study

10 After the old woman had recovered somewhat, she told us that she had been ill, very ill. In fa

ct, she had been so sick that ill. someone had called a doctor, and the doctor had sent for a priest. priest. Someone had informed the son, and he had contributed money for a coffin. But God had not yet wanted to take this coffin. poor soul to Himself. She began to feel better, she became well, Himself. and as soon as she was able to stand on her feet once more, she resumed her washing. Not just ours, but the wash of several washing. other families too. too.

Intensive Study

11 “I could not rest easy in my bed because of the wash,” the old woman explained. “The wash would not let me die.” explained. die. 12 “With the help of God you will live to be a hundred and twenty,” said my mother. mother.

Intensive Study

13 “God forbid! What good would such a long life be? The forbid! work becomes harder and harder … my strength is leaving me … I do not want to be a burden on any one!” The old woman muttered, crossed herself, and raised her eyes toward heaven. heaven. After getting paid, she left, promising to return in a few weeks for a new load of wash. wash.

Intensive Study

14 But she never came back. The wash she had returned was back. her last effort on this earth. She had been driven by a strong earth. will to return the property to its owners, to fulfill the task she had undertaken. undertaken.

TextText-related information Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (190419041991) 1991) was an American short-story shortwriter and novelist who wrote in Yiddish. Yiddish. Born in Poland, he came to the USA in 1935. He became a journalist at the New 1935. York Jewish Daily Forward, which also published his Forward, fiction. fiction. Singer is most famous for his short stories, which deal most with the heritage, faith, and daily lives of Polish Jews, particularly in the Warsaw Ghetto (犹太人区). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. 1978.

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