Class Notes---The Secret Garden
1. Today's Topic:
text SparkNotes Quiz movie: The Secret Garden 1993
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's literature. Several stage and film adaptations have been produced.
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Mary Lennox is an unwanted, neglected child who is sent to live with an uncle after her parents die in a cholera epidemic. There she discovers an equally-neglected secret garden and shares it with Colin, her young cousin, who is has been locked away for several years. In time, the healing power of the garden brings love and peace to the entire family.
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* cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and muscle cramps may also occur. Diarrhea can be so severe that it leads within hours to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. This may result in sunken eyes, cold skin, decreased skin elasticity, and wrinkling of the hands and feet. The dehydration may result in the skin turning bluish. Symptoms start two hours to five days after exposure.
* film of The Secret Garden
2. Complements:
(1) culture backgrounds may affect the literature works:
ex 1 : Journey to the west
→ Chinese idiom---你逃不出我的手掌心
ex 2 : Harry Potter---Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
→ Greek mythology---Cerberus 三頭犬
In Greek mythology, Cerberus, often called the "hound of Hades", is a monstrous multi-headed dog, who guards the gates of the underworld, preventing the dead from leaving. He was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and is usually described as having three heads, a serpent for a tail, with snakes protruding from various parts of his body.
(2) character's social background may affect the usage of word:
ex: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:
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As Aunt Polly said, "I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spoil the child, as the Good Book says."
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→ Aunt Polly don't have a great education, that she might spell the word wrong and she can't point out the book correctly.
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—either professional or amateur—investigates a crime, often murder.
ex: A Study in Scarlet--- by British author Arthur Conan Doyle
→ this story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician, most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.
(5) Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character created by British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A London-based "consulting detective" whose abilities border on the fantastic, Holmes is known for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to adopt almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science to solve difficult cases.
(6) The Catcher in the Rye 麥田捕手
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. A controversial novel originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. The novel's protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion. The novel also deals with complex issues of identity, belonging, loss, and connection.
* Quotes in The Catcher in the Rye
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"Here's what he said: 'The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.'" (24.56)
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It sounds here like Mr. Antolini might be worried that Holden’s going to commit suicide. But what’s Holden’s “cause”? He wants to be the catcher in the rye—to protect the innocence of youth. If Holden did manage to turn himself away from the rest of the [adult] world, as a kind of recluse, maybe he would “die nobly.”
* Allie's baseball mitt
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I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up at bat.
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Allie’s left-handed baseball glove represents Holden’s love for his deceased brother as well as Allie’s authentic uniqueness. Allie covered the glove with poems written in green ink so that he would have something to read when things got boring in the baseball field. This mitt is a fielder’s glove. Holden has only shown it to Jane Gallagher. When he writes a descriptive theme about the glove for Stradlater to turn in for his English assignment, of course the insensitive roommate does not understand.
(7) Youth
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by Samuel Ullman
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
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(8) 白先勇---寂寞的17歲
年輕時的我們....最怕寂寞.........
(10) song: Smoke gets in your eyes
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