先讀課文﹕
The Grapes of Wrath 憤怒的葡萄
By John Steinbeck
CHAPTER I
To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains
came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and
recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and
scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the
gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.
In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in
high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down
on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the
edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a
while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves,
and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin
hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in
the red country and white in the gray country.
In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers
and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day
after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they
bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew
weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more
fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the
central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air
was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled.
In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and
the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust
formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted
a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as
the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was
long in settling back again.
When June was half gone, the big clouds moved up out of Texas and the Gulf,
high heavy clouds, rainheads. The men in the fields looked up at the clouds
and sniffed at them and held wet fingers up to sense the wind. And the horses
were nervous while the clouds were up. The rainheads dropped a little spattering
and hurried on to some other country. Behind them the sky was pale again
and the sun flared. In the dust there were drop craters where the rain had
fallen, and there were clean splashes on the corn, and that was all.
A gentle wind followed the rain clouds, driving them on northward, a wind
that softly clashed the drying corn. A day went by and the wind increased,
steady, unbroken by gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread
out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a
little way. Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust
in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing
dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it
away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up
out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke.
The corn threshed the wind and made a dry, rushing sound. The finest dust
did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the darkening sky.
The wind grew stronger, whisked under stones, carried up straws and old
leaves, and even little clods, marking its course as it sailed across the
fields. The air and the sky darkened and through them the sun shone redly,
and there was a raw sting in the air. During a night the wind raced faster
over the land, dug cunningly among the rootlets of the corn, and the corn
fought the wind with its weakened leaves until the roots were freed by the
prying wind and then each stalk settled wearily sideways toward the earth
and pointed the direction of the wind.
The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red
circle that gave a little light, like dusk; and as that day advanced, the
dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over
the fallen corn.
Men and women huddled in their houses, and they tied handkerchiefs over
their noses when they went out, and wore goggles to protect their eyes.
When the night came again it was black night, for the stars could not pierce
the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond
their own yards. Now the dust was evenly mixed with the air, an emulsion
of dust and air. Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and
windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the
air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes.
The people brushed it from their shoulders. Little lines of dust lay at
the door sills.
In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet.
The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people,
lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing
wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then
the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred
restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take
a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust
hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust
sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket
covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence
posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and
trees.
The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and
covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but
they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood
by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little
green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did
not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their
men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the
men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained.
The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes,
and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women
would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then
drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering
troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the
faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard
and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that
there was no break. Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied,
I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and
the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep
in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were
whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began
to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became
less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways
of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The
men sat still—thinking—figuring.
1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 -- December 20,
1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella
Of Mice and Men (1937). He was an author of twenty-seven books, including
sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories;
Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
3) 本書介紹﹕The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by
John Steinbeck and published in 1939. For it he won the annual National
Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for novels and it was cited prominently when
he won the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Set during the Great Depression指美國大蕭條時期, the novel focuses on the
Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by
drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries.
Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped
in the Dust Bowl沙塵暴, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands
of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college
literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A
celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by
John Ford, was made in 1940.
4) John Steinbeck 當然是世界著名作家。其代表作“憤怒的葡萄”屬世界名著﹐
一本值得一讀的小說。
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