Unit 4: Short Fiction II
AP English Literature and Composition Topic 4 10:46 English narration · English + 中文 subtitles burned in
Chapters
Transcript
Unit 4 returns to short fiction with a much larger toolkit, and its two most valuable additions are narrative distance and the idea that choices reveal values.
第四单元 带着大得多的工具箱回到短篇小说， 而它最有价值的两项补充 是叙述距离， 以及"选择揭示价值"这一观念。
Take the second first, because it is the most practical sentence in the whole course for essay-writing.
先说第二个， 因为它是整门课程中 对写作最实用的一句话。
Characters' choices — in speech, action and inaction — reveal what they value.
人物的选择， 在言语、行动与不作为中， 揭示了他们所看重的东西。
So whenever you need a claim about a character, look at a choice and ask: what must have been true, for that choice to have made sense to them?
所以每当你需要 对一个人物提出一个主张， 就去看一个选择，然后问： 要让这个选择对他们说得通， 什么必须是真的？
The significance of characters is often revealed through their agency and through nuanced descriptions — agency meaning what they are in a position to do, and what they do with that position.
人物的重要性 常常通过他们的能动性 与细腻的描写被揭示， 能动性指的是 他们有条件去做什么， 以及他们如何使用这一位置。
And their choices in speech, action and inaction reveal what they value.
而他们在言语、行动与不作为中的选择， 揭示了他们所看重的东西。
Then the pair the unit names: the main character is the protagonist, the antagonist opposes them, and protagonists and antagonists may represent contrasting values.
接着是本单元点出的那一对： 主要人物是主人公， 对立者与他们对抗， 而主人公与对立者 可能代表相互对照的价值。
The word may is doing careful work there.
"可能"这个词 在这里承担着谨慎的工作。
An antagonist is not necessarily a villain.
对立者不一定是反派。
The strongest antagonists hold a value the reader can also recognise as good — which is why the conflict is a conflict rather than a rout.
最强的对立者 持有一种读者也能认作善的价值， 这正是为什么 这场冲突是冲突， 而不是一边倒的碾压。
The nuances in characters' relationships come from the same place.
人物关系中的细微之处也出自同一个地方。
Conflict among characters often arises from tensions generated by their different value systems.
人物之间的冲突 常常源于他们不同的价值体系 所产生的张力。
That is Unit 3's definition applied to relationships, and it gives you a useful habit with any argument in a story.
这是第三单元的定义 被应用到关系上， 而它给了你一个 对付故事中任何一次争吵的有用习惯。
Two characters in a long-running disagreement usually disagree about something prior to the argument they are having.
两个长期不合的人物， 通常在他们正在争论的事情之前 就已经在某件事上不合。
Find the prior disagreement and you have the claim; the surface argument is only where it becomes visible.
找到那个更早的分歧， 你就有了主张； 表面上的争吵 只是它变得可见的地方。
A setting may help establish the mood and atmosphere of a narrative, and the two words are not the same.
背景可以帮助确立 一段叙事的情绪与氛围， 而这两个词并不相同。
Mood is the reader's feeling.
情绪是读者的感受。
Atmosphere is the quality the text creates around events.
氛围是文本在事件周围 造出来的性质。
Both are produced by selection — which details of a place the text mentions, and which it does not.
两者都由选择产生， 文本提到了一个地方的哪些细节， 又没有提到哪些。
Then a second route into character that avoids the trap of psychologising: the environment a character inhabits provides information about that character.
接着是进入人物的第二条路径， 它避开了心理臆测的陷阱： 一个人物所居住的环境 提供了关于这个人物的信息。
A room described through its neglect, its order, or its borrowed furniture tells you about the person who lives there — and that is textual evidence rather than speculation, which is exactly what an examiner is looking for.
一个通过它的失修、 它的整洁， 或它借来的家具 被描写的房间， 告诉你住在里面的人是什么样， 而这是文本证据，不是推测， 这恰恰是阅卷者要找的东西。
How plot orders events is partly a matter of pattern.
情节如何安排事件，一部分是模式的问题。
Some patterns in dramatic situations are so common that they are considered archetypes, and these archetypes carry associations readers bring with them.
戏剧情境中的某些模式 常见到被视为原型， 而这些原型带着 读者自己带来的联想。
Use them carefully.
要谨慎使用它们。
Recognising an archetype is a starting point, not a finding, and the interesting analysis is almost always where a text departs from the pattern it invoked.
认出一个原型是起点， 不是发现， 而有意思的分析 几乎总是在文本 偏离它所召唤的那个模式的地方。
A story that sets up a rescue and then does not deliver one has used your expectation as material — and the departure is the thing to write about.
一个铺设了营救 却没有兑现的故事， 把你的预期当成了材料， 而那处偏离 正是要写的东西。
Now the unit's most underused tool.
现在讲本单元最被低估的工具。
Narrators may function as characters who directly address readers, and who either recall events or relate them as they occur — and that distinction is the first axis of what the CED calls narrative distance.
叙述者可以作为人物出现， 直接对读者说话， 并且要么回忆事件， 要么在事件发生时讲述它们， 而这一区分 正是课程大纲所说的 叙述距离的第一个维度。
Narrative distance refers to the physical distance, the chronological distance, the relationships, or the emotional distance between the narrator and the events or characters.
叙述距离指的是 叙述者与事件或人物之间的 物理距离、时间距离、 关系距离或情感距离。
Four kinds.
四种。
A narrator's position is not one fact but four, and any of them can be the analysis.
叙述者的位置不是一个事实， 而是四个， 其中任何一个都可以成为分析的对象。
Stream of consciousness is the extreme case at one end: narration in which a character's thoughts are related through a continuous flow, often with little conventional ordering.
意识流是一端的极端情形： 一个人物的思绪 以连续流动的方式被叙述， 往往没有多少常规的秩序。
And here is the move that scores.
而这里是能得分的一招。
A narrator who closes or opens the distance mid-text has made a choice.
一个在文本中途 拉近或拉开距离的叙述者 做出了一个选择。
Say what it produces — what the reader is suddenly let into, or shut out of.
说出它产生了什么， 读者突然被放进了什么， 或者被关在了什么之外。
A contrast inside a text is not decoration; it is an argument the author is making by putting two things side by side.
文本里的对比不是装饰，而是作者把两样东西并排放在一起所做的论证。
The differences a contrast emphasise particular traits or characteristics in the things contrasted — so a foil exists to make one trait visible in someone else.
对比所突出的差异，会强调被对比事物身上特定的特质或特征—— 所以陪衬人物的存在，是为了让另一个人身上的某种特质变得可见。
And contrasts often represent conflicts in values, whether of a character, a narrator, or a speaker.
而且对比常常代表价值观的冲突， 不论是人物的、叙述者的，还是说话人的。
Here is the move students miss.
下面是学生最常漏掉的一步。
Name what the two SHARE before you name what differs.
先说出两者"共有"的部分，再说不同的部分。
Two characters who have nothing in common are not a contrast, they are just two characters; the shared half is what makes the difference mean something.
两个毫无共同点的人物不是对比，只是两个人物； 共有的那一半，才让差异变得有意义。
Before you can analyse a point of view you have to identify the narrator, and the CED gives you one useful axis for it.
在分析视角之前，先要认出叙述者，而考纲给了你一条很有用的轴。
Narrators may function as characters who address the reader directly — and when they do, they either recall the events from later, or relate them as they occur.
叙述者可以充当直接对读者说话的人物—— 这时他要么是事后回忆这些事件，要么是随事件发生而讲述。
That single distinction is the first axis of narrative distance.
这一个区分，就是叙述距离的第一条轴。
A narrator who is inside the moment gives you immediacy, and with it unreliability, because nobody in the middle of an event knows what it will turn out to mean.
身处当下的叙述者给你即时感，也带来不可靠， 因为没有人在事件当中就知道它最终意味着什么。
A narrator who can recall the events from forty years later has irony available that the younger self could not have had.
能在四十年后回忆这些事件的叙述者， 拥有当年的自己不可能有的反讽。
The gap between the telling and the events is not background. It is usually the analysis.
讲述与事件之间的距离不是背景，它通常就是分析本身。
Details, diction and syntax reveal perspective.
细节、用词和句法揭示视角。
Perspective is not a mood you sense; it is built from three observable things on the page, and you can point at all three.
视角不是你感觉到的情绪，而是由纸面上三样可观察的东西构成的， 这三样你都能指出来。
Narrators' and characters' backgrounds and perspectives shape the tone they convey.
叙述者和人物的背景与视角，塑造了他们传达出来的语调。
Descriptive words do two jobs at once: they qualify what they describe, and they convey a perspective toward it — calling a room modest and calling it cramped describe the same room and take opposite positions on it.
描述性的词同时做两件事： 它们限定所描述的对象，也传达出对它的一种看法—— 把一个房间称作"朴素"和称作"逼仄"，说的是同一个房间，立场却相反。
The attitude of a narrator or speaker toward an idea, character, or situation emerges from exactly these choices.
叙述者或说话人对某个想法、人物或情境的态度，正是从这些选择中浮现出来的。
So when you are asked about attitude, quote a describing word and say what the choice of that word rather than its neighbour reveals.
所以当题目问态度时，引用一个描述性的词， 说清楚选了这个词而不是它旁边那个词，暴露了什么。
Now the writing half of the unit, and it starts with developing a literary thesis statement.
现在进入本单元的写作部分，从写出一个文学论点句开始。
A thesis expresses an interpretation of the text, and it requires textual defence — if nobody could disagree with your sentence, it is a summary and it earns nothing.
论点句表达的是对文本的一种解读，并且需要文本证据来辩护—— 如果没有人可能反对你这句话，那它就是复述，一分也拿不到。
It may preview the line of reasoning, but it does not have to, so do not lose time building a three-part roadmap the rubric never asked for.
它可以预告论证脉络，但并不必须， 所以不要花时间去搭一个评分标准根本没有要求的三段式路线图。
Compare two.
比较两句。
The narrator is nostalgic and uses descriptive language: that is a restatement, and there is nothing in it to defend.
"叙述者很怀旧，用了很多描写性语言"：这是复述，里面没有什么可辩护的。
Now: the distance of decades is doing the work, because he withholds sympathy from his younger self while claiming the loss as his own.
再看："几十年的距离在起作用，因为他既不肯同情年轻时的自己， 又把那份失落认作自己的。
A reader could disagree with that, which is exactly why it can be defended.
" 读者可能不同意这句话，而这正是它可以被辩护的原因。
A line of reasoning is the logical sequence of claims that defends the thesis, and it is communicated through commentary.
论证脉络是为论点句辩护的一串有逻辑顺序的分论点， 而它是通过阐释来传达的。
Think of the claims as a chain hanging from the thesis, with a quotation under each one — and commentary is the weld.
把这些分论点想成从论点句垂下来的一条链，每一环下面挂着一处引文—— 阐释就是焊点。
It is the sentence that says why THIS evidence supports THIS claim.
它是那句说明"为什么这处证据支持这个分论点"的话。
Without it you have a quotation and an assertion sitting next to each other, and a reader has to do the joining for you.
没有它，你只是把一处引文和一个断言并排放着， 让读者替你完成连接。
Body paragraphs develop the reasoning and justify claims using evidence, and an effective paragraph is cohesive: it usually opens with a topic sentence that states the claim and then explains the reasoning behind it.
主体段落用证据来展开论证并为分论点辩护， 而有效的段落是连贯的： 它通常以一个主题句开头，先说出分论点，再解释背后的道理。
Selecting relevant and sufficient evidence has four rubric words attached to it, and each one rules something out.
选择相关而充分的证据，评分标准给了四个词，每一个都排除了某种做法。
Evidence is used strategically: it was chosen to do a job, not because it was the first quotable line you met.
证据要"有策略地"使用：它是为了完成某项任务而被选中的， 而不是因为它是你遇到的第一句可引用的话。
It is effective when the commentary explains the relationship between the evidence and the claim — quoting is not explaining.
只有当阐释说明了证据与分论点之间的关系时，它才"有效"—— 引用不等于解释。
It must be sufficient in quantity and in quality, so one striking word cannot carry a paragraph and eight quotations cannot replace a reason.
它在数量和质量上都必须"充分"， 所以一个惊人的词撑不起一个段落，八处引文也代替不了一个理由。
And interpretation is a recursive process: you read, you make a claim, you reread, and you change the claim.
而且解读是一个"递归"的过程： 你读，提出一个说法，再读，然后修改这个说法。
Notice what all four have in common.
注意这四点的共同之处。
Every one is about the join between the quotation and the claim, and the join is where the marks are.
每一点讲的都是引文与分论点之间的那个连接，而分数就在那个连接上。
Finally, control over the elements of composition.
最后，是对写作要素的掌控。
Coherence occurs at different levels, and it is worth checking all three separately.
连贯发生在不同的层级上，值得把三个层级分开来检查。
Within a sentence, the clauses have to point the same way.
在一个句子内部，各个分句必须指向同一个方向。
Between sentences, each one has to follow from the one before it.
在句子之间，每一句都必须承接上一句。
And across the whole essay, the claims have to build in an order that goes somewhere.
而在整篇文章的范围内，各个分论点必须按一个走向明确的顺序层层推进。
A writer achieves coherence when the arrangement of reasons, evidence, and details makes the line of reasoning followable — which means the order is itself a choice you are making, not the order in which the ideas happened to arrive.
当理由、证据和细节的安排让论证脉络可以被跟上时，作者就达成了连贯—— 这意味着顺序本身就是你做出的一个选择， 而不是这些想法碰巧到来的先后。
Put the two halves together on a real task.
把两半合起来，用在一道真实的任务上。
Take a prose fiction prompt asking how the author's narrative choices convey the narrator's attitude to a remembered event.
设想一道散文小说题，问作者的叙事选择如何传达叙述者对一件往事的态度。
Here is a weak answer: the narrator is nostalgic and uses descriptive language.
先看一个薄弱的答案：叙述者很怀旧，用了很多描写性语言。
True, and it earns nothing, because nothing in it is a choice the author made.
说得没错，却一分不得，因为里面没有任何一样是作者做出的选择。
Now the scoring version.
再看得分的版本。
He relates a single afternoon from a distance of decades.
他从几十年的距离之外讲述一个下午。
He describes his own excitement in the third person — the boy ran — and then returns to I for the disappointment.
他用第三人称描述自己当年的兴奋——"那个男孩跑了起来"—— 然后在写到失望时又回到"我"。
Choosing where to close that gap lets him withhold sympathy from his younger self while still claiming the loss as his own.
选择在哪里合上这道距离，让他既不肯同情年轻时的自己， 又仍然把那份失落认作自己的。
Distance, its variation, and the attitude it produces: that is the whole answer.
距离、距离的变化，以及它所产生的态度：这就是完整的答案。
Five things to carry out.
带走五件事。
First, choices reveal values — ask what must have been true for the choice to make sense.
第一，选择揭示价值， 要问：要让这个选择说得通， 什么必须是真的。
Second, an antagonist is not a villain; the strongest hold a value you can recognise as good.
第二，对立者不是反派， 最强的对立者持有 你也能认作善的价值。
Third, the environment tells you about the character, and it is textual evidence.
第三，环境告诉你人物是什么样， 而且它是文本证据。
Fourth, archetypes are a starting point; the analysis is the departure.
第四，原型是起点， 分析在于偏离。
Fifth, narrative distance has four kinds, and a narrator who changes it mid-text has made a choice.
第五，叙述距离有四种， 而在文本中途改变它的叙述者 做出了一个选择。