Unit 9: Longer Fiction or Drama III
AP English Literature and Composition Topic 9 7:56 English narration · English + 中文 subtitles burned in
Chapters
Transcript
Unit 9 is the final unit, and its subject is how texts end — and what an ending lets a reader conclude about the whole work.
第九单元是最后一个单元， 它的主题是文本如何结束， 以及一个结尾 让读者能够对整部作品 得出什么结论。
It opens with the interpretive move the whole course has been building toward.
它开篇给出的 正是整门课程一直在为之铺垫的 那个阐释动作。
Readers' interpretations are often affected by a character changing, or not, and by the nature of that change.
读者的阐释 常常受到一个人物是否改变、 以及这一改变的性质的影响。
Whether a character changes is not a fact to report.
一个人物是否改变 不是一个要去报告的事实。
It is the ground on which a reading of the work stands.
它是一次阅读所立足的地面。
Minor characters often remain unchanged because the narrative does not focus on them; they may serve other functions, so do not treat a flat minor character as a defect.
次要人物常常保持不变， 因为叙事并不聚焦于他们； 他们可能承担别的功能， 所以不要把一个扁平的次要人物 当成缺陷。
Then the moment that matters most and gets read least.
接着是最重要 却被读得最少的时刻。
A character's responses to the resolution of the narrative — in words or in actions — are revealing, and inconsistencies and unexpected developments in a character affect readers' interpretations.
一个人物对叙事结局的反应， 无论在言语上还是行动上， 都很能说明问题， 而人物身上的不一致 与出人意料的发展 会影响读者的阐释。
How a character behaves after the crisis is resolved is often the most compressed evidence in a text, and it is almost always overlooked, because by then the reader is finishing.
一个人物在危机被解决之后 如何行事， 往往是文本中最浓缩的证据， 而它几乎总是被忽略， 因为到那时读者正在收尾。
Read the last three pages twice.
把最后三页读两遍。
Significant events often illustrate competing value systems related to a conflict in the text — which is Unit 3's definition arriving at its destination.
重要事件常常体现 与文本中某个冲突相关的 相互竞争的价值体系， 这是第三单元的定义 抵达了它的目的地。
And events collide and accumulate to create anticipation and suspense.
而事件相互碰撞、层层累积， 造成期待与悬念。
Note the word accumulate.
注意"累积"这个词。
Suspense is not produced by a single event but by a series that narrows what can still happen.
悬念不是由单个事件产生的， 而是由一系列 不断收窄"还可能发生什么"的事件产生的。
Which means suspense is analysable: you can point at the moment a possibility was closed off, and say what the narrowing did to the reader.
这意味着悬念是可以分析的： 你可以指出 某一种可能性被关闭的那一刻， 并说出这一收窄 对读者做了什么。
Three things to establish about any ending.
关于任何一个结尾 都要确立三件事。
First, the resolution of the anticipation, suspense or central conflicts of a plot may be called the denouement — what was actually resolved.
第一，对期待、悬念 或情节核心冲突的解决 可以称为结局， 也就是"什么被真正解决了"。
Second, sometimes things not actually shown in a narrative — an unseen character, a preceding action — affect the interpretation of what is shown.
第二，有时叙事中 并未实际呈现的东西， 一个未出场的人物、 一个先行的行动， 会影响对已呈现之物的阐释。
That middle point is the least used and often the most powerful.
中间这一点用得最少， 却往往最有力量。
What a text keeps offstage — a death that happened before the first page, a character who is discussed and never appears — shapes everything the reader is shown, and it is textual evidence like any other.
文本留在台下的东西， 一场发生在第一页之前的死亡、 一个被谈论却从不出现的人物， 塑造着读者所看到的一切， 而它和任何其他东西一样 是文本证据。
And third, although most plots end in resolution, some have unresolved endings, and those affect interpretation too.
第三，尽管多数情节以解决收尾， 有些结尾是不解决的， 而它们同样影响阐释。
An unresolved ending is a choice with meaning, not a failure to finish.
一个开放式的结尾 是一个有意义的选择， 不是没能写完。
Details, diction, and syntax reveal perspective, and a text can hold more than one.
细节、用词和句法揭示视角，而一个文本里可以有不止一种。
Multiple, and even contrasting, perspectives can occur within a single text and contribute to its complexity.
多重的、甚至相互对照的视角 可以出现在同一个文本之中， 并构成它的复杂性。
A narrator or speaker may change over the course of a text as a result of actions and interactions.
叙述者或说话者 可能因行动与互动 在文本进程中发生改变。
And changes and inconsistencies in a narrator's or speaker's perspective may contribute to irony, or to a reader's judgement of reliability.
而叙述者或说话者视角上的 改变与不一致， 可能造成反讽， 或影响读者对可靠性的判断。
A narrator who changes is doubly analysable: as a character who developed, and as a lens that altered.
一个发生改变的叙述者 可以被双重分析： 既作为一个有所发展的人物， 也作为一面发生了变化的透镜。
And when the lens changes, everything seen through it before is retrospectively re-lit — so the change is not only an event at that point in the text, it is a revision of everything already read.
而当透镜发生变化时， 此前透过它所看到的一切 都被回溯性地重新照亮， 所以这一改变 不只是文本中那一处的一个事件， 它是对已经读过的一切的一次修订。
Finally, the writing.
最后是写作。
A thesis expresses an interpretation requiring textual defence, and it may preview the line of reasoning.
论点表达一种 需要文本辩护的阐释， 并且可以预告推理线索。
But at this stage the thesis you are aiming for is one that could not be written before reading the whole work — a claim about how the parts add up.
但在这个阶段， 你要写的论点 是那种在读完整部作品之前 写不出来的论点， 一个关于各部分如何汇总的主张。
And for the Question 3 literary argument, the phrase in the prompt is almost always "an interpretation of the work as a whole".
而对于第三题的文学论证， 题干中的措辞 几乎总是 "对整部作品的一种阐释"。
That phrase is a requirement, not decoration.
这句话是一个要求，不是装饰。
Your claim must be about the whole, and the passage or character you analyse must be shown to bear on it.
你的主张必须关于整体， 而你所分析的段落或人物 必须被说明与整体相关。
It is where most answers fall short: they analyse a scene beautifully and never say what the scene does to the book.
这正是多数答案不足之处： 他们把一个场景分析得很漂亮， 却从不说这个场景 对整本书做了什么。
A line of reasoning is the logical sequence of claims that together defend the overarching thesis, and it is communicated through commentary.
论证脉络是共同为总论点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。
Picture the claims 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串，每一环下面挂着一处引文—— 阐释就是焊点。
It is the sentence explaining the logical relationship between that evidence and that claim.
它是说明"这处证据与这个分论点之间是什么逻辑关系"的那句话。
Leave it out and you have a quotation and an assertion sitting side by side, with the reader asked to do the joining.
少了它，你只是把一处引文和一个断言并排放着， 把连接的工作留给读者。
Body paragraphs develop the reasoning and justify the claims using evidence.
主体段落用证据来展开论证并为分论点辩护。
The rubric uses four words about evidence, and each one rules something out.
评分标准用四个词来说证据，每一个都排除了某种做法。
Evidence is used strategically: to illustrate, clarify, exemplify, associate or amplify — 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：用来举例、澄清、示范、关联或放大—— 它是为了完成某项任务被选中的， 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 its logical relationship to the claim, because quoting is not explaining.
只有当阐释说明了它与分论点之间的逻辑关系时，它才"有效"， 因为引用不等于解释。
It is sufficient when its quantity and quality provide apt support, so one striking word cannot carry a paragraph and eight quotations cannot replace a reason.
当它的数量和质量都能提供恰当支持时，它才"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 developing an interpretation is developed recursively: an interpretation can emerge, and change, as you read and write, so if your reading changes while you draft, revise the thesis to match it.
而形成解读是一个反复推敲地展开的过程： 解读可以在你阅读和写作的过程中出现，也可以改变， 所以如果你在起草时想法变了，就把论点句改成新的想法。
Notice what all four share. Every one is about the join between the quotation and the claim.
注意这四点的共同之处：每一点讲的都是引文与分论点之间的那个连接。
One point on the rubric is different from the others, and almost nobody goes for it.
评分标准里有一分和其他几分不一样，而且几乎没有人去拿它。
More sophisticated literary arguments explain the significance or relevance of an interpretation.
更成熟的文学论证会说明一种解读的意义或相关性。
Read that carefully: the rubric is not asking for a defensible reading, which is what the other five marks already reward.
仔细读这句话：评分标准要的不是一个站得住的解读， 那是另外五分本来就在奖励的东西。
It is asking why the reading is worth having at all — what the text turns out to be doing that a reader would otherwise walk past.
它问的是这个解读究竟为什么值得有—— 这个文本原来在做什么，是读者本来会走过去而没看到的。
One sentence at the end of an essay can earn it.
文章结尾的一句话就能拿到它。
It is one mark of six, and it is the one nobody attempts.
六分里的一分，而它是没有人去尝试的那一分。
Here is what that looks like.
这看起来是这样。
A Question 3 prompt asks you to select a work in which a character's response to the resolution contributes to an interpretation of the work as a whole.
第三题的题干要求你 选择一部作品， 其中某个人物对结局的反应 有助于形成对整部作品的一种阐释。
A weak answer describes the ending.
弱的答案会描述这个结尾。
A scoring answer uses the unresolved ending and the offstage.
能得分的答案 会使用开放式结尾与台下之事。
The novel refuses a denouement: the trial's verdict is never given, and the brother whose death set the plot in motion never appears.
这部小说拒绝给出结局： 审判的判决从未宣布， 而那位其死亡启动了整个情节的兄弟 从未出场。
What we are shown instead is the protagonist returning to work the following Monday.
我们被展示的， 是主人公在接下来的星期一回去上班。
Because the text withholds both the verdict and the origin, that ordinary Monday becomes the only available measure of what has happened — and the interpretation the novel supports is that the loss was never going to be settled by an outcome, only absorbed.
由于文本 既扣住了判决，也扣住了起因， 那个平常的星期一 就成了衡量已经发生之事的 唯一可用尺度， 而这部小说所支持的阐释是： 这一失去 从来就不会由某个结果来了结， 只会被吸收。
An unresolved ending, an offstage cause, and a claim about the whole.
一个开放式的结尾、 一个台下的起因， 以及一个关于整体的主张。
Five things to close the course.
带走五件事，为整门课程收尾。
First, whether a character changes is the ground of a reading, not a fact to report.
第一，一个人物是否改变 是一次阅读所立足的地面， 不是一个要去报告的事实。
Second, how a character behaves after the crisis is compressed evidence, and almost always overlooked.
第二，人物在危机之后如何行事 是浓缩的证据， 而且几乎总是被忽略。
Third, suspense accumulates — it comes from a series that narrows what can still happen.
第三，悬念是累积的， 它来自一系列 不断收窄"还可能发生什么"的事件。
Fourth, what is never shown is textual evidence, and an unresolved ending is a choice with meaning.
第四，从未被呈现的东西 是文本证据， 而开放式结尾 是一个有意义的选择。
Fifth, Question 3 asks for the work as a whole, and that is a requirement.
第五，第三题要求的是整部作品， 而这是一个要求。