A Clean, ...新ppt 高等教育出版社 美国文学选读课件.pptVIP

A Clean, Well-lighted PlaceBy Ernest Hemingway ?? Text comprehension ? Analysis of the three characters ???Theme of the text ?? Writing style ? Text comprehension: The Lost Generation: The term “Lost Generation” was first used by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), one of the leaders of this group. It included the young English and American expatriates (移居国外者)as well as men and women caught in the war and cut off from the old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad. It means this generation had lost the beautiful sense of the calm idyllic(田园牧歌式的) past. Stein’s comment suggests the ambiguous and pointless lives of expatriates as they aimlessly wandered about the Continent, drinking, making love, traveling from place to place and from party to party. These activities seem to justify their search for new meanings to replace the old ones. Yet in fact, being cut off from their past, disillusioned in reality, and without a meaningful future to fall on, they were lost in disillusionment and existential voids. They indulged in hedonism（享乐主义） in order to make their life less unbearable. 2. The Background of the Novel Most of the works by Hemingway take the war as background, describing the pains the war brings to human being, and reflecting a younger generation’s aimlessness after the war. At that time, these works immediately won the responses from many people who survived the war physically but were afterwards spiritually and morally adrift. Then, Hemingway became the spokesman for what the Gertrude Stein had called “The Lost Generation”.  3. The General Introduction to the Novel The short story A Clean and Well-lighted Place took place in a Spanish café. The plot was focused on the old man, the middle aged waiter and the young waiter. The old man was the main character in the short story. Late at night, everyone had left the café except the old deaf man, who was a little drunk. The two waiters