现代大学英语（第三版） 精读4 Unit 5 The Telephone.pptx

;Lead-in;Lead-in;Text;Text;Text;2. Background The United States is known to be a country of immigrants. Wave upon wave, people come to this land from practically all parts of the world in the course of history, to escape religious or political persecution or to seek better living conditions. This is the reason for the popular appeal of immigrant literature in the United States. It satisfies people’s nostalgia about their past and their descendants’ desire to seek their roots. It also interests people of other ethnic origins in the country to find out how their country came to be such a “melting pot.”;2. Background This is quite likely an autobiographical story. The old country involved is Lebanon, a small but important country in the Arab world. Although its capital has been known to the outside world as the “Paris of the Arab World,” at the time when the author lived in the nation’s mountain village as a child the nation was still basically a traditional economically backward agricultural country, which served as a glaring contrast to the United States where many Lebanese people longed to go to realize their “American Dream.” The author does not make this contrast explicitly, but he brings it out vividly simply by describing his childhood experience in that Lebanese village.;2. Background The author seizes upon two key words to bring out the main differences in the two societies—the one he leaves behind, and the one he emigrates to: the first word is “time,” and the second “change.” In that small mountain village people do not have a timepiece because it is not necessary, unlike in the new country where time is money and everybody is either busy making money or busy breeding money-makers. The other thing is that, in the old society, nothing much happens. Days and years pass by, and generations come and go, all in the same old way, unlike in the new world where people are feverishly producing new things—“making progress.”;2. Background The interesting thing, howe