问答题
Please comment on the following story in about 500 words.On the RoadHe was not interested in the snow. When he got off the freight, one early evening during the depression, Sargeant never even noticed the snow. But he must have felt it seeping down his neck, cold, wet, sopping in his shoes. But if you had asked him, he wouldn"t have known it was snowing. Sargeant didn"t see the snow, not even under the bright lights of the main street, falling white and flaky against the night. He was too hungry, too sleepy, too tired.The Reverend Mr. Dorset, however, saw the snow when he switched on his porch light, opened the front door of his parsonage, and found standing there before him a big black man with snow on his face, a human piece of night with snow on his face—obviously unemployed.Said the Reverend Mr. Dorset before Sargeant even realized he"d opened his mouth: "I"m sorry. No! Go right down this street four blocks and turn to your left, walk up seven and you"ll see the Relief Shelter. I"m sorry. No!" He shut the door.Sargeant wanted to tell the holy man that he had already been to the Relief Shelter, been to hundreds of relief shelters during the depression years, the beds were always gone and supper was over, the place was full, and they drew the color line anyhow. But the minister said "No" and shut the door. Evidently he didn"t want to hear about it. And he had a door to shut.The big black man turned away. And even yet he didn"t see the snow, walking right into it. Maybe he sensed it, cold, wet, sticking to his jaws, wet on his black hands, sopping in his shoes. He stopped and stood on the sidewalk hunched over—hungry, sleepy, cold—looking up and down. Then he looked right where he was—in front of a church! Of course! A church! Sure, right next to a parsonage, certainly a church.It had two doors.Broad white steps in the night all snowy white, two high arched doors with slender stone pillars on either side. And way up, a round lacy window with a stone crucifix in the middle and Christ on the crucifix in stone. All this was pale in the street lights, solid and stony pale in the snow.Sargeant blinked. When he looked up, the snow fell into his eyes. For the first time that night he saw the snow. He shook his head. He shook the snow from his coat sleeves, felt hungry, felt lost, felt not lost, felt cold. He walked up the steps for the church. He knocked at the door. No answer. He tried the handle. Locked. He put his shoulder against the door and his long black body slanted like a ramrod. He pushed. With loud rhythmic grunts, like the grunts in a chain-gang song, he pushed against the door."I"m tired,...Huh! ...Hangry...Uh! ...I"m sleepy...Huh! I"m cold...I got to sleep somewhere," Sargeant said. "This here is church, ain"t it? Well, uh!"He pushed against the door.Suddenly, with an undue cracking and squeaking, the door began to give way to the tall black Negro who pushed ferociously against the door.By now two or three white people had stopped in the street, and Sargeant was vaguely aware of some of them yelling at him concerning the door. Three or four more came running, yelling at him."Hey!" they said, "Hey!""Uh-huh," answered the big tall Negro, "I know it"s a white folks" church, but I got to sleep somewhere." He gave another lunge at the door. "Huh!"And the door broke open.But just when the door gave way two white cops arrived in a car, ran up the steps with their clubs, and grabbed Sargeant. But Sargeant for once had no intention of being pulled or pushed away from the door.Sargeant grabbed, but not for anything so weak as a broken door. He grabbed for one of the tall stone pillars beside the door, grabbed at it and caught it. And held it. The cops pulled. Sargeant pulled. Most of the people in the street got behind the cops and helped them pull."A big black unemployed Negro holding onto our church!" thought the people. "The idea!"The cops began to beat Sargeant over the head, and nobody protested. But he held on.And then the church fell down.Gradually, the big stone front of the church fell down, the walls and the rafters, the crucifix and the Christ. Then the whole thing fell down, covering the cops and the people with bricks and stones and debris. The whole church fell down in the snow.Sargeant got out from under the church and went walking on up the street with the stone pillar on his shoulder. He was under the impression that he had buried the parsonage and the Reverend Mr. Dorset who said "No!". So he laughed, and threw the pillar six blocks up the street and went on.Sargeant thought he was alone, but listening to the crunch, crunch, crunch on the snow of his own footsteps, he heard other footsteps, too, doubling his own. He looked around, and there was Christ walking along beside him, the same Christ that had been on the cross on the church—still stone with a rough stone surface, walking along beside him just like he was broken of the cross when the church fell down."Well, I"ll be dogged," said Sargeant. "This here"s the first time I ever seed you off the cross...""Yes," said Christ, crunching his feet in the snow. "You had to pull the church down to get me off the cross.""You glad?" said Sargeant."I sure am," said Christ.They both laughed."I"m a hell of a fellow, ain"t I?" said Sargeant. "Done pulled the church down!""You did a good job," said Christ. "They have kept me nailed on a cross nearly two thousand years.""Whee-ee-e!" saie Sargent. "I know you are glad to get off.""I sure am" said Christ.They walked on in the snow. Sargenat looked at the man of stone."And you been up there two thousand years?""I sure have," Christ said."Well, if I had a little cash," said Sargeant, "I"d show you around a bit.""I been around," said Christ."Yeah, but that was a long time ago.""All the same," said Christ, "I"ve been around,"They walked on in the snow until they came to the railroad yards. Sargeant was tired, sweating and tired."Where you goin"?" Sargeant said, stopping by the tracks. He looked at Christ. Sargenat said, "I"m just a bum on the road. How about you? Where you goin"?""God knows," Christ said, "but I"m leavin" here."They saw the red and green lights of the railroad yard half veiled by the snow that fell out of the night. Away down the track they saw a fire in a hobo jungle."I can go there and sleep," Sargeant said."You can?""Sure," said Sargeant. "That place ain"t got no doors."Outside the town, along the tracks, there were barren trees and bushes below the embankment, snow-gray in the dark. And down among the trees and bushes there were makeshift houses made out of boxes and tin and old pieces of wood and canvas. You couldn"t see them in the dark, but you knew they were there if you"d ever been on the road, if you had ever lived with the homeless and hungry in a depression."I"m side-tracking," Sargeant said. "I"m tired.""I"m gonna make it on to Kansas Cit," said Christ."OK," Sargeant said, "So long!"He went down into the hobo jungle and found himself a place to sleep. He never did see Christ no more. About 6:00 a.m. a freight came by. Sargeant scrambled out of the jungle with a dozen or so more hobos and ran along the track, grabbing at the freight. It was dawn, early dawn, cold and gray."Wonder where Christ is by now?" Sargeant thought. "He must-a gone on way on down the road. He didn"t sleep in this jungle."Sargeant grabbed the train and started to pull himself up into a moving coal car, over the edge of a wheeling coal car. But strangely enough, the car was full of cops. The nearest cop rapped Sargeant soundly across the knuckles with his night stick. Wham! Rapped his big black hands for clinging to the top of the car. Wham! But Sargeant did not turn loose. He clung on and tried to pull himself into the car. He hollered at the top of his voice, "Damn it, lemme in this car!""Shut up," barked the cop. "You crazy coon!" He rapped Sargeant across the knuckles and punched him in the stomach. "You ain"t but in no jungle now, this ain"t no train. You in jail!"Wham! Across his bare black fingers clinging to the bars of his cell. Wham! Between the steel bars low down against his shins.Suddenly Sargeant realized that he really was in jail. He wasn"t on no train. The blood of the night before had dried on his face, his head hurt terribly, and a cop outside in the corridor was hitting him across the knuckles for holding onto the door, yelling and shaking the cell door."They must-a took me to jail for breaking,down the door last night," Sargeant thought, "that church door."Sargeant went over and sat on a wooden bench against the cold stone wall. He was emptier than ever. His clothes were wet, clammy cold wet, and shoes sloppy with snow water. It was just about dawn. There he was, locked up behind a cell door, nursing his bruised fingers.The bruised fingers were his, but not the door.Not the club but the fingers."You wait," mumbled Sargeant, black against the fail wall. "I"m gonna break down this door, too.""Shut up—or I"ll paste you one," said the cop.Then he must have been talking to himself because he said, "I wonder where Christ"s gone? I wonder if he"s gone to Kansas City?"
【正确答案】正确答案:In the story On The Road by Langston Hughes, the reader is shown how the old adage "Life is a Journey", is true, from both a literal and metaphorical standpoint. Langston"s use of the concept of a "journey", symbolism, and external parallelism helps the reader to paint a broad picture in their mind of the United States during the times of the depression. It was during this time that racial equality was unheard of, even in the community that preached the idea that all humans are created equal, religion. The main character of the story, a homeless black man named "Sarge" seemed destined to be on the path to change the views of racial superiority. The story begins with Sarge exiting a railroad freight car. This is the beginning of his physical journey. There does not seem to be any specific reason why Sarge chooses to exit the train in Reno, Nevada, other than to seek shelter to sleep and possibly find something to eat. The journey then continues through the town while Sarge travels from door to door seeking shelter. It does not appear that the character really had any intention of staying in Reno, as in his dream he once again tries to board a freight car. Hughes makes the physical journey come full circle in that he got off of a freight car in the beginning, and is getting back on to a freight car in the end. The title of the story itself tells the reader that a journey is taking place. The metaphorical journey taking place in this story however, has nothing to do with travel or a freight train. It is based in religion and society. After Sarge breaks down the church and Jesus is released from his cross, he and Sarge walk together. Sarge asks Jesus "Where you going?" Jesus answers by saying "God knows, but I"m leavin" here." This brings many readers to say "what do you mean he didn"t know? He knows everything!" Apparently, Hughes wanted the reader to wonder why Jesus was leaving Reno. Was he leaving because he was fed up of being used as a pawn by people to promote whatever agenda they were toting, in this case, white racial superiority? Was he leaving because he was subtly telling Sarge "hey, this is your issue, you fix it on your own" or was he simply leaving because something more exciting was happening in Kansas City? The journey that Jesus is taking with Sarge is symbolic in nature because they are both just wandering around together...two lost souls perhaps. Sarge is also undertaking a metaphorical journey down the road of racism. From the time he is turned away by the pastor, while he was being beaten by the white cops, and being held in prison, it is apparent to the reader that he is a victim. Every obstacle Sarge comes across (with the exception of Jesus) is white. When Sarge picks up the white pillar, symbolic of the white church that he had just pulled down, it gives the reader the image that Sarge has just taken racism upon his shoulders. When he casts the pillar aside, it appears as though he wants to cast that worry of hatred from his back. Casting aside the pillar, and the hatred, both would make the journey towards equal rights easier. Symbolism is often used in literature to tie together a story with its setting in history. "On The Road" is no different. The snowstorm and the fact that is white (a white storm) set against the black of night and against a black man is the first use of symbolism. This use of black vs. white could be seen as being symbolic of the chaos and the struggle within society. Sarge"s mental state appears to be very depressed, and along with the use of the story taking place in winter, can connect the story with the fact that it is being set in the depression. When winter is used in a story, it is often for the purpose of depicting a time of darkness and despair. Throughout "On The Road" Sarge continually mentions breaking down doors. Doors, especially solid one"s, are thought of as barriers. As he breaks down these doors, it appears he may also be breaking down the barriers of racism. Aside from the everyday stories of how heroes overcome their minority births, a different external parallelism occurred to me as I was reading "On The Road Again." The part where Hughes talks about footsteps, and them doubling beside Sarge, reminded me of one of my favorite poems "Footprints." A man is looking back at his life once he dies and often sees only one set of footprints, which occur at the lowest points of his life. He says to the Lord "you told me that once I decided to walk with you, you would always be by my side. Why is it when I needed you most, I only see one set of footprints?" The Lord answers "when you only see one set of footprints, it is then that I carried you." But in the case of Sarge and Jesus, the opposite is almost true. Sarge is used to walking alone. But when he may need Jesus the most, during his loneliest and darkest times, Jesus is there beside him, walking as his equal, giving Sarge the strength to continue, thus creating two sets of footprints.
【答案解析】解析:《在路上》 (On the Road)是休斯的短篇小说,写于1934年。故事描述了一个无家可归的黑人在大雪中寻找食物和住所的故事,解释了当时美国种族歧视的社会现状。为了突出这一主题,休斯运用了多种表现手法,如反讽(irony)、二元对立(dualism)、象征(Symbolism)、戏仿(Parody)以及用典(Allusion)。考生可以从这些方面对整个故事进行探讨和分析。