问答题
Laura: little articles of it, they"re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world.[...]Oh, be careful—if you breathe, it breaks!Jim: I"d better no take it. I"m pretty clumsy with things.Laura; Go on, I trust you with him![She places the piece in his palm.]There now—you"re holding him gently! Hold him over the light, he loves the light! You see how the light shines through him? Jim; it sure does shine!Laura; I shouldn"t be partial, but he is my favorite one. Jim; What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be? Laura; Haven"t you noticed the single horn on his forehead? Jim; A unicorn, huh? Laura; Mmmm-hmmm!Jim; Unicorns—aren"t they extinct in the modern world? Laura; I know!Jim; Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome. Laura; Well, if he does, he doesn"t complain about it. He stays on a shelf with some horses that hasn"t have horns and all or them seem to get along nicely together.
问答题
Identify the author and the work from which the passage is selected.
【正确答案】正确答案：Tennessee Williams; The Glass Menagerie.
【答案解析】
问答题
Do you see any connection between Laura"s personality and the unicorn?
【正确答案】正确答案：The one-horned unicorn indeed symbolizes Laura in more than one way. First, Laura is slightly crippled while the unicorn is one-horned; second, Laura runs away from reality into the world of her collection of glass animals among which with the unicorn she identifies herself, all as fragile and vulnerable as herself, in which she perceives an ideal order of everyone seeming " to get along nicely together. " There is peace and harmony, but no discrimination against anything different, no competition, and no painful change. Like the unicorn, Laura completely withdraws into a world which she constructs to ward off the intrusion of a painful existence.
【答案解析】
问答题
What is the theme of the work?
【正确答案】正确答案： The Glass Menagerie is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family. By description, it is a cramped, dinghy place, like a jail cell. The play successfully portrays life as prison in two ways; the world and the self. The escape from these two prisons is a significant theme throughout the play. What the play tries to tell us is that although people may escape and there may be different kinds of symbolic glass menageries for them to take temporary refuge in, so escapism is not the answer to their problems. Along with the escape, they have to "participate" , which is the major mode of human existence. Escape may offer temporary relief and make life less demanding and more tolerable, but people will have to come back and face life and work it out. The Glass Menagerie is a typical Williams" play in that here is a lonely vulnerable woman living in her illusion, which is smashed to pieces by a male intruder, who is the embodiment of reality. The whole performance is pointed against modern civilization which blasts happiness out of human existence as well.