沒必要的鬧心

沒必要的鬧心

 

那天讀英文版<<源氏物語>>節選，我被其中龐大的對話和人名搞糊塗了。日本人名若全部翻譯成英文，大約得有一寸長，誰是誰，我根本就記不住，難怪那天讀得我直鬧心。

 

第二天考試時一看，我才知道我沒必要記住那些人名，隻要我知道故事情節就足夠了。我們每次課前考試，大約半小時，三道題，分析三篇小說或者兩篇小說加一篇詩歌。

 

這是上周考試的第一題，簡單談談讓我鬧心的<<源氏物語>>。姐得了100分，可以拿來曬曬，供本博的文學和英文愛好者參考。考題隻做博客內參考，謝絕轉載。

 

老師特嚴格，這次考試全班平均70幾分，最低分是50分。現在已經不能退課了，萬一誰最後不及格，隻能得F了。

 

1. What portrait of the relations between men and women in Heian Japan does Murakasi Shikibu present in the excerpt we read from The Tale of Genji?<<源氏物語>>  Given the perspective on relations between the sexes, does it surprise you that the author is a woman? Use specific examples from the narrative to support your response. 

 

There are four men in this chapter talking about women. Although they use their personal stories to talk about women, in my view, they consider women as subordinate creatures that they can control. One person in the story classifies women into 3 classes and he thinks the high rank of ladies are good and lower class of women are not worth concerning. Obviously, money and beauty are something this man considers about women. One man is very cold to a woman who dearly loves him. He leaves the woman who is pregnant with his baby.  Even Genji, the main character, loves a married woman without any sinning feeling. He even let this lady’s little brother send letters for him to the lady. All these stories make me feel that men have right and power to pick up women and women cannot do the same to men. Yes, I am surprised to know that the author of this novel is a woman. From beginning to the ending, all the works in this excerpt seem to support and encourage men to make comments on women, pick up whatever they like and men in this story are not responsible for women’s sufferings.  As a woman writer,  Murakasi is very brave to criticize men in an indirect way and show her sympathy on women.

 

4/11/14  10:15am