没必要的闹心

没必要的闹心

 

那天读英文版<<源氏物语>>节选，我被其中庞大的对话和人名搞糊涂了。日本人名若全部翻译成英文，大约得有一寸长，谁是谁，我根本就记不住，难怪那天读得我直闹心。

 

第二天考试时一看，我才知道我没必要记住那些人名，只要我知道故事情节就足够了。我们每次课前考试，大约半小时，三道题，分析三篇小说或者两篇小说加一篇诗歌。

 

这是上周考试的第一题，简单谈谈让我闹心的<<源氏物语>>。姐得了100分，可以拿来晒晒，供本博的文学和英文爱好者参考。考题只做博客内参考，谢绝转载。

 

老师特严格，这次考试全班平均70几分，最低分是50分。现在已经不能退课了，万一谁最后不及格，只能得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?<<源氏物语>>  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