Unit 8

Housewifely Arts

Megan Mayhew Bergman

Additional Background Information

What is this story about? One answer is simply that it is about love. Because of the protagonist’s strong maternal love for her son, Ike, she worries about genetic weaknesses she might have passed on to him—“cancer genes, hay fever, high blood pressure, perhaps a fear of math”, plus being undersized for his age making him an easy target for bullies. Being a single parent, she knows that she is all her son has. She takes care to shelter him from bad examples and possible harm. The desire to be a good mother, to help her child grow up happy, healthy, and productive is so intense that she is sometimes haunted by nightmares.

The experience of parenting her child gradually makes the protagonist more aware of her relationship with her mother:

Will you love me forever? I think to myself. Will you love me when I’m old? If I go crazy? Will you be embarrassed by me? Avoid my calls? Wash dishes when you talk to me on the phone, roll your eyes, lay the receiver down next to the cat?

These were exactly the things she did to her mother. Loving her son, she finally realizes how much her parents also loved her. Her father’s love was easier to understand. He tried his best to give her opportunities in life, but when she failed in the year at a private college, which he had funded for her with considerable difficulty, he did not judge or reproach her. She loved her father, but she regarded her mother as cold and harsh and fought constantly with her, reacting like her former self, the rebellious teenager, being neither mature nor compassionate in looking after her mother in old age, understanding her, forgiving her weaknesses, and loving her.

But now that her mother is dead, she begins increasingly to miss her, and the decision to drive nine hours with her son for the sake of hearing her mother’s voice again through the imitations of Carnie, the African parrot, shows how much she needs this connection. “I realize how badly I need a piece of my mother. A scrap, a sound, a smell—something.” She knows she has not been a good daughter, and the parrot her mother loved and which she hated so much, always seemed to come between them. Now, however, Carnie has become her only avenue to the kind of memory she craves. But the bird does not give her that satisfaction, remaining completely silent. Perhaps it could not forgive her unkind treatment of it in the past.

Nonetheless, the journey proves successful. In the tradition of the American “road trip”, another way of thinking about this story, the protagonist does not merely make an actual journey with her son in a car, during which various things happen along the way, she also makes a personal, emotional journey in which she achieves a measure of enlightenment. It is a typical feature of “road trip” journeys that they teach the characters things about themselves that they did not previously know.

Driving toward home, they stop at the house in which the protagonist grew up–- “a deserted, plain house for plain folks…”

…I lead him to the back of the house, down the hallway which still feels more familiar to me than any I know…I remove the valances Mom made in the early eighties, dried bugs falling from the folds of the fabric into the sink below. These are the things with which she made a home. Her contributions to our sense of place were humble and put forth with great intent, crafts which took weeks of stitching and unstitching, measuring, cutting, gathering. I realize how much in the home was done by hand and sweat. My father had laid the carpeting and linoleum. Mom had painted the same dinner chairs twice, sewed all the window treatments…I scan the kitchen and picture Mom paying bills, her perfect script, the way she always listed her occupation with pride: homemaker…

Recalling how her parents had created a home that she describes to Ike by saying, “This was a beautiful house”, she understands that her parents were not demonstrative people, not people who talked about love, but people who had shown it to her in all their actions and these things they had made. And here, also, she finds the clear recollections of her mother that she had been seeking: “… Now I can hear my mother everywhere—in the kitchen, in my bedroom, on the front porch…”

This visit also helps the protagonist to make a major decision around which one part of the plot is constructed: should she and Ike move to Connecticut, a state to which her firm has offered to transfer her? Ike is reluctant.

“…What if we live here forever? He asked. People used to do that, I said. Lived in one house their entire life. My mother, for instance…”

In revisiting the house of her childhood, she has grasped the profound sense of home that growing up in this single place has given her. She concludes:

“Together, we can make a solid grilled cheese, prune shrubs, clean house. Together, maybe we’re the housewife this house needs. Maybe our best life is here.”

And, significantly, she comes, finally, to a true understanding of her mother’s courage and strength, granting her respect and admiration: “Steamrolled by the world, but in the face of defeat, she threatened us all.” And the last three sentences of the story—

My heart, she’d said. I can turn it off.

For years, I’d believed her.

But I know the truth now. What maniacs we are—sick with love, all of us.

—make clear her final realization that her mother loves and has always loved her, and that she, too, loves and has always loved her mother.

Structure of the Text

Part I (Paras. 1-11)

The protagonist introduces herself and tells us that she is driving nine hours with her 7-year-old son so that she can hear her mother’s voice again.

Part II (Paras. 12-22)

The protagonist describes how she had to sell her mother’s house and how the house brought back memories of her dead mother with her African parrot.

Part III (Paras. 23-34)

On their way to the Zoo, the protagonist and her son come to a rest stop and what she sees makes her think about her responsibilities as a mother.

Part IV (Paras. 35-51)

The protagonist reminisces about how she first saw the parrot at her mother’s home and how they developed a hostile relationship from the very beginning.

Part V (Paras. 52-58)

The protagonist tells her son where they are going and for what purpose. We learn from this section what kind of person her son’s father is and how she became a single parent.

Part VI (Paras. 59-65)

The protagonist’s son, Ike, tells her a story about his classmate Louis’ crazy mother and this once again makes her keenly aware of her desire to protect her son against even the knowledge that such people exist.

Part VII (Paras. 66-97)

This is a most revealing and touching part of the story in which we learn the reasons for the intense disagreements between the protagonist and her mother. She does not understand why her mother often appears harsh and cold, unlike her father, who was kind and did not judge her, nor can she understand why her mother gave so much of her care and attention to a bird so soon after her father’s death.

Part VIII (Paras. 98-110)

The protagonist and her son check into an inn and there she remembers how her mother cried over her grandmother’s death. She also hears in the news about a python strangling a toddler, which reminds her of a video of a similar event Ike’s father showed her. The fear that this could really happen to her son keeps her awake that night.

Part IX (Paras. 111-123)

In this section, the protagonist recalls how cruelly she hurt her mother’s feelings over the parrot when it was time to send her mother to a nursing home.

Part X (Paras. 124-143)

These memories show why the protagonist misses her mother so much and wants so much to hear her dead mother’s voice once again through the imitations of the parrot, but the bird refuses to talk, as though her mother still will not forgive her for the way she treated the bird.

Part XI (Paras. 144-150)

The protagonist now remembers the day her mother finally had to part with her beloved bird and go to the nursing home. It was a heart-breaking day for her.

Part XII (Paras.151-177)

As the protagonist revisits her home, happy memories come to her and she recalls her deceased parents. Her son feels sorry that his mother has been brought up in this place; in its rundown state, he sees it as miserable, but his mother tells him that it was “a beautiful house”.

（提醒：因编辑的疏忽，教材(184页)1-4行漏标了段落序号，造成176-179序号缺失，并非文字缺失，特此说明。编者为此疏忽表示歉意，并将在教材重印时修正。）

Part XIII (Paras. 178-192)

A realtor comes for a preview, then a couple come for an inspection. As they check the house, they jot down critical observations. The protagonist thinks that perhaps this is just the right place for her and her son.

Part XIV (Paras. 193-211)

The protagonist again remembers the day she was to send her mother to the nursing home. She kept asking her mother whether she would like to keep a few things as souvenirs, but her mother’s answer was always no, saying that she “could turn her heart off”. Looking back, the protagonist realizes that this was not true, and that they were all “sick with love”.

Detailed Analysis of the Text

1. I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. (Para. 1)

The protagonist is a single parent and has to take care of everything because there is no one else around to help her. In Chinese “single parent” is translated as 单亲，It is very close, also, to the expression “又当爹，又当娘” or “里里外外就靠她一个人”

2. I can make a pie crust and exterminate humpback crickets with a homemade glue board, though not at the same time. (Para. 1)

The protagonist is being humorous: it would be awkward if she were to exterminate crickets and cook at the same time.

3. I’d like to compliment myself on these things… (Para. 1)

to compliment sb on something: to praise sb for (doing) something

Notice the subtle differences between these two and the following expressions:

to pride oneself on something

to take pride in something

to be proud of something

4. Turn left, Ike says. (Para. 2)

Ike is pretending to be the GPS (global positioning system 全球定位系统) lady, giving directions to his mother. (This is made clear in the original, unedited story, which includes more of Ike’s conversation with his mother during the trip.)

5. If I were a better mother, I would say no, there would be bread, carrot, and seedless grapes. If I were a better daughter, Ike would have known his grandmother, spent more time in her arms. (Para. 6)

Ike is obviously particularly fond of chicken nuggets, but his mother knows that they are junk food and not good for him. If she were a better mother she would stand firm and make her son eat more healthy food, but she doesn’t have the heart to say no to him. The protagonist also regrets not having been a better daughter, which has resulted in her deceased mother having remained an almost total stranger to her son.

6. I’ll come over for a walk-through before the inspection. (Para.16)

The realtor said he would walk through the house prior to the inspection, to make sure it would make a good impression on the potential buyers.

7. … Ike and I covered scrap siding in glue and flypaper and scattered our torture devices throughout the basement… (Para. 17)

siding：板壁，挡板； scrap siding: 边角料做的挡板

8. I pictured her house, a two-bedroom white ranch with window boxes, … (Para. 21)

to picture: to imagine; to see in one’s mind’s eye

ranch: This refers to a ranch house, that is, a house which consists of a single storey 牧场式的房子

window boxes: long narrow containers for growing plants outside windows

9. Mom had tended her azaleas and boxwoods with halfhearted practicality, in case the chickens or sheep broke loose. (Para. 21)

The protagonist’s mother grew azaleas and boxwoods to make the yard look beautiful. It was practical for her efforts to be half-hearted because if the chickens or sheep got loose, they would damage her shrubbery.

10. I pull into a rest stop, one of those suspicious gas station and fast-food combos. (Para. 23)

gas station and fast-food combos: 配有速食店的加油站

Question: Why does the protagonist use the word “suspicious” here?

We can’t be sure, but we might guess that it is because “gas station and fast-food combos” are notorious for having food that is bad as well as unhealthy. Also, the washrooms are not very clean. She would prefer to have taken her son somewhere better.

11. He is sweet and unassuming. He does not yet know he will be picked on for being undersized. (Para. 25)

unassuming: behaving in a quiet and pleasant way; modest 谦逊低调的，不爱招摇的

12. I want to wrap him in plastic and preserve him so that he can always be this way, this content. (Para. 26)

I want to wrap him in plastic and preserve him as I do with food so that he can always be content like this, happy and satisfied with life.

The protagonist is worried about how her pale undersized son will fare in the adult world.

13. A burly man with black hair curling across his shoulders hustles into the rest room. He breathes hard, scratches his ear, and checks his phone. Next, a sickly-looking man whose pants are too big shuffles inside. He pauses to wipe his forehead with an elbow. I think, these people are someone’s children. (Para. 27)

These men do not look nicely dressed, properly educated, or well brought up. But they were once someone’s small children too, the protagonist reminds herself; she wants to do everything possible to avoid her son growing up to be like them.

14. I could see a whorl of hair on the crown of his head like a small, stagnant hurricane. (Para. 31)

When Ike was born, the protagonist could see a coil of hair at the top of his head; this is a cowlick, hair that tends to stand up when it should lie flat.

15. Cancer genes, hay fever, high blood pressure, perhaps a fear of math—these are my gifts. (Para. 32)

The protagonist ponders what she may have passed on to her son genetically.

16. I… let him skip into the fluorescent, germ-infested cave, a room slick with mistakes and full of the type of men I hope he’ll never become. (Para. 34)

a room slick with mistakes: a room slick with spilled urine

17. I was still grieving Dad, and it was strange to watch Mom find so much joy in this ebony-beaked wiseass.（Para.40）

much joy in this silly bird.

The protagonist appears not to have understood that it was precisely because her father’s death had created such an absence in her mother’s life that she found it necessary to fill that void with a creature she could love.

18. You can’t take anything personally, Mom warned. (Para. 42)

Don’t be upset or offended by what the bird says. (You must not think anything the bird says refers to any particular person. The bird is only mimicking. So don’t be angry with it.)

19. the man of the house (Para. 43)

the bread winner; the protagonist’s father

20. His tricks seemed cheap, and I hated the easy way he’d endeared himself to Mom. (Para. 44)

His behavior seemed false, and I hated how easily the bird had won my mother’s heart.

21. Louis’s mom is a born-again Christian with two poodles and a coke habit, the kind of person I avoid at open houses at school. (Para. 61)

Born-again Christian: See notes to the Text.

open house: a social event at which you may arrive and leave freely at any time between two fixed hours—in this case, held by a school.

22. Really, Ike says. Louis pretended not to know her when she got on, but his mom held on to that chrome bar at the front of the bus and said, “Lord, I’ve been places where people don’t put pepper on their eggs.” And she started to dance. (Para. 64)

Louis always pretended not to know his crazy Mom in public places because he was so embarrassed.

23. I don’t want him to know that… people fall into landmines of pain and can’t crawl back out.（Para. 65）

I don’t want him to know that people often fall into terrible trouble and are unable to recover.

The protagonist hopes that she can shield her son from the ugliness of reality.

Notice the metaphorical use of the word “landmines”.

24. … I took him by for Mom to hold while I emptied the old milk from her fridge and scrubbed her toilets. The house was beginning to smell; Mom was not cleaning up after the bird. Suddenly the woman who’d ironed tablecloths, polished silver, bleached dinner napkins, and rotated mattresses had given up on decorum.（Para. 66）

I took him by: I took him along

polish silver: polish silverware; make silverware shine by rubbing it with polish

rotate mattresses: turn mattresses over or end-to-end

25. I brought cartons of cottage cheese…, only to find them spoiled the following month.（Para. 68）

only to find: infinitive phrase used as an adverbial of result

26. Are you giving realtors my number? They’re calling with offers.（Para. 69）

Are you giving realtors my phone number? Are you telling them my house is for sale? People are calling to tell me how much they are willing to pay for it.

offer: the price they offer to pay 报价

27. There’s a shopping center going in next door.（Para. 70）

A new shopping center is going to be built next door.

28. There was heat between us, long-standing arguments we could still feel burning.（Para. 73）

heat: hot debate; harsh disagreements

29. Dad was hard to anger (Para. 75)

Paraphrase: Dad did not lose his temper easily.

30. I knew later she’d berate him for taking it easy on me, and I hated her for it. (Para. 75)

for taking it easy on me: for not being harsh and severe enough with me

31. I could almost hear the echoes of men moving and talking, their spoken lives bouncing from the plant rafters as their hands worked. (Para. 81)

spoken lives bouncing from the plant rafters: echoes of men talking–the unimportant, daily talk that accompanies the movements of their hands as they work

32. While you’re at it, would you…? (Para. 83)

Since you are cleaning, would you also …?

33. newsprint (Para. 88)

pages from a newspaper

34. … while the toothless snake struck him repeatedly on his downy head, snapping down upon his body like a whip. (Para. 106)

snap down：to move with quick, short downward movements

35. It was time to plan. (Para. 112)

It was time to plan to send her mother to a nursing home.

36. seed casings (Para. 113)

shells of sunflower seeds 葵花子壳

37. draw blood (Para. 114)

to cause sb. to bleed

38. If you loved me, Mom said, you’d take him. (Para. 115)

Notice the use of the subjunctive mood. The protagonist’s mother could not have said more plainly how important it was to her that her daughter agrees to take the parrot. But her daughter remained unmoved.

39. That’s what you get, I said, for buying a bird with a life expectancy longer than your own. (Para. 116)

It was cruel of the protagonist to say that her mother should have known better than to buy a bird that would certainly outlive herself.

40. You know, she said. Then she stopped, as if she were afraid of what she’d say next. (Para. 117)

Her mother was about to make an angry reply, but she managed to stop herself. We can imagine how angry she was because normally she did not hesitate to speak her mind.

41. vision of perfection (Para. 118)

a picture in one’s mind of how perfect everything should be.

42. I failed home ec and took a liking to underground hip-hop (Para. 118)

failed home ec: did not pass home economics course 家政课没有考及格。

Notice that the word “fail” is used as a transitive verb here.

43. In Mom’s eyes atonement was more than surfacing from the typical throes of adolescence and early scholastic failures. Atonement included my adoption of a bird I’d hated for over a decade. (Para. 119)

Translation: 在我妈看来，我要真想悔改，那光是摆脱青春期典型的困境和早期学习上的失败还不够。真要悔改，还必须把我十年多来一直讨厌的一只鸟接过去好好抚养。

44. Lying doesn’t help, Mom said. (Para. 123)

By saying “I wish I could take him”, the protagonist is not just lying – she is also being a hypocrite.

45. big cats (Para. 127)

This refers to lions, tigers, leopards, etc. which all belong to the cat family.

46. … the animals often have ingrown nails and zero percent fat. (Para. 127)

The animals often have nails grown inwards into the flesh and are too thin, suggesting that they are not well cared for.

47. the white down ((Para. 135)

down: fine soft feathers or hair

48. Patsy (Para. 137)

a song by Patsy Cline. For Patsy Cline, see note 12.

49. How thick was her accent? (Para. 138)

thick: very noticeable

50. sugary tone (Para. 138)

sugary: very sweet, nice, and kind (The word is used here to suggest that the protagonist was jealous of the bird because her mother spoke to it in that tone.)

51. moved Mom into a home (Para.144)

sent Mom to a nursing home

52. … water dish, spare newsprint, and a fabric square (Para. 144)

Translation: 盛水的盘子，富余的旧报纸，和一方棉织物

53. with metallic resonance（Para. 146）

(The screen door closed) producing a harsh, reverberating sound

54. … this represented a breaking-off point. (Para. 148)

(The protagonist giving the parrot to the plumber)… this represented the sad moment when her mother leaves her home forever and is separated from the bird who was her companion.

55. There was an air of finality. (Para. 148)

This action was final, finished, and could not be changed.

56. I could almost hear the place settling, breathing a sigh of relief, coming down from a high. (Para. 149)

The protagonist felt as if she could hear the house come to rest, with a sense of relief, from the high of having been a happy and inhabited home to the future of being silent and empty.

57. my father’s plastic fixes (Para. 149)

plastic fixes: things made of plastic and used for repairs

58. a phantom presence on her thinning bones (Para. 150)

phantom presence: not a real presence; ghost-like

59. Will you love me forever? I think to myself. …Will you be embarrassed of me? Avoid my calls? Wash dishes when you talk to me on the phone, roll your eyes, lay the receiver down next to the cat? (Para. 154)

The protagonist wonders whether her son will grow up to be like many other children (herself included) in his adult relationship with his mother.

be embarrassed of me: As we are all aware, languages are flexible: they change and evolve with time. In addition, experts in English grammar agree that the use of prepositions in English has a particular tendency to be “unpredictable”. “Embarrassed of”, which the author uses here, is thought to have originated in an American sitcom called “New Girl”; its popularity spiked for a period and then declined, while “embarrassed by” has consistently remained the predominant usage and the usage that is considered correct. These usages may also be found:

embarrassed at: “He was embarrassed at my lack of respect for my parents.”

embarrassed about: “He was embarrassed about the long time it had taken him to answer my letter.”

Again, in both cases “embarrassed by” is considered preferable and correct.

avoid calls: avoid answering (their parents’) calls

wash dishes when…: making it clear that they resent wasting time talking to their parents

roll your eyes, lay the receiver down next to the cat: Rolling your eyes, showing that you are bored by the conversation and can’t think of much to say. You would rather give your attention to your cat.

60. I realize how badly I need a piece of my mother. A scrap, a sound, a smell—something. (Para. 155)

I realize that I am sick with nostalgia and miss my mother terribly. I desperately need to have something that can help me to recall my mother: A scrap of paper or cloth, a sound, a smell—something, anything.

61. I remember pulling into the driveway when I was past curfew（Para. 157）

curfew: originally a regulation that does not allow people to go outside between a particular time in the evening and a particular time in the morning; metaphorically, the time by which a teenage child must be home in the evening.

62. sick to my stomach with nostalgia (Para.158)

feeling terribly nostalgic (starting to miss her mother very much)

63. the mouth of glass teeth (Para. 161)

mouth and teeth: metaphors

64. The crown molding my father installed is still up (Para. 168)

still up: still there

65. Her contributions to our sense of place were humble and put forth with great intent, crafts which took weeks of stitching and unstitching, measuring, cutting, gathering. (Para.170)

What she did to the house was not fancy or pretentious. It was to make the place look homely, but everything was done with careful effort. It was all made by hand and took many weeks of stitching and unstitching, measuring, cutting, gathering.

stitching and unstitching: 缝了拆，拆了缝

gathering: making small folds in a piece of cloth by taking tiny stitches with a long thread, then pulling the thread so that the folds are drawn together: 做褶子

66. they… never entertained the idea of moving. (Para.170)

entertain the idea: contemplate the idea

67. I scan the kitchen and picture Mom paying bills, her perfect script, the way she always listed her occupation with pride: homemaker. (Para.171)

Her perfect script: her perfect handwriting

Listed her occupation: wrote down her occupation (when completing a form) 登记她职业一栏

Homemaker: 家庭主妇

68. “let the place breathe.” (Para.180)

Get rid of all this junk and give the place some breathing space.

69. Together, maybe we’re the housewife this house needs. Maybe our best life is here. (Para. 192)

Between us, perhaps we can manage the tasks that keep a household functioning. This (rather than moving to Connecticut) may be the best alternative for our future.

70. Remember, I told my mother. I’m not obligated to look after that bird.（Para.203）

The protagonist reminded her mother that she did not have an obligation to look after the bird. Her mother replied that by the same logic, she did not have an obligation to look after her daughter, either.

71. In that moment, I withered. (Para. 205)

Wither: suddenly feel belittled, ashamed and uneasy

72. Steamrolled by the world, but in the face of defeat, she threatened us all. (Para. 206)

She remained undaunted though she had been defeated. She was still defiant, and she filled us with awe.

73. My heart, she’d said. I can turn it off. (Para. 209)

The protagonist’s mother told her to toss away her mementoes because she can turn her heart off like a light, dismissing everything from her memory, so to speak. This sounds very bitter, and the protagonist had believed her mother really could do that, but now she realizes that her mother is really filled with love, as is every one of them.

Key to Exercises

I

1. a tendency or partiality of a particular kind

2. to make a piece of land look more attractive by adding plants, flowers, etc. 美化环境

3. to take care of

4. the top of the head

5. to blow at with force

6. a small piece of electronic equipment used for playing video games游戏操控器

7. share parental responsibilities

8. the side of something that is good and desirable

9. to beat with a heavy stick or similar implement

10. to suddenly strike down

11. to deliberately hurt, annoy or offend 故意气某人

12. to exercise skill in making something

V

1. In a traditional family, the husband is the breadwinner and the wife is a housewife, but in my family, I am both the housewife and the breadwinner. There is no one around to help me; I am a single mother. It is my job to comfort my child by kissing his bruises when he is injured, but it is also my job to kill snakes when it is necessary. (The copperhead, a mildly venomous snake, is native to North Carolina.)

2. At the time the protagonist was growing up, neither her family nor their neighbors did elaborate landscaping. Her mother had planted azaleas and boxwoods. However, she was too practical to waste much time looking after them, since she couldn’t keep them from being damaged if the chickens or the sheep got out.

3. “Watch your language”, she warned her daughter. “He’s like a sponge and he will pick up your bad language quickly.”

4. The parrot suddenly sang out the first part of Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” and then fell silent for the evening, as if obeying her mother’s order “Lights out!”, and wishing her good night with this song. The protagonist thinks these are the bird’s cheap tricks to make her mother like him, and she hates him for this behavior.

5. Our relationship was strained because we had very sharp and intense disagreements. Eventually, we became afraid to interact in a serious way, and when we stopped fighting, things became worse. We lost some of the closeness of the mother-daughter bond between us.

6. I forced myself to think, grief-stricken, of how my father must have spent each of his working hours. He worked at the same plant for twenty-six years making industrial-quality tools…Every day he ate a cold lunch on a bench covered with dry, hardened pigeon excrement. I could imagine hearing the men moving and talking as they worked, their voices measuring out their lives, echoing back from the plant rafters. My father’s efforts were like trying to fill an endless black hole; they were never enough, and never easy. And this black hole now hangs over me; it is a debt I can never repay.

7. I had always felt that my mother’s view about what makes a perfect woman was out of date. She used to be proud of being the healthy-looking, pure-hearted Girl Scout that she was, but I was never that. I had failed home economics and liked underground hip-hop and traveling jam bands.（This passage may partly explain the generational friction between mother and daughter. The mother wants a daughter who, like herself, values the “housewifely arts”: home economics courses in school and the small projects the mother carries out with such care to make a pleasant home for her husband and daughter. The daughter envisions a different life for herself entirely and views her parents’ lives as frighteningly narrow and confining.）

8. In my mother’s opinion, if I wanted to make amends for my past failures, being sincerely sorry for the typical immature rebellions and the lack of academic achievement of my youth was not sufficient. I must also adopt the parrot she loved so much and which I had hated for over a decade.

VI

Phrases

1. 在某点上称赞某人

2. 取决于……；看……的结果而定

3. 挣脱；摆脱

4. （汽车）开进停车休息处

5. 受欺负

6. 大声唱第一段

7. 讨某人喜欢

8. 甩手卖掉；脱手处理掉

9. 与某人接触

10. 对某人太没有严格管教

11. 倒在枕头上痛哭

12. 悬停/俯伏在某物之上

13. 快速不断地猛咬他的身体

14. 全神贯注于（卡尼会意的眼睛）

15. 朝某物逼近

16. 已经装箱了

17. 将重担放到某人的肩上

18. 一直处于睡睡醒醒的状态

19. 强烈的对往事的怀念使我不能自已

20. 挂满了蜘蛛网

21. 非常反对/讨厌所谓权宜之计（临时凑合的做法）

22. 凡事都要做下去直到圆满完成

Sentences

1. 我所在的那个公司提出来要将我调到康涅狄格州去工作，在那个州里，艾克会有更好的机会避免得儿童肥胖症，也能避免受宗教的控制，以及保守的政治倾向影响。

2. 做一个单亲家庭的母亲很不容易，但是比做不幸的妻子还是要强一些。我对艾克的父亲几乎没有什么了解；我和他只是有五个晚上在一起而已……, 他是一个臭名远扬的调情能手，但是已经结了婚，不过，他扬言现在分居了。他每月寄点钱，但是不愿意和我有认真的关系。这种安排的唯一好处就是简单。

3. 我记得有时候回家过了规定的时间，开着车进到屋前车道时，看见我妈卧室里仍然是灯光未熄。这时我一面担惊受怕，一面又感觉兴奋刺激，想着如何溜进前门，倒上一杯凉水，再琢磨如何巧妙地编个故事，来解释这么晚才回家的理由。

4. 我拿掉了母亲在八十年代做的窗帘挂布，上面裹着的已经干掉的死虫子纷纷落在下面的水池里。她用这些东西使得这房子有了家的样子。她对给我们产生这种感觉的贡献虽然朴素简单，没有一点富丽堂皇的东西，但是她却为此付出极大的努力，那些手工制品都要花上她几个星期的时间来缝缝拆拆，裁裁剪剪，然后再在布上打褶。

5. 在那一瞬间，我完全手足无措了。我受不了她的冷淡，受不了她不依不饶的据理力争，以及她那种即便已经精疲力竭，瘦骨伶仃，连自己刀叉上的食物都看不见的情况下，仍然能够挺身迎战的样子。

6. 她坐在那里，穿着她自己做的式样已经过时的衣服，膝上停着鸟，肩上落着鸟屎。这个世界已经越过她奔驰而去，但是面对失败，她仍然傲然挺立，让我们满怀敬畏。

VII

1. If I were…. If I were ….: parallel structure

2. beep like…, ring like …, and sneeze like…: simile

3. like a small, stagnant hurricane: simile

4. These are my gifts: irony

5. It’s hard being…, but it’s easier than being…: antithesis

6. fall into landmines of pain: metaphor and exaggeration

7. black hole: metaphor and hyperbole

8. like a whip: simile

9. tombstone: simile

10. the mouth of glass teeth: metaphor