新GRE高频阅读机经原文：14法案和the Color Purple the Color Purple the Color Purple general intro: The Color Purple is a 1982 eistolary novel 书信小说 written by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fictionand the National Book Award for Fiction. Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life in the 1930s in thesouthern United States, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. Plot summary （只选了关于书信那一截，大概晓得是为撒子写信就行了） The Color Purple spans the years 1909 to 1949, relating the life of Celie, a Southern black woman virtually sold into a life of servitude to her brutal husband, sharecropper Albert. Celie, the protagonist and narrator of The Color Purple, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in rural Georgia. Celie starts writing letters to God because her stepfather, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Celie pours out her innermost thoughts in letter form to her sister Nettie, but Albert has been hiding the letters Nettie writes back, allowing Celie to assume that Nettie is dead. Letters Alice Walker highlights the power of communication through the characters letter writing form. The letters that Celie writes to God, and later to her sister Nettie, symbolize a certain voice that only Celie has and one that she is only able to express in her letters. She is able to express her true desires only in her letter. These letters allow her to display any emotion, and they are very personal to her as well. In the beginning, when she was writing letters only to God, the letters were very private and Celie would not have wanted anyone to see them. The letters are the only way she can represent her true feelings and despair as she is abused. Later, the letters she gets from Nettie give her hope that she will be reunited with her sister again. Celie writes to God for a lack of someone else to write to. She writes to her sister because she gets mad at God because of her past and the people who have been hurt because of it. She asks God "Why?" which is a question that cannot be answered. The last letter she writes is to everyone, including God showing that she has forgiven Him, and that her story has gone through a full circle of maturation. theme： In the short story “The Color Purple,” author Alice Walker describes the life of Celie, a black woman growing up in the South. She must overcome racism and poverty to establish herself as an independent person. The novel also follows the maturation of her sister Nettie and the lives of Shug, Albert, and much of his extended family. A motif in “The Color Purple” is the recurring concept of roundness. The concept of roundness relates to the shape of the human body, and especially the female body. The letters are also another motif in the novel. The letters play an important role in conveying Celie’s thoughts and emotions throughout her life. Walker suggests that oppressed people can unite with solidarity to overcome their oppressors. A sub theme of “The Color Purple” is the harm inflicted on the Black community, both by their own cycle of violence and the racially motivated hatred of Negroes in the South. Symbol: The title of the book is an important symbol. Celie goes through life having a hard time noticing the beautiful aspects and appreciating them. She had a difficult life and was abused as an adolescent. "The color purple is continually equated with suffering and pain. Sofia's swollen, beaten face is described as the color of 'eggplant'. Purple is the color of Celie's private parts, the site of her sexual violation. However, later Shug points out to her that life must be enjoyed. When they are in a field of purple flowers, Shug tells Celie to look at the flowers and embrace their beauty. "You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth". After learning this, Celie has a better respect for life and everything it has to offer. When Nettie arrives from Africa she is seen wearing a purple dress. 再附一个中文简介 故事的年代大约在20世纪初到第二次世界大战前夕，背景是美国南方佐治亚乡村。 十四岁的黑人女孩西丽被后父奸污，生下两个孩子。多病的母亲不了解真相活活气死了。她的孩子被后父抢走失踪，她本人又被迫嫁给已有四个孩子的鳏夫。丈夫另有所爱，对她百般虐待，而她受旧思想旧习俗的影响只是自叹命苦，从不反抗，只在给上帝写的信里倾诉内心的痛苦。她对丈夫毫无感情，甚至不愿意叫他的名字，只称他为某某先生。 善良的西丽发现后父和丈夫都对妹妹耐蒂不怀好心，便帮助她离家出走。另一方面，她任劳任怨地把丈夫前妻的儿女抚养成人。 大儿子哈波结婚以后，想像父亲那样使唤打骂老婆，但儿媳妇索菲亚生性倔强，不肯对丈夫俯首贴耳唯命是从，在生了好几个孩子以后还是离开了哈波。 西丽丈夫以前的情人，歌唱家莎格患重病流落街头。某某先生把她接到家里，她在西丽的精心护理下恢复了健康，两人成了知心朋友。莎格开导西丽要充分认识自己的聪明才智，要跟大男子主义思想作斗争，主动争取女人应有的权利。莎格的启发开阔了西丽的眼界，她开始用新的眼光观察世界、考虑问题。 后来，莎格发现西丽的丈夫一直把耐蒂从非洲写来的信件秘密收藏起来不让她知道。西丽在愤怒之余决定脱离某某先生，跟莎格去孟菲斯。她走出家庭学习缝纫，成为手艺精湛的裁缝，开起裁缝铺，过上了独立自主的生活。 某某先生经过痛苦的思想斗争，认识到过去大男子主义思想的错误，向西丽作了诚恳的检讨，获得了西丽的原谅。他们不再是夫妻，但成了知心朋友。 西丽的妹妹耐蒂出走后到黑人牧师塞缪尔家干活，又随他们去非洲做传教士。她发现牧师的一儿一女就是西丽失去的孩子。 塞缪尔一家在非洲生活得很艰难，他妻子染上非洲疟疾不治身亡。英国殖民者为种植橡胶肆意破坏当地奥林卡人民的土地和村落。塞缪尔和耐蒂赶到英国向教会求救，但遭到冷落和侮辱。他们返回非洲时当地人民对他们大为失望，纷纷投奔住在森林深处反抗白人的母布雷人。 耐蒂此时已经跟塞缪尔结成夫妻，决心带着儿子亚当、女儿奥莉维亚及儿媳妇塔希回国。 小说结尾处，西丽跟妹妹和儿子、女儿重新团聚，过上快乐的生活。 希望G友们不断补充~~~让我们战胜这篇变态的长阅读吧~~^^！！！ 简而言之，就是要注意： 本书是书信体小说，但又突破了传统的书信体，运用夸张变形等手法。超现实性并且有诗意。最后还要注意的就是本书对语言的把握非常好，使用不同的语言强调叙述者的转换。 14法案 Fourteenth Amendment The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868, prohibits state governments from denying citizens the “equal protection of the laws.” Although precisely what the framers of the amendment meant by this equal protection clause remains unclear, all interpreters agree that the framers’ immediate objective was to provide a constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed the citizenship of all persons born in the United States and subject to United States jurisdiction. This declaration, which was echoed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, was designed primarily to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black people in the United States could be denied citizenship. The act was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, who argued that the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, did not provide Congress with the authority to extend citizenship and equal protection to the freed slaves. Although Congress promptly overrode Johnson’s veto, supporters of the act sought to ensure its constitutional foundations with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. 第一段：14修正案禁止政府否认法律对公民的平等保护“equal protection of the laws” 虽然不太明白提案者这么说的具体意义，但所有解释都认同提案者的直接目的是为Civil Right Acts提供支持，这个Act的内容是保证所有出生于美国的并遵从美国法律的公民的市民权citizenship。14修正案重提Act的内容主要是为了反对最高法院Super Court的“黑人应该没有citizenship”这一判决。Act被总统否定了，他认为13修正案中废除了奴隶制，但没有向国会提供将citizenship和equal protection扩展到黑人的权力authority。尽管国会又否决了总统的否定，Act的支持者们仍然去寻找Act的宪法基础constitutional foundations，这样就有了14修正案。 The broad language of the amendment strongly suggests that its framers were proposing to write into the Constitution not a laundry list of specific civil rights but a principle of equal citizenship that forbids organized society from treating any individual as a member of an inferior class. Yet for the first eight decades of the amendment’s existence, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment betrayed this ideal of equality. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, for example, the Court invented the “state action” limitation, which asserts that “private” decisions by owners of public accommodations and other commercial businesses to segregate their facilities are insulated from the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. 第二段：14修正案所用的broad language强烈地表明了提案者的目的并不是要提出谁的权力应该受保护的名单，而是要在宪法中建立建立这样一个原则：任何一个个人都不应该被当做低等阶层对待。但是14修正案提出后的80年间，最高法院对它的解释违背了它的这个平等的想法。举例:1883年的Civil Rights Cases中最高法院发明了“state action”这样的一个限制，将public accommodations and other commercial businesses所有者的四人决定孤立于14修正案的法律平等保护之外。 After the Second World War, a judicial climate more hospitable to equal protection claims culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two doctrines embraced by the Supreme Court during this period extended the amendment’s reach. First, the Court required especially strict scrutiny of legislation that employed a “suspect classification,” meaning discrimination against a group on grounds that could be construed as racial. This doctrine has broadened the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to other, nonracial forms of discrimination, for while some justices have refused to find any legislative classification other than race to be constitutionally disfavored, most have been receptive to arguments that at least some nonracial discriminations, sexual discrimination in particular, are “suspect” and deserve this heightened scrutiny by the courts. Second, the Court relaxed the state action limitation on the Fourteenth Amendment, bringing new forms of private conduct within the amendment’s reach. 第三段：二战后，最高法院积聚了一个对equal protection更友好的法律氛围，它认为种族隔离的学校违背了14修正案的平等条款。这一时期，最高法院支持了2个扩展14修正案覆盖范围的文件。第一个：要求立法的严格审核，应用了“怀疑分类法”，。。。这个文件扩展了14修正案的应用，将他扩展到非种族的歧视。因为尽管某些人拒绝找除种族之外的歧视，大部分人接受这样一种论断：至少有一些种族歧视以外的歧视，特别是性别歧视，是可疑的并应该受到严格审查。第二个：最高法院取消了（第二段中提到的那个）state action limitation，使得14修正案可以应用的范围包括了新形式的私人行为。 18. The passage suggests that the principal effect of the state action limitation was to (A) allow some discriminatory practices to continue unimpeded by the Fourteenth Amendment (B) influence the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v, Board of Education (C) provide expanded guidelines describing prohibited actions (D) prohibit states from enacting laws that violated the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (E) shift to state governments the responsibility for enforcement of laws prohibiting discriminatory practices 19. The author’s position regarding the intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would be most seriously undermined if which of the following were true? (A) The framers had anticipated state action limitations as they are described in the passage. (B) The framers had merely sought to prevent discriminatory acts by federal officials. (C) The framers were concerned that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 would be overturned by the Supreme Court. (D) The framers were aware that the phrase “equal protection of the laws” had broad implications. (E) The framers believed that racial as well as non-racial forms of discrimination were unacceptable. 23. Which of the following can be inferred about the second of the two doctrines referred to in lines 39-41 of the passage? (A) It caused some justices to rule that all types of discrimination are prohibited by the Constitution. (B) It shifted the focus of the Supreme Court from racial to nonracial discrimination. (C) It narrowed the concern of the Supreme Court to legislation that employed a suspect classification. (D) It caused legislators who were writing new legislation to reject language that could be construed as permitting racial discrimination. (E) It made it more difficult for commercial businesses to practice racial discrimination.
新GRE高频阅读机经原文：14法案和the Color Purple的延伸阅读——GRE阅读高分技巧 1.题目类型固定或所涉及考点为已做标记范畴 1)问事物之间的关系，定位到同时标记这两个事物的地方。 2)问作者态度，定位到有态度词标记的地方。 3)问事物的缺陷，直接定位到标记缺陷处。 4)问文章大意类的主旨题定位与TS 5)问全文focus的特征，首先到TS处定位。 6)问文章结构、段落作用、行文方法类的主旨题定位于SE。 7)问作者举某个例子的目的，或者作者引用一段文字为了说明什么，这类就写作用意提问的题目一般定位于例子或者引述文字的上文。 8)提干句以IF结尾的改进型或取非题，定位在原文缺陷处或者有unless的句子。 9)如果题目为EXCEPT题，可以先看看原文的标记中有没有列举内容;如果有，很可能是答案所在。 2.题干有特征词的题目 1）最高级、比较级、数字、以大写字母开头的专有名词、年代、特殊历史时期、引号、斜体字。 2）选项标志词与题干核心词双重定位 3）段落定位 这两个GRE高分阅读定位技巧是在总结了众多考生的实际经验的基础上总结出来的，非常具有实用价值。所以希望大家在考试的过程中，能加以应用。
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