Text 1. Alice in Wonderland

Unit 2. School

That is the Question

Hamlet Anno Dominy

Co-existence

or no existence.

4.Write a guide for foreign students living with Belarusian families. Describe possible problems and give advice on how to handle them.

I 1.You must have read the book “Alice in Wonderland” when a child. Did you like it? If yes, what exactly? What characters of the story do you remember?

2.Study the words.

Mock Turtle – Фальшивая Черепаха ledge – выступ, край turtle – морская черепаха tortoise – черепаха reel – крутиться, вертеться extras – необязательные предметы

conger-eel – угорь writhe – корчиться derision – высмеивание, насмешка flappers – ласты drawl – говорить медленно

II 1.Read the chapter about the Mock Turtle.

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!”

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “she wants for to know your history, she do.”

“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: “Sit down both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.”

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, “I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.” But she waited patiently.

“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real Turtle.”

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sighing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, “Thank you, sir, for your interesting story”, but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle - we used to call him Tortoise -“

“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked.

“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily; “really you are very dull!”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,” added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!” and he went on in these words:

“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it -“

“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice.

“You did,” said the Mock Turtle.

“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.

“We had the best of educations – in fact, we went to school every day –“

“ I’ve been to a day-school too,” said Alice; “you needn’t be so proud as all that.”

“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.

“Yes,” said Alice, “we learned French and music.”

“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle.

“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly.

“Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. “Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing - extra’.”

“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.”

“I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”

“What was that?” inquired Alice.

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied: “and then the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

“I never heard of ’Uglification’,” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “Never heard of uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Alice, doubtfully: “it means – to – make – anything – prettier.”

“Well then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.”

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said, “What else had you to learn?”

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers – “Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling – the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.”

“What was that like?” said Alice.

“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the Mock Turtle said: “I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learned it.”

“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classical master, though. He was an old crab, he was.”

“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: “he taught us Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”

“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”

“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. “Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?”

“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle.

“And how did you manage on the twelfth?” Alice went on eagerly.

“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone: “Tell her something about the games now.”

2.Go back to the text and write out the subjects that the Mock Turtle learnt at school. Can you guess what “real” subjects taught at school they correspond to?

3.Explain the reason for the “lessons” being called so.

4.Read the text once again paying attention to the speech of the three characters. Are there any peculiar lexical and grammatical features in their speech? How do these features characterize Alice, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle? Give examples from the text and comment on them.

5.Things people say give an idea about their attitudes, views and behaviour. Who might have made the following statements? Can any of these names be applied to the characters of the story you have read?

sadist agnostic racist patriot cynic idealist fatalist

romantic optimist nationalist activist atheist pessimist masochist

anarchist perfectionist disciplinarian philanthropist fanatic realist nonconformist

1)I don’t believe in God.

2)I don’t think I believe in God.

3)I don’t believe that anyone really believes in anything.

4)Love makes the world go round.

5)Face facts: love doesn’t make the world go round – the sun does.

6)Any player not on time for training will be fined $10 for every minute he’s late.

7)Me, emigrate? You must be joking. It would break my heart.

8)I’m not a bad sort of person. I just happen to believe that my country is superior to and more important than any other.

9)I’ll concede that 99.9% is a good examination result. I just want to know why you failed to get 100%.

10)Honestly, I’ve nothing against foreigners, as long as they don’t come and live next door to me or try and marry my daughter.

11)What will be will be.

12)I don’t know why you bother to talk about the next World Cup. There will probably have been a nuclear war by then.

13)It’s no good just sitting and talking about social injustice. The time has come to do something about it.

14)We shall achieve our aims by any means available; if that includes bloodshed and suffering for innocent people, that’s the way it’ll have to be.

15)I ran fifty kilometers in the midday sun today. Every kilometer hurt more than the last, so I feel really good about it. It must have done me good.

16)You might not enjoy this, but I’m certainly going to enjoy watching you suffer.

17)What did those politicians, lawyers and priests ever do for me? We should all follow our own ideas on government, law and church.

18)Just because you’re losing 0-6, 0-6, 0-5 and 0-40 doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to lose.

19)I don’t care what they say – palace or not, royalty or not, hundredth anniversary or not, I am not going to wear a tie.

20)It’s the moral duty of all of us to do what we can to reduce the amount of human suffering in the world. At least, that’s the way I look at things.

21)I am convinced that we are capable of creating paradise here on earth.

6.Recall the situations from the text in which the following sentences were used, identify the speaker (Try to avoid looking in the text).

a)Drive on, old fellow!

b)You couldn’t have wanted it much.

c)Really you are very dull!

d)You needn’t be so proud of all that.

e)You are a simpleton.

f)What a curious plan!

g)It’s all his fancy.

h)I couldn’t afford to learn it.

i)I went to the classical master.

j)You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question.

7.In the story the Gryphon says “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it”. These are colloquial phrases. Moreover, the second is an exaggeration. Here are some more examples of the kind. Match a line in A with the line in B.

A

B

a)I’m starving. I could eat a horse. b)I’m absolutely dying for a drink. c)His family are pretty well off, aren’t they? d)You must have hit the roof when she told you she’d crashed your car. e)I think Tony was a bit tipsy last night. f)I can’t stand the sight of him. g)He isn’t very bright, is he? h)Look at the weather! It’s bright again. i)What a fantastic holiday! j)I’m knackered. Can we stop for a rest? k)He invited quite a few friends to his party. l)Well, that journey was absolute hell! m)They’ve got this huge great dog called Wizzer. I’m terrified of it.

1)Yes, it was a nice little break, but all good things must come to an end. 2)You’re not kidding. He’s as thick as two short planks. 3)Yes, my throat’s a bit dry, I must say. 4)What! He was totally smashed out of his brain! 5)What? That little thing wouldn’t hurt a fly! 6)I know. It is a bit wet, but we mustn’t grumble, must we? 7)I’ll say. We had to fight our way through millions of people to get to the drinks. 8)OK. I feel a bit out of breath, too. 9)Well, yes, I was a bit upset. 10)I suppose it did take rather a long time to get here. 11)You can say that again. They’re absolutely loaded! 12)I must admit, I’m not too keen on him, either. 13)Yes, I’m a little peckish, too.

III 1.Read the following jokes based on the play upon grammatical and phonetic structures. Find a similar example in the text.

1)Teacher (paying a visit). Are your Father and Mother in, Morton?

Morton. They was in, but they is out.

Teacher. Why, Morton! ‘They was in!’ ‘They is out!’ Where’s your grammar?

Morton. She’s upstairs taking a nap.

2)The professor rapped on his desk and shouted: “Gentlemen, order!” The entire class yelled: “Beer!”

3)Professor. Take this sentence, ‘Let the cow be taken to the pasture.’ What mood?

Student. The cow.

2.Compare the schools the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon and Alice went to. What are the similarities and differences?

3.The Mock Turtle describes a very peculiar system of organizing lessons – each day you study less and less. In the following article another idea is expressed – children actually don’t have time to study. How so? Read the story and try to spot the lie.

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