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da man in dem Matura-Bereich nix schreiben kann, schreib ichs hier, und hoffe dass irgendein Mod das dann verschiebt...

J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye

Author: J.D. Salinger;
Jerome David Salinger was born on January 1 in 1919 in New York. He was the son of a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother.
He attended Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, upon which Pencey Prep in The Catcher in the Rye is based.
In school Salinger was called "the worst English student in the history of the College" by one of his professors. And he had failed to graduate from several schools. At Columbia University he met Whit Burnett his English teacher. Burnett saw some degree of talent in the young author, and together they wrote many short stories (The collection was called “The Young Folks”)
During World War II he served in the US army in some fiercest fighting of the war. After the war he was hospitalized for combat stress reaction. He continued to publish stories in magazines such as Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post during and after his war experience.
with the publication of a critically-acclaimed short story entitled A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Salinger began to publish almost exclusively in the New Yorker, a magazine he greatly admired.
The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951. It was an immediate success, although early critical reactions were mixed. Although never confirmed by Salinger himself, several of the events in the novel are semi-autobiographical.
A major theme in Salinger’s work is the agile and powerful mind of disturbed young men, and the redemptive capacity of children in the lives of such men.
Salinger is also known for his solitary nature because he has not given an interview, made a public appearance or published any new work in the last 40 years.


Contents:
The story is told in the first person by Holden. The book covers the three days in his life after being kicked out of Pencey Prep, right before the Christmas holidays. Having already been kicked out of three other schools and not yet wanting to face his parents, he visits his history teacher, old Mr. Spencer, who was forced to flunk him and heads back to his dorm. He then decides to set off and spend a few days alone in New York City after a few unpleasant experiences with his fellow dorm students, particularly when his roommate comes home after "showing Jane Gallagher a good time". Holden used to know Jane Gallagher, and he held her in high regard, and throughout the book his thoughts turn to her.
Holden loiters around New York, drinking heavily and meeting various people, becoming increasingly depressed as he spends more time there. Holden repeatedly observes that people around him are "phonies" because of their actions. Holden has a run-in with a prostitute and her pimp at his hotel leaving him swindled for an extra 5 dollar. Later he has a date with one of his previous girlfriends, Sally Hayes. They go to the theatre and go ice skating. The experience leaves him more depressed as he realises that they do not have much in common. Through his depression he finally decides to go home and sneak into his house to see his kid sister Phoebe. He has a short conversation with her, and she lends him some of the money she got for Christmas, but he is forced to flee when his parents come home.
Towards the end of the book, Holden visits Mr. Antolini, the only teacher he's ever trusted. Although his teacher gives him very wise and beneficial advice for his future, and lets Holden sleep on his couch, Holden awakens to find Mr. Antolini stroking his forehead. Why he does this is never revealed, but Holden initially thinks that Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual overture. He hastily excuses himself with a lie and leaves. Later on, he thinks he may have assumed too much. Holden sleeps in the train station, and in the morning decides he is going to hitchhike to the West and build a cabin for himself away from the people he knows; he plans to pretend he is a deaf mute holding a normal job. However, he can't leave without saying goodbye to Phoebe, even more so because he still has her Christmas money.
Holden goes to Phoebe’s school and through the headteacher’s secretary, sends her a note saying that he is leaving home for good and she should meet him at lunchtime at the art museum. When Phoebe arrives, she is carrying a suitcase full of clothes and asks Holden to take her with him. He refuses angrily, realizing he is influencing her badly because she wants to go with him instead of behaving in school and playing a key role in her school play. She cries and refuses to speak to him. Knowing she will follow, Holden walks to the zoo, letting her anger lift. After walking through the zoo, with a short distance between them, they visit a park across the street. Phoebe starts talking to Holden again and Holden promises to go back home. He buys her a ticket for the carousel in the park and watches her ride an old horse on it. As Holden watches her ride the carousel, his mood gets better. Soon, he is so happy that he is almost moved to tears.
Holden's narration ends here. He mentions in passing that he has been sick, that he has visited a psychoanalyst, and that he is going to another school in the fall.

Characters:


Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is a 16 year old boy. He describes himself as a very tall mature looking guy. He's a heavy smoker and wears his hair in a crew cut.
Although is very bad at school, he is exceptionally intelligent and literate for his age. The only subject he passed was English, as he reads a lot on his own.
His character could be described as very confused. Holden is lonesome, he has only very few social contacts. The only person he has a real intact relationship is his sister Pheobe. And there are another two persons, who are very important for Holden, it’s his deceased younger brother Allie and Jane Gallagher.
All the other people he calls “phonies”, which means that they just play a role to fit in society, but they never show their real character.
Holden can’t stand adults. He never wants to grow up, he wants to stay young, but he recognizes that he can’t bypass the biological way of growing. But he tries to stay young in mind.

Phoebe Caulfield:
Holden's younger sister, Phoebe is a smart kid, and she and Holden mutually adore and respect each other. Holden thinks about Phoebe many times during his time in New York City, and finally risks getting caught by his parents to sneak into their apartment and visit her. When Holden says he's leaving to go West, Phoebe packs her bags and demands to come along. For some reason, this seems to convince Holden that neither of them needs to be running away.
Allie Caulfield:
Holden's younger brother by two years, Allie died of leukaemia, which distressed Holden to the point that he punched out all the windows in the garage. Allie had bright red hair and had written poems all over his baseball mitt so he would have something to read on the field. Holden remembers him as extremely kind and intelligent.

Themes:


Growing up:
The growing up of Holden Caulfield is a major theme in this novel. He tells us very much about his childhood and about his life before the novel takes place.
Holden wants to avoid getting old, but he can’t. Maybe the end, the fact of being in psychoanalysis is the result of trying to reject growing up.
Another interesting thing is Holden’s name. A "caul" is a membrane that covers a baby's head at birth. The name might now be interpreted as "'Hold On Caul' field." This could be a message of how Holden wants to hold on to his childhood and resist becoming an adult.

Alienation and Loneliness:
The main theme that runs through this book is alienation, whether the book is read as the funny/tragic account of a deeply troubled, rebellious, and defensive teenager or as a commentary on a smug and meaningless social milieu. Phoebe sums up Holden's sense of separateness from and anger at other people when she tells him he doesn't like anything. Holden's red hunting cap, which he wears when he is most insecure, is a continuing symbol throughout the book of his feeling that he is different, doesn't fit into his environment, and, what's more, doesn't want to fit in.


Other themes:
Adolescence
Holden is an adolescent in search for an identity. He believes that he is mature. But doesn’t want to be one of those “phonies” all adolescents belong to.
Cynicism
Idealism
Pressure to Conform
Innocence
Holden tries to protect the innocence of children.

Motive:


The red hunting hat:
Holden buys a red hunting hat in New York for a dollar after he loses Pencey's fencing equipment. The hat has a very long peak, and Holden wears it backwards, with the peak aiming behind him. He puts this hat on when he's under a lot of stress and ends up giving it to his sister Phoebe near the end of the story.

Allie's left-handed baseball mitt:
Allie wrote poems in green ink on his baseball mitt so he'd have something to read while waiting around in the outfield. Holden writes a descriptive essay about this mitt for Stradlater's homework assignment, but rips it up after Stradlater complains about the topic.

The museum:
Ducks in the Central Park:
Holden is very curious, throughout the story, about what happens to the ducks of the Central Park lake when wintertime comes and the lake freezes.

The record:
Holden buys his sister Phoebe a record he's sure she'll love. The song is called 'Little Shirley Beans.' When he gets drunk, however, Holden drops the record and shatters it.

Catcher in the Rye:
Holden starts thinking about the catcher after he hears a little boy singing a song: '''If a body catch a body coming through the rye.''' (pg. 115) In his imagination, Holden constructs a story and a job for this catcher--he'll stand at the edge of a field where children are innocently playing and catch them if they get too close to the edge.

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Historical Background
After Oscar Wilde published his novel “The picture of Dorian Gray” in 1890, he became one of the main representatives of the Aesthetic movement in art and the Preface of his book became a kind of manifesto for the Aesthetes and the aristocratic class of the 19th century.
The Aesthetic movement, also called “the art for arts sake” movement, arose from romanticism and claimed that pleasure and beauty should be the most important things in life, even more important than morality, religion or conventions. Aesthetes refused the idea that art should imitate life (realism), instead life should imitate art.

Summary:
The main character in the book is a young, wealthy boy called Dorian Gray who’s 18 years old.
Soon you get to know that he’s got an outstanding characteristic: his beauty .It’s so extraordinary that everyone who sees him is immediately overjoyed, worships him and can’t imagine Dorian doing anything harmfully.
One day he gets to know a painter called Basil Hallward, who is totally impressed by his beauty and who uses Dorian as his inspiration, as his muse, and portraits him. Once, while sitting Basil for his latest painting, Dorian, who has until this point been completely innocent, gets to know one of the painters’ friends: Lord Henry Wotton.
Lord Henry is a very intellectual member of the Britain upper class and is somehow fascinated by Dorian’s innocence and youth, as much as Dorian is impressed by Henrys cynically sensual outlook on life, so Dorian hangs on his lips while he talks about topics like life in general, art or beauty.
He also tells Dorian that the value of beauty is above all other things and it gives power to those who have it, and that nothing in the world is greater. He warns Dorian that his beauty will someday fade, a prospect that horrifies the young man.
After Basil completed the portrait, he gives it to Dorian as a present, but he also wants to protect the boy's purity from Lord Henry's immoral, eloquent influence.
And he is totally right: under Henry’s influence, Dorian get so horrified to lose his beauty, that he wishes instead that the picture might grow old while he remains forever young: "I would give everything. I would give my soul for that!"
Nevertheless, the boy and Lord Henry become close friends and have intensive talks about life.

Some months later, Lord Henry and Basil get to know that Dorian fell in love with the poor actress Sybil Vane, it happened to him while seeing her acting. The theatre and the rest of the cast are of very poor quality, but Sybil is apparently a brilliant actress. Dorian went backstage to meet her after the third performance he had attended, and found her completely unaware of her own skill.
Sybil prefers to call him “Prince Charming,” because, as Dorian says, “She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life”, and he invites them to go with him to the theatre to watch her acting.

Sybil also tells her mother, who is an actress as well and her brother, James Vane, about her relationship.
Mrs. Vane is quite glad because she hopes that Dorian will provide her with money but her brother is absolutely against the relationship and swears to hunt Dorian down if he causes her any harm.

On the appointed evening, Sybil plays Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet”, but she plays absolutely horribly and unconvincingly. Dorian’s guests leave after the second act and Dorian stays horrified and confused.
Afterwards, he rushes backstage to confront Sybil. She is delighted to see him and surprised at his anger, since she had assumed that he would know the reason for her terrible performance. She tells him that after having met him, she can no longer believe in the theatre. Before Dorian, she says, “acting was the one reality of my life,” and now he has “freed my soul from prison” and “taught me what reality really is.”
Dorian is completely disgusted and unable to love her anymore, and tells her that he wants to finish the relationship .He leaves her broken-hearted and unable to understand him.
After returning home, Dorian looks at Basil’s portrait and finds out that the picture has amazingly changed: there seems to be “a touch of cruelty in the mouth”, and the cruelty in the expression reminds him of his cruelty to Sybil.
So he somehow starts to understand everything: the picture shows his true soul and character while he stays young and innocent. After this discovery, he decides that nobody should see the picture anymore, not even Basil, and covers it.
In the morning, Lord Henry visits him and tells him that Sibyl died yesterday night, probably she killed herself.
Henry urges Dorian not to get involved with the situation; as such a scandal would destroy his reputation. He asks Dorian to come see the opera with him that night.
Firstly, he’s completely destroyed but under Henry’s direction, Dorian starts to appreciate Sybil's death as "a wonderful ending to a wonderful play”, he somehow likes the idea that she died for pure love.
So he decides to forget the whole thing and to accompany Henry to the theatre.
Later on, he tells his servant to shut and cover the picture in the attic.

The following years are just described briefly: Dorian has a quite varied life and is interested in many different things (for example religion, music, jewels...), but he’s also quick to change obsessions. People who get in contact with him, especially those who fall in love with him, are often ruined or even dead afterwards. Therefore, many members of the upper-class start to gossip about him and avoid his presence, but still they are fascinated by his beauty, that never seems to age. Lord Henry is his only close friend during these years.

On a dark, foggy night, Basil arrives at Dorian’s home to confront him about the horrible rumours that circulate. The two argue, and Dorian offers Basil a look at his real soul. They go to the attic and Dorian shows Basil the portrait that he once took of him.
But it doesn’t show a young, beautiful Dorian anymore; it shows a cruel, ugly old man. Basil is horrified and shocked and tells Dorian to change his life and to pay for his sins.
Dorian claims it is too late for penance and kills Basil in a fit of rage.

Afterwards he bribes a former friend of him, who is a well-known chemist, to help him dispose of the dead body. Shortly afterwards, Dorian notices that suddenly, there is blood on the portrait’s hands.

The night after the murder, Dorian attends an opium den, where he encounters James Vane, Sibyls brother, who tells him that he will take revenge for his sister’s death and wants to kill him.
But Dorian is able to flee and spends the following days with some guests at his country house.
There, he still feels persecuted and even believes to see James peering in through a window.
But when Henry and Dorian watch some hunters, who want to shoot a rabbit, and, by mistake, kill a person who hits behind the tree, Dorian finds out that it was James Vane, who really wanted to murder him, and feels safe again.
Back home, Dorian decides to change his life to be in peace with himself: First he thinks about confessing the crime but must realize, that on the one hand, nobody would believe that someone of his beauty could commit such a horrible crime, on the other hand also the dead body was already destroyed.
So he decides to kill that "monstrous soul-life" in the portrait, and in a fit of rage, he picks up the knife that killed Basil Hallward, and plunges it into the painting. As his servants hear a piercing shriek, they send for the police, who find a bloated, ugly old man with a knife in his heart, and the portrait of Dorian, as beautiful as he was eighteen years ago, beside.
Reactions:
Reviews showed that contemporary public was shocked and disgusted by the book and its implicit homosexuality (which maybe had something to do with the fact that Wilde was considered as homosexual himself). He added six more chapters and a subplot that would be more to the public's taste before publishing the book. The published book was given a good review and said to promote the idea that excess was evil and would make a person ugly; Wilde denied that this was his intention; however he did say that the book shows that certain excesses have their own punishments
Interpretation:
“The picture of Dorian Gray” can be seen as a document of Wildes time, probably he wanted to mirror the superficial British upper- class as well as his own attitude, personalised by the characters of Lord Henry and his “victim” Dorian.
The main topic in the book is the high value of beauty for the Aesthetes and the belief that your character can be shown by your look.
In his book, Wilde also discussed a quite popular subject in literature: the pact with the Devil.


What is happiness?

What does happiness mean to you?
Options:
Having a lot of money.
Having a lot of friends.
Having a happy family.
Having good health.
Having a successful job.
Living in a hot country.
Helping other people.


Questions about your happiness:

Are you a happy person?
What gives you satisfaction?
What gives you pleasure?
Are younger people happier than older people?
Are people happier now than in the past?
What nationality do you think is the happiest?


Some quotations about happiness:

Jane Austen: 1775 -1817 English novelist (“Pride and Prejudice, Sense and
Sensibility”)
“Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness
destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations?”

-carpe diem
-do not seek happiness, enjoy life


Ernest Hemingway: 1899 – 1961 American novelist
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

-life is tragic and unfair
-those who know what is going on out there cannot enjoy life


Albert Schweitzer: 1875 – 1965 Doctor, humanitarian, Nobel Peace Prize winner
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”

-similar to Hemmingway






Nathaniel Hawthorne: 1804 – 1864 American novelist
“Happiness is like a butterfly which you cannot catch: if you sit
down quietly it may come to you.”

-similar to Austen
-do not wait for happiness, enjoy life


Herman Cain: American businessman, fast food millionaire
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”


George Bernard Shaw: 1856 – 1950 Irish dramatist and Nobel Prize winner
“A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would
be hell on earth.”

-happiness would become common/not enjoyable
-pain is a part of happiness


The day they came to arrest the b00k
The Author:
Nat (Nat is the short form of Nathan) Hantoff was born in June, 1925. He is a well-known American novelist, critic, journalist and editor.
He attended North-eastern University graduated with a B.A. in English. He also attended Harvard University on a one-year scholarship and the Sorbonne in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship.
The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he grew up in a Jewish quarter of Boston.
He has maintained both a prolific and provocative writing career, addressing a wide range of social issues including civil rights, racism, police invasion of privacy, abortion, and his favourite, freedom of speech.
His novels often examine the personal problems teenagers face – Identity crisis, the generation conflict, peer pressure and decision making. He receives praise in literary circles and earns the respect of readers of all ages for his ability to express the thoughts and feelings of today’s youth.

Characters:
First there is Michael Moore, the headmaster of the George Mason High School, also called “Mighty Mike”.
He embodies that kind of person who would do nearly everything to earn lot of money and respect and he would never do anything that could put his reputation or his school at risk.
He doesn’t care for the people around him. And if anybody says something against him, he tries to make the person’s life unbearable; he tries to make the person’s life as horrible as he can.

Another important person is Mr. Carl McLean he is the father of a black student at George Mason High School. His son (Gordon) is one of those students who have to read the book “Huckleberry Finn” in class.
Carl McLean is also a very spirited person and absolutely patriotic and hates everything that has anything to do with the discrimination of blacks.

Last but not least, I want to introduce Barney Roth. He is a 17-year old student and editor of the school paper. He likes to take matters into his own hands.
Sometimes he seems to be a little bit shy and at first he doesn’t seems like having only a small role in the book, but in the devolution he becomes more and more important.




Plot:
The book tells about the problems at George Mason High School. Everything begins with an assignment to read the American classic “Huckleberry Finn”.
Everything is fine, but then, Mr. McLean comes into the office of the headmaster, Michael Moore.
As we already know McLean is very patriotic, and he complains that nearly every page of the book (Huckleberry Finn) his son has to read, contains the word “nigger”. So he has an argument with Michael Moore and demands the banning of the book from the school curriculum, because he says that the students shouldn’t hear or read such racist words all the time and the book wouldn’t teach them the right things.
But banning that book from school would mean that it won’t exist anymore at George Mason High School, neither in the lessons nor in the school intern library.
After that censorious discussion, the headmaster says to Mrs. Bains, the history teacher who gave the order to the students to read the book, and to Mrs. Salters, the librarian, that he wants to eliminate “Huckleberry Finn” from his school.
Both know that he (the headmaster) often banned books in the past without asking anybody, only to satisfy the parents, so that nobody would ever say a bad word about the school or about him. But now Mrs. Bains and Mrs. Salters replies that they would never approve such an illegal thing again because everybody has the right to read what he or she wants to read and that book (Huckleberry Finn) contains important facts of the 19th century, so it’s important for the history lessons.
So the disaster begins. Barney, the editor of the school paper, doesn’t want the novel to be banned and stands up for the right of every student, who doesn’t want the book to be banned.
But a vocal group of students and parents decides that the book is racist, sexist and immoral, so be removed from reading lists and the school library.
As a result another group appears – the one who wouldn’t like to remove it.
So when the Huck Finn issue comes up for hearing, Barney decides to print his story about previous censorship efforts at school. The story is broadcast on every TV canal and it is the topic of conversation in all families.
But to solve that terrible problem about freedom and the individual rights of everybody, a review committee which exists of seven important members, decides if the book “Huckleberry Finn” will be eliminated or not.
In the end the book doesn’t get banned from school, there was only one vote pro-banning and 4 against.


Interpretational approach:
→ Book Burning (destroying knowledge)
→ Freedom of Speech (should everyone be allowed to say everything?)

Kernfrage 4:
Multi-cultural Britain


Reasons for people to move to another country:


• War
• Climate
• Bad infrastructure
• Relatives in another country
• Political refugees
• Study
• Standard of living
• Religion
• Job / Money
• Search for riches


English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, which were separate kingdoms in medieval times, combine to form the basis of British culture today. But there are many other cultures represented, whose diversity enriches all aspects of British life.
London is home to 37 different ethnic groups of over 10.000 people, making it the most cosmopolitan city in the world.
The various groups in the capital tend to live in clusters and form ethnic “villages”.
London’s ethnic minority population is 23% of the city’s total population.

• Nearly 5% of London’s population are Indian
• 2.5% are from Pakistan and Bangladesh
• 4.4% belong to the black Caribbean group
• 4% forms the Irish community
• Other groups include Chinese, African, Middle Eastern, Australian, Japanese and Hungarian

There are shops catering for all these groups, as well as restaurants, temples and community centres.
The largest ethnic minority groups have famous annual events like the Chinese New Year festival or the Caribbean Carnival in Notting Hill.
It is becoming more and more difficult to define who the “ethnic minorities” are as people’s perception of their own racial and social identity changes.


Problems for ethnic minorities:

• Language
• Finding a job
• Acceptance
• They are often confronted with violence
• Stereotypes
• Working conditions
The riots in France:

The riots in France are the result of years of racism, poverty and police brutality.

The recent riots in French cities were started by the death of two young Muslim men of African descent in a Paris suburb called Clichy-sous-Bois.
It is an impoverished and segregated northeastern suburb of Paris where the two men lived and where the violent reaction to their deaths began. Half its inhabitants are under 20, unemployment is above 40% and identity checks and police harassment are a daily experience.
Just four days after the death of the young men, when community leaders were beginning to calm the situation, the security forces reignited the fire by emptying teargas canisters inside a mosque. The official reason for the police action was a badly parked car in front of it.
For Laurent Levy, an anti-racist campaigner, the explosion is no surprise because he thinks when large sections of the population are denied any kind of respect, the right to work, the right to decent accommodation, it is surprising that there are so few uprisings.

The reason for the extent and intensity of the current riots is the provocative behaviour of the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. He called rioters “vermin”, blamed “agents provocateurs” for manipulating “scum” and said the suburbs needed “to be cleaned out with Karsher” (a brand of industrial cleaner used to clean the mud off tractors).

How can France get out of this political race to the bottom?

The ministers should stop talking about the suburbs as dens of “scum” and Sarkozy should be removed.
It would require a deep political transformation and the recognition of these eternal “immigrants” as full and equal citizens of the republic.

Anmerkung:

Befasst euch auch mit der Situation in Österreich. Sollte es nämlich der Fall sein, dass die Zeit bei der mündlichen Matura knapp wird, werden euch noch folgende Fragen gestellt:

• What’s the situation in Austria like?
• Do we face any minority problems?
• What about Carinthia?

Englisch Kernfrage Nr. 7: Amtrak

Amtrak – coast to coast

Samantha Reeves and Ruth Gillespie, two girls from Manchester who have been friends all through secondary school have come to the USA to visit Samantha’s aunt and uncle in Washington D.C. and friends of Ruth’s family in West Virginia and Arizona. But unlike ordinary tourists they combine this stay with a one-month coast-to-coast journey, mostly on Amtrak, America’s rail network.
AMTRAK, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, a quasi-public corporation, dedicated to providing modern, efficient, attractive service on nation’s passenger railroads began operating in 1971. But until then, railroad had already come a long way from its early starts in 1830.

A History of Travelling by Rail
The railroad has directly influenced the history of America ever since 1830 when the steam engine "Tom Tump" pulled the first passenger car 13 miles from Baltimore to Ellicatt’s Mill Maryland.
With the arrival of train travel, the stagecoach, that had been the most important means of transport until then, quickly disappeared as trains were not only faster than horse-drawn carriages but also cheaper.
Nevertheless the early trains were relatively slow, uncomfortable and dangerous. The initial “stage coach” type of passenger car and the later double-track coach – a fore-runner of those we know today – were connected simply by chains and passengers were constantly being bumped about. Passengers had the choice of either sitting with the windows opened, having to suffer the hot ashes that constantly blew back from the coal-fired steam engine, making passengers look like people who worked all day in a blacksmith’s, or closing the windows in the stifling and unbearable hot of closely packed bodies. That’s because unlike European trains, which had small compartments, American railroads had saloon coaches, crowded with sixty to seventy people.
But despite fires and breakdowns, which happened frequently, the railroad united the nation. It became hugely popular as it offered many thousands of people the first chance to leave home. Starting with the American Civil War (1861-1865), which military historians even call the "first railroad war", the nation’s rail network became a major factor in military logistics too as tremendous amounts of material and troops could be moved efficiently by train.
That’s why by Acts of Congress in 1862 and 1864, the construction of the first transcontinental railroad was undertaken. It was completed on May 10, 1869 when the Union Pacific running westward from Nebraska and the Central Pacific coming eastward from California met at Promontory Point, Utah where a golden spike joined the two railways in the famous Golden Spike ceremony.
A trip from coast to coast took eight to ten says at an average speed of about 20 miles per hour.

March 12; Washington D.C.
Samantha and Ruth arrive in the USA and are met by Samantha’s aunt Evelyn at the airport. They suffer from jetlag because of the change of time zones but nonetheless visit some of the city’s great museums, the White House and the Smithsonian where they see the capsule that made the moon landing and a moon rock. Aunt Evelyn is a little concerned that the two girls intend to go from coast to coast by train as most Americans think this is an old-fashioned way of travelling and rather go by car or plane instead.
March 14; Morgantown, West Virginia
The two girls took the Greyhound bus from Washington D.C. to Union, West Virginia where they had to wait for their connecting bus to Morgantown. But the Greyhound busses don’t seem to be used by anyone with much money and the bus station was in such a poor area of Washington D.C. that aunt Evelyn couldn’t wait to get back to her car when she dropped them off.
On the bus to Morgantown they saw many isolated homes as they climbed through the mountains of West Virginia. They arrive at midnight and are met by Neil, a former school mate back in Manchester whose family moved to the States last year.

March 16; Chicago
Neil and his parents drove Samantha and Ruth from Morgantown to Pittsburgh where they took the train to Chicago.
Chicago has lots of impressive skyscrapers, one of them the Sears Tower, with 110 storeys height one of the tallest buildings in the world, and there are so many ethnic groups there you can have food from just everywhere. They visit the Marine Museum where they observed live sharks and the Picasso sculpture in one of the squares.
But Chicago is having a blizzard right now – it’s not called the Windy-City without reason – and they don’t want to stay too long. So they are off for the Grand Union Station where they are waiting to get on “The Southwest Chief”, a train that will take them 2.242 miles to the Pacific.

The Southwest Chief
This train follows a route hundreds of years older than railroading. First the earliest Indians discovered the route’s twists turns and passes, later the Spanish conquistadores and fur trappers used it to easier advance west.
Back when it was officially called Santa Fe Trail, caravans of pack mules and stagecoaches were travelling along it daily, taking people and goods between the Missouri River and the Rockies. In 1850s, the Californian Gold Rush brought thousands more westward, so that the Santa Fe Trail had to extend even further, all the way to the coast till it became the ultimate iron link between the Midwest and Los Angeles. Today, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief follows this very same track whereas it crosses eight states and three different time zones.

Arriving on time
But until as late as 1883, there were not even fixed time zones in America. When it was midnight in New York it was 11.47 pm in Washington D.C. and 11.55 pm in Pittsburgh. In an age when most information arrived on horseback, a few minutes more or less hardly mattered.
But in 1869, when America’s first transcontinental railway was completed, the problem of variable time-keeping did begin to matter. Most railway companies synchronized the clocks along their lines, but often these were quite different from the times used locally or by other companies so that stations would have many clocks – all showing the different times. Making connections in a place like Chicago, where fifteen times met, required careful research. Something needed to be done.
Finally, in November 1883, it was agreed to introduce time zones and synchronize clocks. For two weeks before the introduction of the time zones, people everywhere worried as if the world was going to end. Workers in Chicago for instance, suspected they would have to work an extra nine minutes and threatened to strike.
But then, on the day itself, the event passed by with no difficulties and time zones came into being.

March 17; On the Southwest Chief
Samantha describes the train as nothing like the trains in England as it has got two storeys and seems to be quite a bit wider. There are washrooms and storage downstairs and the most comfortable seats are located upstairs. There’s a video and an observation coach with a glass roof so that you can see the scenery better.
While the two friends had been waiting to get on the train, they saw a group of Amish people, the man wearing old-fashioned farmers’ clothes with broad-brimmed hats and beards, the women in plain black dresses with full skirts. They avoided communication because they separate themselves from our world as they refuse to use modern inventions like the car, electricity or the telephone.
The Southwest Chief crosses a bridge over the Mississippi which is 3.347 feet long, and the wide and open prairie.

March 19; Hagstaff, Arizona
The train went through canyons hundreds of feet deep and in some places had only inches to spare on either side of the train on its way to Hagstaff where Samantha and Ruth got off the train to see the Grand Canyon. They want to spend some days sightseeing before they continue to Los Angeles and Brian, a friend of Ruth’s family who has come to meet them at the station suggests something off the beaten track – the mysterious Casa Grande.

The Casa Grande
This ancient building in the middle of the Arizonan desert is 20 meters long and four storeys high. Its walls face the four points of the compass, north, south, east and west. A circular hole in the upper west wall allows a beam of sunlight to fall exactly on an altar-like table as the sun sets during midsummer solstice. Other openings in the walls also line up with the sun and moon at other specific times of the year.
The Casa Grande is the largest structure that remains of the Hohocam (ho-ho-Kham – all gone), a people we know very little about, but apparently they were already great astronomers. Knowing the changing positions of stars meant knowing the times for planting, harvest and celebration. Historian Emil Haury claims that although the Hohocam’s ancestors were hunter-gatherers, like other farming peoples in the southwest they lived in permanent settlements, made pottery and traded – colourful macaws, mirrors and copper bells show links even to with the tropical Mexico. But the Hohocam could also control the flow of the rivers with irrigation canals, allowing them to farm all year round. This allowed the Hohocam to extend villages along neutral routes between present-day California, the Great Plains, the Colorado Plateau and northern Mexico.
The mysterious Casa Grande was completed before 1350 AD and lasted until the 1400s, when Hohocam culture disappeared. In 1694 it was rediscovered by a party of missionaries and in 1892 the Casa Grande became the first archaeological monument of the United States.

March 21; Phoenix
Together with Brian the two English girls drive through the hot, empty desert of Arizona to get to the Casa Grande which impresses them a lot.

March 22; On the train again
As they cross from Arizona to California they cross the Colorado River and time zones again. Over the public address system, the P.A. there is a quiz and Samantha wins a pack of playing cards they unfortunately cannot play as it is about American TV programmes. They are going to L.A. where they will finish their exciting journey and fly home again.

Drugs
6. Class - Unit 7: Turn on, tune in, drop dead?

There are a lot of different theories about why people start to take drugs, or why they try them out for the first time.

• The “Weak Personality” Theory: Some people believe that people take drugs because they have a weak personality and because they are inadequate in some way. This theory says that drug-takers take drugs in order to escape from their problems.

• The “Evil Pusher” Theory: This theory says that people take illegal drugs because a “pusher” tricks them into trying drugs so that he or she can make them addicted and then sell them drugs for a high profit.

• The “Pleasure” Theory: This theory suggests that people take drugs because they like the effects.

• The “Rebel” Theory: Other people believe that young people take drugs in order to rebel against their parents and against the rest of society. This theory says that people take illegal drugs just because it’s not legal.

• The “Curiosity” Theory: This theory suggests that some people are just curious about the effects of drugs and want to know for themselves what it is like.

• The “Doesn’t Know Any Better” Theory: Some people believe that only stupid people and people who don’t understand the facts take drugs.

• The “Fashion” Theory: Some people believe that people take drugs because it’s fashionable to take them. (If there are fashions in clothes and music, then there can be fashions in drugs, too).

• The “In-with-the-crowd” Theory: Another theory says that people take a drug if they want to belong to the crowd. Some people don’t like to feel “different” and like to take part in what other people are doing.

• The “Because-it-is-offered” Theory: Do people really have to have a reason to take drug? Does everybody who takes alcohol or a cigarette have a reason? Sometimes people do something just because they get the opportunity – so they might take a legal or illegal drug just because it is offered to them, even though they were not looking for the drug.

Many people think that just poor and not well educated people start to take drugs, but that’s not true. Often people from very rich and highly educated families tune into the drug scene. Think of “Prince Harry”.

A good example for how easy it is to get started with drugs is the book “Go Ask Alice”. It is about a young girl with a quite normal life like everybody of us could have it, or already has. She has got a lot of good friends and had always good marks at school, but nevertheless one day she starts to take drugs,… Nobody around her notices that, and she drops even deeper and deeper into the drug scene. She tries out very hard drugs and becomes highly addicted to drugs.
The book is a real diary from that girl, and it shows a very deep insight into the life, thoughts and feelings of a drug addicted person. The shocking thing about that story is how easy it is to drop into that shit, and that stories like that happen every day.

There are many different kinds of drugs; here is just a short list of a few.

• Amphetamines (Speed): Commonly a white or brown powder but can be in pill or capsule form. Usually sniffed or injected. Makes people lively, giggly and overalert, but depression and difficulty with sleep can follow. Heavy use can produce feelings of persecution.

• Cannabis (Pot, Dope, Hash, Grass): Hard brown resinous material or herbal mixture. Smoked in a reefer (joint) or pipe, sometimes with tobacco. Distinctive “herbal” smell. Users may appear “drunk” and talkative. Risk of accidents when intoxicated.

• Cocaine (Coke): A white powder, commonly sniffed. Can be injected or sometimes smoked. Similar effects to amphetamines but more likely to lead to dependence.

• Crack (Rock): A recently used form of cocaine. Smoked rather than snorted. Effects like cocaine, but more addictive than any other form of cocaine.

• LSD (Acid): Tiny colored tablets. Micro spots on blotting paper. Small impregnated stamps. Taken by mouth. Produces glazed eyes and sometimes overexcitement. Heavy use can produce acute confusion and ideas of persecution.

• Heroin (Smack, Skag): White or speckled brown powder. Usually heated on silver foil and fumes inhaled. Can be sniffed or injected. Produces initial alertness followed by drowsiness and “drunken” appearance. Overdose can produce unconsciousness. Regular frequent use produces dependence. Abstinence in a regular user can result in physical withdrawal symptoms similar to flu. Heroin is made from morphine, an addictive drug used in medicine for stopping pain and making people calmer.

• Designer Drugs: Ecstasy (XTC, Adam, MDMA) is derived from methamphetamine and amphetamine, and belongs to a class of drugs known as designer drugs. Can be in tablet, capsule, powder or liquid form. Usually swallowed but also snorted, smoked or injected. Often associated with “raves” all-night parties with techno music.

What can be the dangers of drugs?

The main dangers are as follows:
• Having an accident while under their influence.
• Some drugs may depress you or stop your breathing.
• Accidental overdose can lead to unconsciousness or even death.
• Addiction or dependence, after regular use.

In addition to these dangers, drugs can also have nasty side effects. They can bring on confusion and frightening hallucinations. They can cause unbalanced emotions or more serious mental disorders. First time heroin users are violently sick. Regular users may become constipated (=Verstopfung bekommen) and girls can miss their periods. Later still, there may be more serious mental and physical deterioration. And if a drug user starts to inject, infections leading to sores, abscesses, jaundice (=Gelbsucht), blood poisoning and even AIDS virus infection may follow.

Kernfrage: Roald Dahl


• Information on the author

Roald Dahl (1916 –1990) is a famous British novelist and short story author of Norwegian descent. His collections of short stories have been translated into many languages and have been best-sellers all over the world. Several of Dahl's stories have also been made into films.

Typical for his macabre stories is that they are always a little cruel, but never without humour (mostly sarcastic humour). It is a thrilling mixture of the grotesque and comic with a little bit of violence.
A frequent motive is that people are not what they appear to be and so there is always an unexpected ending. There are always special twists in his stories, like in his own life.
Dahl’s own childhood had a lovely as well as a bitter side.
For example in 1920, when Roald was still only three years old, his seven-year-old sister died and just a few weeks later his father died at the age of 57.



• Short stories


o “The way up to heaven”

Summary

This story is about an ordinary old married couple.
Mrs. Foster, the wife, has just one little quirk. She is always afraid of coming late, missing a bus or a plane. Over the years this fear has become a big problem which troubles her everyday life.
But her husband never calms her down. He has the bad habit to increase his wife’s anxiety of being late. He loves to kill her time because he enjoys the nervous trembling of the muscle in the left corner of his wife’s eye.

One day Mrs. Foster is waiting in a taxi because she will fly to her daughter, who lives in Paris, for about six weeks. Mr Foster would never leave New York and so he decides to stay in a club during his wife’s stay in Paris.
Of course Mrs Foster is very nervous of missing the plane, although the plane will not come within the next hour.
Her husband is still in their house, searching for a present which he forgot. While he is gone, Mrs. Foster discovers the gift box shoved down between the seat cushions.
So she runs up to the house to tell him that she has already found the little white box.
But she doesn’t get an answer from him. She only hears a strange noise.
Mrs. Foster doesn’t care about it and drives alone to the airport where she easily catches the plane.
She stays at her daughter’s place longer than planned.

When she comes back from her visit, she notices that newspapers and letters are built up. She also recognizes a curious smell in the air and later on she gets to know that the elevator, in which her husband was, got stuck between two floors.

Interpretation

At the first moment, this seems to be a story about two ordinary old people. It doesn’t start link an exciting story.
But there are two big hidden conflicts.
- Mrs. Foster wants a nice united family. She likes her daughter and her grandchildren very much and wants to see them more often. But her husband hates Paris and the Frenchmen.
- We know about Mrs. Foster’s fear and about her husband’s bad manner- he always tries to waste her time.

In my opinion she heard her husband screaming and she also noticed that the elevator had jammed, because she returned to the taxi with an air of satisfaction. She also stayed in Paris longer, although her husband didn’t answer her letters.
When she realized that he was dead she also didn’t seemed to be a bereaved wife.
Maybe in her eyes, Mr. Foster´s death was the only way out of her unhappy life. She had to stop this permanently growing suspense.


o “The leg of lamb / Lamb to the slaughter”

Summary

Mary Maloney is a loving wife and expectant mother. She waits happily each night for the arrival of her husband, who is a policeman.
But one night she feels that something is wrong. In disbelieve, she listens as her husband tells her that he will leave her.
But like every afternoon she goes into the kitchen to prepare supper for them. She takes a large leg of lamb out of the freezer.
Instead of putting it into the pan she carries it into the living room and smashed it against his head.
Shortly after that she begins planning her alibi. She places the leg of lamb in the pan, which is in the oven and goes down to the corner shop to buy some vegetables.
She returns home and screams when she finds her husband lying dead on the floor. Her old love comes out. Completely surprised and shocked she quickly informs the police.
While the policemen are searching for the murder weapon, Mary offers them some leg of lamb, to get rid of the murder weapon.
She giggles secretly in her mind when the policemen unknowingly eat up the leg of lamb.

Interpretation

This story is about a woman that changes completely until the end of the story.
At the beginning Mary Maloney is a typical loving housewife. It is a pleasure for her to wait and cook for her husband.
At the end the same boring wife becomes a brutal killer with a sharp instinct (She rehearsed her lines before she went to the corner shop, because she wanted the situation to look normal).
We don’t know why her husband wanted to leave her, but we can guess:
- She overdoes everything. He has no time for himself because she never lets him rest in peace.
- He has a new girlfriend.
- He is afraid of the responsibility of heaving a baby.
Obviously she acted in a fit of shock when she killed him, because she was pregnant and there was no sign before that he was going to leave her. There was so much pressure on Mary that there was no other way of letting of steam except killing him.



o “Taste”

Summary

The setting of this story is a dinner party at the home of Mike Schofield. The guests include Schofield and his wife and daughter, the narrator and his wife and also a man called Richard Pratt. Pratt is a famous gourmet and enjoys showing off his knowledge of fine wine.
It comes, that Schofield and Pratt make a curious bet:
Schofield bets that Pratt could not identify some special wine that he procured for the night. Pratt offers to bet two of his houses against the hand of Schofield´s daughter.
Normally Pratt always wins the bets. But Schofield hopes that he finally will win over the gourmet this time, because he has found a very rare sort of wine.
But Pratt finds out the name of the wine. Just as he says the name of the wine, the house maid appears at his side and offers him his spectacles, which he has misplaced earlier. She reminds that he left them in Schofield´s study where Schofield left his wine to “breath”.
Pratt is just a lousy cheater.

Interpretation

This story is the only one of these three, which is not about murder and the police, it is about betting. But it is not an ordinary bet.

Roald Dahl always tries to create suspense.
In this story he prolonged the part in which Pratt tries to guess the name of the wine. So first he tells about the colour of the wine, then he examines the smell and so on.
The reader doesn’t know shortly until the end that Pratt is a fraud. Although when we think of his description as a fat Epicure with big slimy lips and evil eyes, we don’t think of him as a bad man. But at the end he looses the bet because his betrayal is found out.


Kernfrage: Edgar Allan Poe

Information in the author

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American poet, short story writer, journalist, an literary critic who lived from 1809-1849. He was born in Boston on January 19th, 1809 and was orphaned at an early age, after which he was sent to live with a foster family (The Allans) in Richmond. He was never officially adopted by the Allans and he was eventually disowned by the family.

Poe won a short story contest in 1833, and two years later became a literary critic for the magazine (The Southern Literary Messenger). Shortly after, he then married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia in 1836. he became nationally famous upon the publication of his poem The Raven in 1845.

His wife was marred by infrequent but intense drinking bouts which gave him a bad reputation. However, he contined to produce excellent short stories (Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Gold Bug) which brought him acclaim in America, England, and especially in France. Many of Poe´s stories take place in Paris. (The French poet Baudelaire translated many of Poe´s works)

Unfortunately, after the death of Poe´s wife (1847), he fell apart and died two years later on October 7, 1849. Poe´s controversial life and reputation have earned him the following comments no less:

With the aid of his psychologicial stories, critics have proclaimed him necrophilic, dipsomanic, paranoid, impotent, neurotic, oversexed, a habitual taker of drugs, until all that is left in the public eye is an unstable creature sitting gloomily in a dim room, the raven over the door, the bottle on the table, the opium in the pipe, scribbling mad verses. (Bittner, William. Poe : A Biography. London : Elek Books, 1962. page 9)

For more detailed bio information, see the Biographies section in the Virtual Library.

Short stories

The Cask of Amontillado

The story begins during the carneval season, in the ancient city of Palazzi. The first person, narrator Montresor, bears a grudge – the reader never learns exactly what – against one of his “friends”, inronically called Fortunato, and explains that he has found a way of avange himself that satisfies the two conditions he has: that Fortunato knows for sure that Montresor is behind it, and that he would escape from revenge and punishment.

Mentresor finds his friend inebriated, and dressed in carnival custome as a jester at dusk. Using reverse psychology, he cleverly induces Fortunato, whose knowledge of fine wine he admires, to faloor him into the catacoms underneath his palazzo to dertermine if his newly acquired cask of amintillado – a kind of half dry spanish sherry – is indeed authentic therfore worth the price he paid. They walk and talk, deep into the basement, discussing Fortunators´s health, the Montresor familiy motto (Nemo me impune lacessit – “No one povokes me with impunity”), and membership in the Freemasons (with doble meaning). The ominous atmosphere increases as they continue to the damp, nitrous aire of the Montresor crypt.

Dumbfounded at the absence of amontillado at the end of their passage, Fortunado stands “stupidly bewildered” and Montresor talkes advantage of the situation, suddenly chaining Fortunato to the wall in a small alcove roughly the size of a coffin. Mentresor proveeds to sea the doorway with bricks as Fortunado slowely regains his sobrierty and starts to plead in desperation. During the processing of entombing Fortunado alive (a recurring and symbolic scene in Poe´s work), Montresor ironcally taunts him with his freedom, but in the end walls him up completely and leaves him concluding his story with a exclamation in Latin “in pace requiescat!” (“May he rest in pace”). He tells us that this all happened fifty years ago, and nothing as happened since, fulfilling his original plan.

Analysis

The story horrifies the reader through its plot and, more importantly, the character of Montresor.
Despite Montresor´s views of the world “immolation” early on the description his plan for Fortunato, the reader assumes due his refined language, respect for Fortunatos´s knowledge of wine and social status that his revenge will take the form of some elaborte, if cruel, practical joke. When it becomes clear that he intends to actually not only kill Fortunato but inflict a horrible death upon him, it comes as a shock. Montresor himself may qualify as a sociopath: he shows no signs of remorse for his action and is extremely manipulative. He may be considered an unreliable marrator for the reason. Since we never learn what his grudges were, and Fortunato as we see him does no seem like the kind of person capable of giving such offense, it is possible that they are purely imaginary. Since Montresor´s telling of the story offers no distance for the reader from his singleminded yet calculating devotion to his homicidal intentions, it compound the horror.


Kernfrage 13

Men, women, equality

The systematic oppression of women is a tragic fact of history. Restricted to narrow spheres of activity in the life of society, denied educational opportunities and basic human rights and treated as less than human, women have been prevented from realizing their true potential. In the past the world has been ruled by men. Man has dominated over woman due to body and mind. But there have always been notable women in history, though historians failed to note them because they were mostly men. Also women achieved much but only men`s names are known. Instead of writing history books women had to look after the household and had to bring up children. In the past men were more educated than most women.100 years ago women were not taught how to read or write. Just women who came from a well-off family had an impact on history (they could afford nannies). Motherhood has often been used as justification for keeping women socially and economically disadvantaged.
In the 1970`s Feminists focused on creating laws to banish economic inequality in marriage, business, banking and credit.

There is a widespread acceptance of gender equality but full equality has not been achieved yet.
In many party of the world women receive less attention and health care than men do. E.g. the mortality rates of females often exceed those of males in poorer countries. In terms of employment as well as promotion in work and occupation, women often face greater handicap than men. Women have also a much more difficult time to get the same wages and benefits as their male counterparts.
Family arrangements can be quite unequal as well. It is common in many societies that women have to carry the burden of housework and child care while men naturally work outside the home. Only since the last decades it has been possible for women to pursue a career and to combine it with family life if they want to.

Differences between men and women

- Sometimes it seems that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. Differences obviously exist. Maybe the differing characters of each sex make the experience of coupling so wonderful.

- A study found out that men and women use their brains differently. Both sexes performed memory, verbal, visual spatial and simple motor tasks while their brain activity was monitored. The research found out that different regions of the brain are activated in men and women in response to the same task.

- Men and women also differ in psychiatric conditions, depression is twice as common among women.

- Another research claims that men are more intelligent than women. Allegedly are men on average five points ahead on IQ tests than women. However women tend to achieve more than men at the same level of IQ.

Men are larger and corporally stronger than women. They also have larger hearts and larger lungs.

Women have a higher percentage of body fat than men.

Women have a better visual memory and are more sensitive than men. They are able to remember facts and faces better.

Men are more likely to become alcoholics.



The problem with the men, Steve Biddulph

The modern man is facing an identity crisis. They don `t know if they should be a macho, a softy or even both. Most men have great difficulties to combine work and family. They do not know which role model they should provide for the next generation. Sometimes family men feel like walking wallets and they lose the connection to their children. Men have to cope with loneliness. Their friendships are in the majority of cases very superficial. Competitiveness in the workplace forms another problem. In former times men were seen as providers. Fathers had no time to build up a close relationship to their children. We mostly get respect from our mothers. In the future this should be changed. The presence of a father would diminish a range of social problems like school problems, crimes and drugs. In the past men parented the whole community. Steve Biddulph calls community the third leg of life (work and family are the other two legs). In his eyes the modern man is a terrible mistake because he has no backbone, no stamina. If we combine heart side with traditionally strength we get the superb kind of man.

Boys today

Boys are also confronting a crisis. They fear that women will be totally dominant. Boys are under much pressure, they have to fulfill the stereotype of a real man. The new male generation misses the old rules for the sexes und is confused due to the new order. They think that life is today harder for a boy than for a girl. In Britain on the one hand the girls are growing in self-confidence, while on the other hand boys` selfesteem is falling. Boys are concerned about their future. Many of them are depressed and have problems in school or with the police. Psychologists say that the signals must be read and barriers broken down. Some believe that there is a virtual law of masculinity. Maybe problems increase if we stop telling the boys to be boys.


Famous women

-Maria Theresa: Empress of Austria, she introduced many social reforms (e.g. compulsory school) and abolished torture.
-Indira Gandhi: India `s first female Prime Minister
-Eva Peron: Juan Peron `s wife, she legalized divorce and brought many reforms to the workers and to the poor
-Queen Elisabeth 1. : Under her reign England `s power grew, known for her keen intelligence (she spoke many languages)
-Florance Nightingale: She was a nurse in the Crimen War. Florence helped to reform the British Army and to found the Red Cross movement.
- Margaret Thatcher: She was Britain `s first female Prime Minister, noted for her strong style of politics (“Iron Lady”), unpopular due to the “Poll Tax”
- Elizabeth Taylor: Famous Hollywood star in the 1960`s, was the highest paid star, noted for her role as “Cleopatra”

Vocabulary:

Restricted- begrenzt
Narrow- schmal, eingeschränkt
To deny- verweigern
To banish- bannen
Promotion- Aufstieg
Occupation- Beruf/stätigkeit
Counterpart- Kontrahent
To persue- betreiben
Motor tasks- motorische Tätigkeiten
Allegedly- angeblich

Englisch Kernfrage Nr. 14: Pearl Buck – The Old Demon

Pearl S. Buck – America's most influential 20th Century woman 1

Pearl Sydenstriker Buck (PSB) (1892-1973) was born in West Virginia and lived for most of her first 42 years in China, as the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries and as the wife of an agricultural missionary. Her published works included 38 novels, 32 books of non-fiction, 19 children's books and hundreds of short stories, articles, and delivered speeches. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 and the Howells Medal in 1935 for The Good Earth; but she is best and most controversially known for her receipt of the Nobel Prize in1938, awarded to her for the “rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.”

PSB's accomplishments went well beyond her literary prizes. Since the days when Teddy Roosevelt called the Chinese “an immoral, degraded and worthless race,” American's attitudes have changed dramatically. Historian James Thomson saluted her in 1992 for her part in this change when he stated that she was the most influential westerner to write about China since the 13th Century Marco Polo. PSB was constantly in demand for articles, lectures, and symposiums concerning Asia.

PSB began her passionate advocacy for racial equality in a speech in Harlem in 1932. After she viewed a recent anti-lynching art
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Nothing that's worth having, comes easy.

[Da Strike]

DANKE dir Lenny das du die sachen zur verfügung stellst!!!
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«Klein und fein: lucky strike muss es sein.»