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Unit I Two Words to Avoid, Two to

Remember

Presented by Luo Zhaohui

2Copyright © 2012 Andy Guo. All rights reserved 。

Contents•Pre-class work

•Organization and development

•The text

•Related background knowledge

•Reflections

3Copyright © 2012 Andy Guo. All rights reserved 。

Pre-class questions

• 1. Share some words or sentences that most

impressed you or caused great change to you.

• 2. Failures and setbacks are inevitable in our life. The

causes are various: faulty planning, miscalculations,

wrong judgments, false moves, etc. Tell us about one

such “unfortunate” experience of yours, and, more

importantly, how you managed to get back on your

feet and regard life in a more positive light.

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If only vs. next time

• We may regard “if only” as indicating the past and “next time” the future, we all know the most important time is “now”, as past things could not be changed and future is based on “now”.

• We have a proverb “don’t cry over spilled milk”, try to comment on the proverb, please.

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• 2. Manhattan, an island near the mouth of the Hudson River, is a borough of New York City, in southeastern New York State, U.S.A. Commercial and cultural heart of the city, Manhattan is the site of the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall( 卡耐基音乐厅 ), the City Center of Music and Drama, and numerous other music institutions. Main museums and art galleries of Manhattan include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, etc. Columbia University and New York University are also located here. Among other points of interest are the Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building.

Background knowledge

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• 3. A psychiatrist is a medical practitioner specializing in the diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. Generally, after completion of medical training, physicians take a three-year residency in psychiatry to become qualified psychiatrists. As psychiatry is an area of medicine, psychiatrists tend to view and conceptualize disordered behavior as types of mental illness.

• Those who have mental illness, psychological and emotional disorders consult psychiatrists.

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• 4. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is an Austrian physician and the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud explored the workings of the human mind and developed psychoanalysis as a therapeutic technique to treat neurosis （神经衰弱症） or mental disturbances （紊乱） . His idea of the unconscious mental processes and his theory that a principal cause of neurosis is the repression of painful memories into the unconscious hold a central place in psychology and psychiatry today.

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Sigmund Freud

Carl Jung

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Id, ego and super-ego

• In his later work, Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego and super-ego. Freud discussed this model in the 1920 essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, and fully elaborated upon it in “The Ego and the Id” (1923), in which he developed it as an alternative to his previous topographic schema (i.e., conscious, unconscious and preconscious). The id is the completely unconscious, impulsive, childlike portion of the psyche that operates on the "pleasure principle" and is the source of basic impulses and drives; it seeks immediate pleasure and gratification.

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• The super-ego is the moral component of the psyche, which takes into account no special circumstances in which the morally right thing may not be right for a given situation. The rational ego attempts to exact a balance between the impractical hedonism ( 享乐主义 ) of the id and the equally impractical moralism of the super-ego; it is the part of the psyche that is usually reflected most directly in a person's actions. When overburdened or threatened by its tasks, it may employ defense mechanisms including denial repression, undoing, rationalization, repression, and displacement. This model represents the roles the Id, Ego, and Super Ego play in relation to conscious and unconscious thought.

• Freud compared the relationship between the ego and the id to that between a charioteer and his horses: the horses provide the energy and drive, while the charioteer provides direction.

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• 弗洛伊德认为人格结构由本我、自我、超我三部分组成。

• 　　本我即原我，是指原始的自己，包含生存所需的基本欲望、冲动和生命力。本我是一切心理能量之源，本我按快乐原则行事，它不理会社会道德、外在的行为规范，它唯一的要求是获得快乐，避免痛苦，本我的目标乃是求得个体的舒适，生存及繁殖，它是无意识的，不被个体所觉察。

• 　　自我，其德文原意即是指“自己”，是自己可意识到的执行思考、感觉、判断或记忆的部分，自我的机能是寻求“本我”冲动得以满足，而同时保护整个机体不受伤害，它遵循的是“现实原则”，为本我服务。

• 　　超我，是人格结构中代表理想的部分，它是个体在成长过程中通过内化道德规范，内化社会及文化环境的价值观念而形成，其机能主要在监督、批判及管束自己的行为，超我的特点是追求完美，所以它与本我一样是非现实的，超我大部分也是无意识的，超我要求自我按社会可接受的方式去满足本我，它所遵循的是“道德原则”。

• ( 联想到克尔凯郭尔关于生存的三个阶段或层次：审美阶段、伦理阶段和宗教阶段，或称感性、理性和宗教性 )

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Organization and development

• I. Introduction (para. 1) （ 1-3 ？）• Background and significance of the story

to be narrated.• II. The story: setting, development and

end, arranged in a chronological order (paras 2-31)

• III. Conclusion (paras 32-33)• Restatement of the significance of the

advice by the old man, giving more force to the author’s point of view.

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• Nothing in life is more exciting and rewarding than the sudden flash of insight that leaves you a changed person — not only changed, but changed for the better

• Rewrite or paraphrase it:

Detailed study of the text

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• A project of considerable importance in my life had fallen through.

• He came across the street, finally, muffled in his ancient overcoat, shapeless felt hat pulled down the bald head, looking more like an energetic gnome than an eminent psychiatrist. (What do you know about the old man from this description?)

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• He was close to 80, but he still carried a full case load, still acted as director of a large foundation, …

• He still kept himself fully occupied in the treatment of his patients.

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• (“well, young man”, he said without preliminary, “what’s troubling you?”)

• I had long since ceased to be surprised at his perceptiveness. So I proceeded to tell him, at some length, just what was bothering me.

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• The woman who spoke next had never married because of a sense of obligation to her widowed mother, she recalled bitterly all the marital chances she had let go by.

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• “… ‘If only’, I say to them, ‘you’d stop saying if only, we might begin to get somewhere!’”

• What’s the trouble with ‘if only’ according to the old psychiatrist (para.15) ?

• You never got out of the past tense. Not once did you mention the future.

• (you are always thinking of the past, regretting and lamenting. You did not at all look forward to what you can do in the future.)

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• How did the old man notice that the young man were not learning from his mistakes? (paras 16-18)

• There’s a perverse streak in all of us that makes us like to hash over old mistakes.

Streak: (here) element, quality in one’s character 性情，特质，特性

Hash over: (AmE, Infomal) bring up sth. again for consideration

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• Para.20: Change the key words and substitute a phrase that supplies lift instead of creating drag.

Substitute A for B= substitute B with ALift: encouragement, sth. that gives you

confidence, energy or enthusiasmDrag: something that slows you down or

makes it more difficult; something unpleasant, nuisance

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• Strike out the words ‘if only’, substitute the phrase ‘next time.’

• Strike out: remove• Grim and painful• Grim: unpleasing, depressing, and

difficult to accept• Push aside the roadblock of regret

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• I could hear the rain whispering against the windowpane. I tried sliding one phrase out of my mind and replacing it with the other.

• …but I could hear the new words locked into place with an audible click.

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• “My, my,” said the Old Man slyly, “if only we had come down ten seconds sooner, we’d have caught that cab, wouldn’t we?”

• I laughed and picked up the cue. “Next time I’ll run faster.”

• Cue: the signal for the second performer to begin speaking, playing or doing. Here means what the old man suggested or meant.

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• In full stride: very calmly 从容，淡定 e.g. Some people find retiring difficult, but

he has taken it all in his stride.• so to speak ： as one may say, as it were

可以这么说 para.32: Whenever I find myself thinking “if

only” I change it to “next time”. Then I wait for that almost perceptible mental click. And then I hear it, I think of the Old Man.

Para.33: A small fragment of immortality

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• Elements of narration:• Setting: when, where• Characters: who• Problems/conflicts: what• Goal: what is the main character’s

goal? • Plot: what• Outcome: how

Narration

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• What do you learn from the text?• The power of positive thinking, for

example.• ?

Reflections

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Thank You!