题文
Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism.I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Consider the most controversial, at least today, of Twain’s novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s most widely read tale. once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel “trash and suitable only for the slums (贫民窟).” More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurences of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which the novel is often severely criticized, never appears in it.)
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”
There is much more. Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master’s baby by his wife. The slave’s lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example— were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
Twain’s racial tone was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography (自传) about how much he loved what were called “nigger shows” in his youth—mostly with white men performing in black-face—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not.
Was Twain a racist? Asking the question in the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln. If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the “wisdom” of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error. Lincoln, who believed the black man the inferior of the white, fought and won a war to free him. And Twain, raised in a slave state, briefly a soldier, and inventor of Jim, may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.
小题1: How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?A．Twain was more willing to deal with racism.B．Twain’s attack on racism was much less open.C．Twain’s themes seemed to agree with plots.D．Twain was openly concerned with racism.小题2:Recent criticism of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn arose partly from its ______.A．target readers at the bottomB．anti-slavery attitudeC．rather impolite languageD．frequent use of “nigger”小题3:What best proves Twain’s anti-slavery stand according to the author?A．Jim’s search for his family was described in detail.B．The slave’s voice was first heard in American novels.C．Jim grew up into a man and a father in the white culture.D．Twain suspected that the slaves were less intelligent.小题4:The story of two babies switched mainly indicates that ______.A．slaves were forced to give up their babies to their mastersB．slaves’ babies could pick up slave-holders’ way of speakingC．blacks’ social position was shaped by how they were brought upD．blacks were born with certain features of prejudice小题5:What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 7 refer to?A．The attacks.B．Slavery and prejudice.C．White men.D．The shows.小题6:What does the author mainly argue for?A．Twain had done more than his contemporary writers to attack racism.B．Twain was an admirable figure comparable to Abraham Lincoln.C．Twain’s works had been banned on unreasonable grounds.D．Twain’s works should be read from a historical point of view. 题型：未知 难度：其他题型
答案
小题1:B
小题2:D
小题3:C
小题4:C
小题5:D
小题6:A
解析
【文章大意】本文是议论文，主要是对马克吐温及他几部作品的评论。文中描述了人们对马克吐温几部作品的评价，认为他的作品有争议性，没有直接表现反对奴隶制度和种族主义，但作者认为和他同时期的作家相比马克吐温在反对种族主义方面做了更大的贡献。
小题1:从第二段可知H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin是比较有名的反奴隶制的小说，它和其它早期的小说一样直接针对奴隶制，但是马克吐温是个例外，他把对奴隶制和偏见的攻击放在那些看起来是写其它内容的小说里面，让读者在读故事的时候自己去分析辨别，所以说他不是直接地公开反对种族主义。
小题2:从第三段最后一句可知，这本书因为用了太多的“Nigger Jim”而受到批判。
小题3:从第四段可知作者认为马克吐温的小说是强烈反对奴隶制度的，在美国小说中吉姆这个人物首次获得认可，被认为是具备两种特征，即：是白人奴隶文化中幸存者的代言人和吉姆作为一个父亲一个男人的代言人。
小题4:从第六段可知是养育（生活环境）而不是自然是形成社会地位的关键。
小题5:第七段的最后两句表明我们没有理由认为马克吐温把年轻时的“黑人表演”代表了现实，他对奴隶制度和偏见的攻击表明他明确知道这些“表演”并没有表现现实。
小题6:很多批评家认为马克吐温的作品有争议性，没有直接表现出反对奴隶制度和种族主义，但作者通过对几部小说人物的分析指出和他同时期的作家相比马克吐温在反对种族主义方面做了更大的贡献。
考点
据考高分专家说，试题“Mark Twain has been .....”主要考查你对 [人物传记类阅读 ]考点的理解。人物传记类阅读
人物传记类文章的文体特征：
人物传记是记叙文体的一种，主要描写某人的生平事迹、趣闻轶事、生活背景、个性特征、成长奋斗历程等，包含记叙文的时间、地点、人物、事件等要素。其特点是以时间的先后或事件的发展为主线，空间或逻辑线索贯穿文章始终，脉络清楚，可读性较强。
人物传记类文章的阅读策略和解题技巧：
1、把握文体特征，注意写作手法如前文所述，人物传记是记叙文体的一种，因此在阅读时要把握好时间、地点、人物和事件这四大要素。
其次，还应该注意人物传记类文章的结构多按时间顺序排列，一般采用倒叙的写作手法，有时也采用插叙和补叙等手段。弄清楚人物传记类文章的特征和写作手法，能帮助考生在阅读和回答问题时做到高效省时、准确无误。
2、抓住题干关键词，采用寻读的方法查找细节描述事实细节题是人物传记类文章的主要题型，一般常见以下几种类型：
(1)对号入座题：
这种题的答案一般在原文中可以直接找到，只要读懂文章，掌握文章中的事实，如时间、地点、事件等细节问题，就能选对正确答案。
(2)词义转换题：
这种题常常是原文有关词语和句子的转换，而不能在原文中直接找到。它要求考生能理解原文中某个短语或句子的含义，从而找到与答案意思相同的词语和句子。
(3)是非题：
该题型俗称“三缺一”题型，即题目四个选项中有三个符合文章内容，剩下一个不符合。题干多为：Which of the following isTRUE?或者三个不符合文章内容，剩下一个符合，题干多为：Which of the following…isNOTtrue?或All the following are true EXCEPT
(4)排序题：
这种题要求考生根据动作发生的先后顺序和句子之间的逻辑关系，找出事件发生的正确顺序。可采用“首尾定位法”，即先找出第一个动作和最后一个动作，迅速缩小选择范围，从而快速选出正确答案。
(5)指代理解题：
一般是在人物或事物关系比较复杂的情况下使用的一种题型，所以理清人物及事物之间的逻辑关系是关键所在。可采用“逻辑关系梳理法”，使人物或事件关系清晰条理。不管题型如何，在做事实细节题时，可采用比较实用的方法一有目的的阅读。在阅读时，首先看题目要求我们理解什么细节，找出关键词，然后以此为线索，运用寻读的技巧迅速在文章里找出相应的段落、句子或短语。认真比较选项和文中细节的区别，在正确理解细节的前提下，确定最佳答案。这样一来，既提高了阅读的速度，又能确保答案的准确率。同时，建议阅读文章时把与答案相符的句子或短语用红线标示出来，标号注上是哪一题答案的相关句子，这样在检查时就不必重新阅读整篇文章了。
3、抽丝剥茧，推理判断深层含义推理判断题主要提问那些未曾在文中说明，但已特别暗示的内容，考查考生对文章的准确理解和判断。人物传记类文章常见的推理判断题型为：
(1)细节推断题：
要求考生根据语篇关系，推断具体细节，如时间、地点、人物关系、人物身份、事件等。一般可根据短文提供的信息，或者借助生活常识进行推理判断。
(2)因果推断题：
要求考生根据已知结果推测导致结果的可能原因。考生要准确掌握文章的内涵，理解文章的真正含义。
(3)人物性格、作者态度及观点判断题：
人物传记类文章中有些是考查考生对作者的主导思想、被描写人物的语气、言语中流露的情绪、性格倾向和作者或文中人物态度、观点等方面的理解题。推理判断题要求在理解原文表面文字信息的基础上做出一定推论和判断，从而得到文章的隐含意义和深层意义。解答此类题时，要注意：
(1)吃透文章的字面意思，从字里行间捕捉有用的提示和线索，这是推理的前提和基础。
(2)对文字的表面信息进俐宅掘加工，由表及里，由浅入深。从具体到抽象，从特殊到一般，通过分析、综合、判断等进行符合逻辑的推理。不能就事论事，断章取义，以偏概全。
(3)基于文章内容，以文章提供的事实和线索为依据，立足已知，推断未知。不能主观臆想，凭空想象，随意揣测，更不能以自己的观点代替作者的观点。
(4)把握句、段之间的逻辑关系，了解语篇的结构。要体会文章的基调，揣摸作者的态度，摸准逻辑发展的方向，悟出作者的弦外之音。
(5)注意文中所用词句的感情色彩，是讽刺性的，批评性的，赞成性的，还是反对性的，以便推测作者的观点和态度。
