Unit 1 · p.18 Family Matters

Homework check, quickly: who used at least five collocations from Exercise 9 in their write-up? Read me your best sentence.

My brother makes my life miserable, but admittedly, when I tried to have a word with him, I only made things worse.

Three in one sentence, and an attitude adverb. Excellent. Now a warmer. Pairs, two minutes: list films about families or brothers and sisters. As many as you can.

计时 2 分钟，然后把片名写到黑板上。

Let's collect them. Shout.

Frozen! Little Women! The Incredibles! Onward!

And a Chinese one: 你好，李焕英.

Great one. Now: describe the plot of one film to your partner without saying the title. Partner guesses.

It's about two sisters who are princesses. One of them has a dangerous power, so she keeps away from her sister for years. Things get complicated when she accidentally freezes the whole kingdom.

Frozen!

It's about four sisters, they grow up during a war, and the second sister want to be a writer.

Little Women, I'd bet. Small fix: the second sister WANTS. Third person.

The second sister wants to be a writer, but her younger sister burns her book!

Spoiler! What themes keep coming back on the board?

Rivalry between sisters, and loyalty. They fight, but in the end they protect each other.

And jealousy?

Yes. In Little Women, Amy is jealous of Jo.

Hold onto jealousy. Our extract today has two sisters, and one of them has just got exactly what any young woman in her world wanted. The question: can you be genuinely happy for a sibling who gets what you wanted?

Exercise 1. Imagine you're one of five sisters, or five brothers. A couple of minutes in pairs. Pleasures and difficulties.

两人讨论 2 分钟。

One of the pleasures would be that you'd never be lonely. There'd always be someone to talk to.

And on the downside?

On the downside, you'd constantly have to fight for the bathroom.

Every family's real problem. Anything more serious?

Comparison. Your parents would always compare you with the others. "Why can't you be more like your older sister?"

Ah, 别人家的孩子, but inside your own family. Would five sisters be different from five brothers?

Maybe sisters talk more, and brothers fight more.

Stereotype alert! Remember page 13. Let's think historically instead. Two hundred years ago in England, would five daughters be a problem for the parents?

Yes, because in that time women can't work, so the parents must find husbands for all of them.

That's exactly the plot of the novel! Two small things: "in those days" or "at that time", and since it's the past, "couldn't" and "had to".

In those days, women couldn't really work, so the parents had to find husbands for all of them. I imagine five daughters would have been a huge worry.

Perfect. That's the world we're about to step into.

Before the extract, read the background box, the grey one. One minute. Then tell me who's who.

Five sisters. Their names?

Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Lydia and Kitty. And their parents want them all to get married.

Why "want" so badly? They're not very rich, it says.

Because if the daughters marry rich men, the family is safe.

Exactly. Now: Lydia.

She ran away with a soldier, but then married him.

In 1813, that's a scandal. The whole family's reputation is at risk. Now Jane.

Mr Bingley loves her, and she has just accepted his proposal. But his sisters don't like her very much.

And Elizabeth and Mr Darcy?

Elizabeth has a love-hate relation to Mr Darcy.

The idea's right. The fixed phrase is a love-hate relationship WITH someone.

Elizabeth has a love-hate relationship with Mr Darcy. She thinks he's arrogant.

In her opinion, yes. That's the "pride" and the "prejudice" of the title. Now the Culture note. Austen was born in 1775, seventh of eight children. Pride and Prejudice was her second novel. She wrote it at twenty-one, and its first title was "First Impressions".

She wrote it in twenty-one years old? That's so young.

It is young! For ages, we say "at": at twenty-one, or at the age of twenty-one.

She wrote it at the age of twenty-one. That's only a few years older than us.

And here's a detail: all her novels were published anonymously. Why?

Because people didn't respect women writers. Or maybe it wasn't seen as proper for a woman to write.

Both, probably. And her novels use irony and humour to criticise exactly this world, where women needed a "favourable marriage" for economic security. Keep that in mind when you read Elizabeth's jokes.

Exercise 2. Read and listen. Don't focus on every word. Just answer: what's their relationship like, and what are they like as people?

播放音频 1.05。

First impression. Are they close?

Very close. Jane tells Elizabeth everything about Bingley.

Evidence?

When Bingley isn't there, Jane "constantly sought the same means of relief". She talks to Elizabeth about him.

Nice, you found the old-fashioned phrase. What's Jane like?

Jane comes across as very kind and forgiving. For instance, she doesn't really blame Bingley's sisters. She just hopes they'll be on good terms again.

And the narrator says it directly. Find it.

"Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world."

And Elizabeth?

Elizabeth, by contrast, seems funnier and sharper. You can tell from the way she jokes about meeting "another Mr Collins".

For context: Mr Collins is a cousin who proposed to Elizabeth earlier in the novel, and he's ridiculous, pompous and boring. She said no. So what's the joke?

She means: if I'm very lucky, I'll find someone as terrible as Mr Collins. She's being ironic.

Exactly, irony, Austen's favourite weapon. Now, the strange moment. Jane says Bingley's sisters weren't pleased about her, and Elizabeth says: "That is the most unforgiving speech that I ever heard you speak. Good girl!" Is she criticising Jane?

Yes, she says Jane is unforgiving, so she is criticise her.

Read the next two words again. What does she say straight after?

"Good girl!" Oh. She's praising her. She's happy that Jane finally said something negative.

Exactly. That's called being assertive. Elizabeth is delighted that her too-kind sister is finally standing up for herself. So the grammar fix in your first answer: "she's criticising her", but in fact she isn't.

She isn't criticising her. She's actually proud of her for being less naive.

Now the big question. Is Elizabeth jealous?

I don't think so. She says, "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you." She doesn't want what Jane has, she just wants Jane to be happy.

But maybe there's a little sadness. She says "let me look after myself". Like she's alone now.

Two good readings. Hold them both. We'll test them in Exercise 3.

Austen's English is two hundred years old. It's beautiful, but some sentences feel like a maze. Here's the trick: find who did what first, then add the decorations.

"Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister." Who did what?

Elizabeth had little time. "But little" means very little.

Right, "but" here means "only". Why so little time?

Because Bingley was always there, and Jane only paid attention to him.

"Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else." Bestow is a very old word for "give". Now the hardest sentence in the extract. Jane says: "nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again." Pairs, one minute: say it in modern English.

两人一组拆句 1 分钟。

Nothing can persuade him that I'm not interesting, so he will come again.

Brave attempt, and the words are all there. But "indifferent" isn't "not interesting". Indifferent means not caring. And look at "would have prevented": it's about the past.

The only thing that stopped him coming back was that he believed I didn't care about him.

Exactly. And who persuaded him of that? Look at the next part, about Mr Darcy.

Mr Darcy! It mentions "the interference of Mr Darcy". So Darcy persuaded Bingley that Jane didn't love him.

And Elizabeth is pleased Bingley didn't tell Jane that. Why?

Because Jane would think badly of Darcy. And Elizabeth, maybe secretly, doesn't want that.

Ooh, interesting. Love-hate, remember? Next: "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you." What does "were to" add?

It's imaginary. Like, even if this impossible thing happened.

It's like "if you will give me forty men".

Close in meaning, but "will" makes it sound real and possible. "Were to" pushes it into the impossible. Even if you gave me forty men like him. Very unlikely.

Even if you gave me forty men like Bingley, I couldn't be as happy as you, because I'm not as good as you.

And finally Jane: "Why am I singled out like this from my family, and blessed above them all?" What's she feeling?

Disbelief. She can't believe she's so lucky. Maybe a bit of guilt, because her sisters aren't.

Beautiful. Now you're ready to explain the extract, not just translate it.

Exercise 3. Try to complete them before you read again. Then check with the text, and be ready to quote.

学生先凭记忆写 2 分钟，再读原文核对 2 分钟。

Number 1. Elizabeth was useful to both her sister and Mr Bingley by…

By be their messenger.

Nice idea, "messenger". But after "by" we need the -ing form.

By being the link between them. When Bingley was away, Jane talked to her about him, and when Jane was away, Bingley talked to her about Jane.

Quote?

"In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her."

Lovely. Number 2: Bingley's sister… his relationship with Jane.

Didn't approve of. "It must have been his sister's doing."

Number 3: Jane hopes that she and Bingley's sister will…

Be on good terms again, but she knows they can never be as close as before. "We can never be what we once were to each other."

Number 4: Elizabeth thinks Jane's attitude towards Miss Bingley…

Is finally less naive. Jane used to believe Miss Bingley liked her, and Elizabeth is glad she's stopped believing it.

Quote?

"It would upset me, indeed, to see you again being misled by Miss Bingley's pretended good opinion."

Number 5: Jane really wants Elizabeth to…

Find someone like Bingley and be as happy as her. "If there were only such another man for you!"

And number 6: Other people start to see the Bennet family as…

The luckiest family in the world. But a few weeks before, because of Lydia, they thought the family was marked out for misfortune.

Why does the opinion change so fast?

Because of gossip. Mrs Bennet whispers it to Mrs Phillips, and she tells all the neighbours. One wedding and suddenly everyone's lucky.

So what does that tell you about their world?

That a family's reputation depended completely on marriages. And on gossip.

And that's Austen's irony: the same neighbours who called them cursed now call them blessed.

Exercise 4. Compare with your partner. Where did you disagree? Whose evidence is stronger?

两人比较 2 分钟，要求引用原文。

We disagreed about number 4. I said Jane is too kind to Miss Bingley, and my partner said Elizabeth is pleased that Jane's being less kind.

And I had the quote: "Good girl!" So I think my answer's stronger.

Agreed. The quote wins. Now our big question. Is Elizabeth genuinely happy for Jane?

Yes. Jane says "If I could only see you as happy", and Elizabeth answers with a joke, not with jealousy.

I think yes, but with a little bit of loneliness. She's losing her best friend to a husband.

Both are well supported. Austen leaves room for both. Now, you. Could you be genuinely happy for a sibling, a cousin, or a best friend who got exactly what you wanted? Exit ticket, three or four sentences.

写 3 分钟，然后同桌按 checklist 检查。

Honestly, I'm not sure I'd be so generous. Admittedly, I tend to get a bit jealous when my cousin gets something I wanted, but in the end I'm usually happy for her.

"Honestly" and "admittedly" in one answer, and very honest. Anyone check their partner?

She wrote "I'm happy for her get a good job".

And how do we fix "happy for her get"?

"I'm happy for her because she got a good job", or "I'm happy that she got a good job".

An idea for home: the 2005 film, with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth and Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy. Watch the scene with Jane and Elizabeth, and see if the actors play Elizabeth as jealous or not.

Today you met two sisters from 1813 who are closer than most sisters today, and decoded some seriously old English.

You also found that being happy for someone can be generous and a little bit sad at the same time. Next lesson: the vocabulary from the highlighted words, and a family secret in an email.