Unit4 A view of Mountains

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1、A VIEW OF MOUNTAINSUnit 4A VIEW OF MOUNTAINSUnit 4Watch the movie clip and answer the following questions.Questions for discussion 1. Why did Sally Regenhard say that 9/11 was “a shattering of faith”?Audiovisual supplementcultural backgroundShe believed in the system, and now that the system was sha

2、ttered by the terrorist activity, so she thought the event is faith-shattering. 3000 people were killed. And the surviving family members had very right to know the truth about the 9/11. So there needed to be an investigation. 2. Why did Carol Ashley think that there must be an investigation? What d

3、o you know about the 9/11 attacks and what influences have the events exert?Audiovisual supplementcultural backgroundAudiovisual supplementcultural backgroundFrom On Native SoilPoliceman: Policeman:Eunice Hanson: Sally Regenhard:Carol Ashley: Max Cleland: Move back! Move back!Move it! Go back!I knew

4、 we had enemies, naturally, but I always felt pretty safe here. I never, never, in a million years dreamed that anything like this could happen to us. We believed in the system and you know, 9/11 was a shattering of faith. 3000 people were killed. It was a mass murder. And there needed to be an inve

5、stigation. The surviving family members, nobody can deny that they had the ultimate claim to the truth about 9/11. Audiovisual supplementcultural background Atomic bomb or A-bomb is a weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nucle

6、i. The first atomic bomb was produced at a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and successfully tested on July 16, 1945. This was the culmination of a large U.S. army program that was part of the Manhattan Project. It began in 1940, two years after the German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassm

7、an discovered nuclear fission. Audiovisual supplementcultural backgroundAtomic Bomb Audiovisual supplementcultural background On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima with an estimated equivalent explosive force of 12,500 tons of TNT, followed three days later by a second, more power

8、ful, bomb on Nagasaki. Both bombs caused widespread death, injury, and destruction, and there is still considerable debate about the need to have used them.Audiovisual supplementcultural background Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction powered by atomic, rather than chemical, processes. Nu

9、clear weapons produce large explosions and hazardous radioactive byproducts by means of either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. After World War II, the proliferation of nuclear weapons became an increasing cause of concern throughout the world. At the end of the 20th century, the vast majority of

10、such weapons were held by the United States and the former Soviet Union; other countries that possess known nuclear capabilities are the Great Britain, France, China, Pakistan, and India. Israel also hasNuclear WeaponAudiovisual supplementcultural backgroundnuclear weapons but has not confirmed that

11、 fact publicly; North Korea has conducted a nuclear test explosion but probably does not have a readily deliverable nuclear weapon; and South Africa formerly had a small arsenal. Over a dozen other countries can, or soon could, make nuclear weapons. Audiovisual supplementcultural background On Augus

12、t 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb attack occurred over Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9, Nagasaki, Japan, was bombed. The bombing of Nagasaki was the last major act of World War II and within days, on August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered. In estimating the death toll from the atta

13、cks, there are several factors that make it difficult to arrive at reliable figures: inadequacies in the records given the confusion of the times, the many victims who died months or years after the bombing as a result of radiation exposure, and not least, the pressure toThe Bombing of Hiroshima and

14、 Nagasaki Audiovisual supplementcultural backgroundeither exaggerate or minimize the numbers, depending upon political agenda. That said, it is estimated that by December 1945, as many as 140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the bomb and its associated effects. In Nagasaki, roughly 74,000 people died of

15、 the bomb and its aftereffects. In both cities, most of the casualties were civilians. The intentional killing of civilians by the Allies of World War II who claimed that their cause was just raised moral questions about the just course of the war.General analysisStructural features Through introduc

16、ing Yamahatas pictures, the author aims at bringing to peoples attention what kind of catastrophic consequences nuclear threat may lead to and that the unpredictability of nuclear attack might make any city in the world become the next target. Therefore, the only way to keep this world safe from nuc

17、lear peril is for people to take action to dispel nuclear weaponry from the earth.Rhetorical featuresGeneral analysisStructural features This argumentative essay describes nuclear destruction through a Japanese photographers pictures. The text comprises three parts. Part I (Paragraph 1): The writer

18、describes the photographs and how a view of mountains in the background of one picture powerfully captures how thoroughly the city was destroyed by the atomic bomb. Rhetorical featuresPart II (Paragraphs 2 3): The author argues that the bombing of Nagasaki is more representative of the nuclear peril

19、 threatening the world than that of Hiroshima, because it suggests that nuclear weapons can be used again and threaten everyone, so we need to take action to dispel the nuclear threat from the Earth. Part III (Paragraph 4): He restates his main idea, i.e. we should not just worry about the nuclear p

20、eril but take action to eliminate it to create a safer world.General analysisStructural featuresRhetorical features In English, information can be organized in various ways. One of the effective ways of emphasizing some information is to put it after the word but in the “(not) A but B” structure. In

21、 the text, the author uses this rhetorical device many times. For instance, The photographs display the fate of a single city, but their meaning is universal . (Paragraph 2)Practice: Pick out some other sentences with the same structure and analyze the effect they achieve.General analysisStructural

22、featuresRhetorical featuresGeneral analysisStructural featuresRhetorical features1) The true measure of the event lies not in what remains but in all that has disappeared. (Paragraph 1)2) the challenge is not just to apprehend the nuclear peril but to seize a God-given opportunity to dispel it once

23、and for all. (Paragraph 3)3) one showing not what we would lose through our failure but what we would gain by our success. (Paragraph 3) Apart from the “A but B” sentence structure, we can also find the “A yet B” type:And we can find a sentence that organizes information in a similar way without the

24、 use of the conjunction “but” or “yet”:6) Arriving a half-century late, they are still news. (Paragraph 2)4) Nagasaki has always been in the shadow of Hiroshima . Yet the bombing of Nagasaki is in certain respects the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger that still hangs over us. (Paragraph 2)5) Yama

25、hatas pictures afford a glimpse of the end of the world. Yet in our day, . (Paragraph 3)General analysisStructural featuresRhetorical features On August 9, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Yosuke Yamahata, a photographer serving in the Japanese army, was dispatched to the destr

26、oyed city. The hundred or so pictures he took the next day constitute the fullest photographic record of nuclear destruction in existence. Hiroshima, destroyed three days earlier, had largely escaped the cameras lens in the first day after the bombing. It was therefore left to Yamahata to record, me

27、thodically and, as it happens, with a great and simple artistry the effects on a human population of a nuclear weapon only hours afterJonathan SchellA VIEW OF MOUNTAINSDetailed reading1it had been used. Some of Yamahatas pictures show corpses charred in the peculiar way in which a nuclear fireball c

28、hars its victims. They have been burned by light technically speaking, by the “thermal pulse” and their bodies are often branded with the patterns of their clothes, whose colors absorb light in different degrees. One photograph shows a horse twisted under the cart it had been pulling. Another shows

29、a heap of something that once had been a human being hanging over a ledge into a ditch. A third shows a girl who has somehow survived unwounded standing in the open mouth of a bomb shelterDetailed readingand smiling an unearthly smile, shocking us with the sight of ordinary life, which otherwise see

30、ms to have been left behind for good in the scenes we are witnessing. Stretching into the distance on all sides are fields of rubble dotted with fires, and, in the background, a view of mountains. We can see the mountains because the city is gone. That absence, even more than wreckage, contains the

31、heart of the matter. The true measure of the event lies not in what remains but in all that has disappeared.Detailed reading It took a few seconds for the United States to destroy Nagasaki with the worlds second atomic bomb, but it took fifty years for Yamahatas pictures of the event to make the jou

32、rney back from Nagasaki to the United States. They were shown for the first time in this country in 1995, at the International Center for Photography in New York. Arriving a half-century late, they are still news. The photographs display the fate of a single city, but their meaning is universal, sin

33、ce, in our age of nuclear arms, what happened to Nagasaki can, in a flash, happen to any city in the world. In the photographs, Nagasaki comes into its own. Nagasaki has always been in the shadow of Hiroshima, as ifDetailed reading2Detailed reading the human imagination had stumbled to exhaustion in

34、 the wreckage of the first ruined city without reaching even the outskirts of the second. Yet the bombing of Nagasaki is in certain respects the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger that still hangs over us. It is proof that, having once used nuclear weapons, we can use them again. It introduces the

35、idea of a series the series that, with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons remaining in existence, continues to threaten everyone. (The unpredictable, open-ended character of the series is suggested by the fact that the second bomb originally was to be dropped on the city of Kokura, which was spare

36、d Nagasakis fate only because bad weatherDetailed readingprotected it from view.) Each picture therefore seemed not so much an image of something that happened a half-century ago as a window cut into the wall of the photography center showing what soon could easily happen to New York. Wherever the e

37、xhibit might travel, moreover, the view of threatened future from these “windows” would be roughly accurate, since, although every intact city is different from every other, all cities that suffer nuclear destruction will look much the same.Detailed reading Yamahatas pictures afford a glimpse of the

38、 end of the world. Yet in our day, when the challenge is not just to apprehend the nuclear peril but to seize a God-given opportunity to dispel it once and for all, we seem to need, in addition, some other picture to counterpoise against ruined Nagasaki one showing not what we would lose through our

39、 failure but what we would gain by our success. What might that picture be, though? How do you show the opposite of the end of the world? Should it be Nagasaki, intact and alive, before the bomb was dropped or perhaps the spared city of Kokura? 3Detailed readingShould it be a child, or a mother and

40、child, or perhaps the Earth itself? None seems adequate, for how can we give a definite form to that which can assume infinite forms, namely, the lives of all human beings, now and in the future? Imagination, faced with either the end of the world or its continuation, must remain incomplete. Only ac

41、tion can satisfy.Detailed reading Once, the arrival in the world of new generations took care of itself. Now, they can come into existence only if, through an act of faith and collective will, we ensure their right to exist. Performing that act is the greatest of the responsibilities of the generati

42、ons now alive. The gift of time is the gift of life, forever, if we know how to receive it.4Why is a view of mountains provided by a picture so significant that it was chosen as the title of the essay? A view of mountains in the distance rather than the wreckage is meant to remind the viewer of the

43、city that was leveled to the ground by the atomic bomb and of the normal life that would have been going on there. This is where the significance of the picture lies.Detailed readingDetailed readingWhy are Yamahatas pictures still news? Because it was the first time that Americans had ever seen the

44、pictures since the atomic bombing fifty years ago.Detailed readingIn what way(s) is the bombing of Nagasaki the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger?The bombing of Nagasaki is regarded as the fitter symbol of the nuclear peril in two respects. First, it is evidence that nuclear weapons can be used ag

45、ain to destroy human civilization. Second, the fact that Nagasaki had not been the originally chosen target of the nuclear attack shows the unpredictability of possible nuclear attacks in the future. That is, every city in the world is liable to nuclear destruction.Detailed readingWhat is the univer

46、sal meaning of Yamahatas photos?They were intended to demonstrate the devastating power of nuclear weapons and express an apprehension of the nuclear peril menacing the world.Detailed readingDo Yamahatas pictures fully express the authors intention of writing? Why or why not? No, it only expresses p

47、art of it, because the writer intends not only to express his apprehension of the nuclear threat but, more importantly, to call on the people to take actions to banish forever nuclear weaponry from the Earth.Detailed readingGroup discussionDo you find the Internet useful in your life? What advantage

48、s does the Internet bring to you? Are there any disadvantages of the Internet? Share your opinions about the pros and cons of the Internet with your groupmates.dispatch: v. send sb. / sth. somewhere, especially for a special purposee.g.Even the air force was mobilized to dispatch relief to the quake

49、-stricken area.The government was preparing to dispatch 4,000 soldiers to search the island.Detailed readingColored people constitute a majority of the population in Western Cape._Detailed readingconstitute: v.a. linking verb, not in progressive be considered to be sth.Failing to complete the work c

50、onstitutes a breach of the employment contract.Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the earths atmosphere.e.g.b. if several people or things constitute sth., they are the parts that form itWe must redefine what constitutes a family. It is up to the teacher to decide what constitutes satisfactory work.e.g.Tra

51、nslation:西海角省（Western Cape）的大部分居民是有色人种。Detailed readingbrand: v.label or mark with or as if with a brand to describe sb. or sth. as a very bad type of person or thing, often unfairlyThey branded the cattle one by one. The US administration recently branded him as a war criminal.e.g.Collocation:brand

52、 sb. as sth.brand sth. with sth. (often in passive)Note:brand: n.a type of product made by a particular companyDetailed readingTranslation:我很高兴地告诉您，你们的“永久”牌自行车已成为我方市场上最畅销的商品之一。I am glad to tell you that your “Forever” bicycle has become one of the best selling brands on our market._Detailed readingw

53、itness: v.see, hear, or know by personal presence and perceptione.g.Only one person witnessed the accident. The Huangpu River has witnessed the development of Shanghai. Note:witness: n.a person who sees sth. happen and is able to describe it to other people Translation:警方呼吁这个事故的目击者出来作证。Police have a

54、ppealed for witnesses to the accident._Detailed readinge.g. We were witness to the worst period in the clubs history.e.g.Bristols grand buildings bear witness to the citys magnificent past.be witness to sth.: (formal) see sth. happenbear witness to sth.: (formal) show that sth. exists or existedColl

55、ocation:Detailed readingdot: v. cover or sprinkle with or as if with dotse.g.The countryside is dotted with beautiful ancient churches.We have offices dotted all over the region.Note:dot: n.a small round mark, especially one that is printedon the dot: exactly on time or at the exact time mentionedCo

56、llocation:e.g.Breakfast is served at 8 on the dot. 8点整开早饭。Detailed readingcome into ones own:acquire, enter into possession of; become very good, useful, or important in a particular situatione.g.The serial composers have finally come into their own. On icy roads, a four-wheel drive vehicle really c

57、omes into its own.Detailed readinge.g. Tom was a good lawyer, but he was always in the shadow of his famous father. Living in the shadow of a glamorous sister, Hilda was quiet and shy. in the shadow of: in the shadow of sb.: receiving little attention because sb. else is better known or more skillfu

58、l e.g.The children of the survivors lived their lives in the shadow of the Holocaust.The organization is trying to protect civil rights in the shadow of terrorism. in the shadow of sth.: influenced by sth. bad that has happened or could happen Detailed readinge.g.The events of September 11 cast a sh

59、adow over the celebrations.cast a shadow over/on sth.: make sth. seem less enjoyable, attractive, or impressive Detailed readingstumble: v. walk or go unsteadily e.g.The room was dark and Stan nearly fell over a chair as he stumbled to the phone.Having drunk half a bottle of whiskey, I stumbled upst

60、airs and into bed.Detailed readingruin: v. devastate; reduce to the remainse.g. The rain absolutely ruined our barbecue.If the press should find out about this, his marriage, his reputation, and his career would all be ruined.Detailed readinghang over:If sth. bad is hanging over you, you are worried

61、 or anxious about it.e.g.The threat of nuclear war hangs over mankind.With the court case hanging over us, we couldnt enjoy our vacation.Extension: hang out (with)e.g.I dont really know who she hangs out with.Where do the youngsters hang out?Detailed readingspare: v.refrain from harming, punishing o

62、r killinge.g. I wanted to spare them the trouble of buying me a present. Thankfully she had been spared the ordeal of surgery.Collocation: spare sb. the trouble/difficulty/pain, etc. (of doing sth.): prevent sb. from having to experience sth. difficult or unpleasante.g. It will spare him embarrassme

63、nt if you speak to him about it in private.Spare us the suspense and tell us who won the first prize!Detailed readinge.g.Emergency services have spared no effort to help people whose homes were destroyed by the tornadoes.No expense was spared in developing the necessary technology.spare no expense/e

64、ffort to do sth.: work as hard as possible to achieve sth.Detailed readingnot so much A as B: used to say that one description of sb. or sth. is less suitable or correct than anotherTranslation:e.g. The details are not so much wrong as they are incomplete.He is not so much a film star as an artist.与

65、其说是海洋分割了这个世界，不如说是统一了这个世界。The oceans do not so much divide the world as unite it. / The oceans do not divide the world so much as unite it._Detailed reading在这里所说的爱与其说是一种情感，不如说是对别人的一种行为。Love as used here is not so much an emotion as it is a behavior toward others. _Detailed readingintact: a.entire, un

66、impaired e.g.Despite the bombing, the house was still intact.He dealt the door a tremendous blow but it remained intact.Translation:地震过后，有几栋楼仍然完好无损。这部手机掉下台阶后仍然完好无损。The cellphone remained intact after being dropped down the stairs. _Several buildings were still intact after the earthquake. _Detailed readingglimpse: n. a very brief passing look, sight, or view e.g. I caught a glimpse of the driver of the getaway car, but I doubt I would recognize her if I saw her again.This biography offers only a