blackmail 解析

I. Teaching objectives: This unit aims to help students 1.      Familiarize with the British/Canadian novelist Arthur Hailey and his writing; 2.      recognize fiction narrative and its major elements 3.      enjoy fiction by acting out II. About the author A. Arthur Hailey (1920-2004) •        British/Canadian novelist •        Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England •        Served in the Royal Air Force (1939-1947) •        1947, moved to Canada •        1956, became a full-time writer •        1965-1969, lived in California •        1969, moved to the Bahamas to avoid American and Canadian income taxes, which t were claiming 90% if his income.  B. His novels: •        Runaway Zero-Eight (1958)- in-flight medical emergency; •        The Final Diagnosis(1959) - hospital politics as seen from the pathology department; •        In High Places (1960) - Cold War Era politics in North America •        Hotel (1965) - hotels •        Airport (1968) - airport politics •        Wheels (1971) - automobile industry •        The Moneychangers (1975) - banks •        Overload (1979) - power crisis in California •        Strong Medicine (1984) - pharmaceutical industry •        The Evening News (1990) - newscasters •        Detective (1997) - investigation politics  •        C. Characteristics of his writing •        He would spend about one year researching a subject, followed by six months reviewing his notes and, finally, about 18 months writing the book. •        Each of his novels has a different industrial or commercial setting and includes, in addition to dramatic human conflict, carefully researched information about the way that particular environments and systems function and how these  affect society and its inhabitants. •        Many of his books have reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and more than 170 million copies have been sold worldwide in 40 languages. •        Many have been made into movies and Hotel was made into a long-running television series. Airport became a blockbuster movie with stunning visual effects. III. A detailed study of the text: 1.   the chief house officer., Ogilvie, who had declared he would…took twice that time: The chief house officer. Ogilvie, gave the Croydons a mysterious telephone call telling them he would pay them a visit an hour later, but actually he appeared at their suite two hours later. 1)    chief house officer: Hotels in the U.S.employ detectives to take care of hotel security, called ‘house dicks’, dignified appellation—house officer. 2)    Suite: a set of rooms. A suite in a hotel is usually expensive. The suite the Croydons are staying in is St. Gregory Hotel’s largest and most elaborate, called the Presidential Suite, which has housed, according to the book, a succession of distinguished guests, including visiting presidents and royalty. 3)    Cryptic telephone call: The message over the phone was brief and with mysterious implications. 4) Actually took twice that time: He was slow in coming because he wanted to create the impression that he was a busy and important man and to keep the Croydons on tenterhooks. 2. the Duke: (in Britain) a nobleman , whose rank is just below that of a prince. Below the duke are the marquis, earl, viscount and baron. 3.   the Duchess: wife or widow of a duke, or a woman with a rank equal to that of a duke 4.   the nerves of both the Duke and Duchess were excessively frayed: The nerves of both the Duke and Duchess were worn out by the long wait, were over-strained. Both the Duke and Duchess were extremely nervous. More examples with the word fray: Clothes frayed at the neck, knees, etc. Frayed cuffs, button-holes, etc. Tempers become frayed. 5. the muted buzzer: muted to render the noise of the bell less harsh and strident 6.   she had dispatched her maid on an invented errand: They sent her out to get her out of the way; the ‘errand’ being just an excuse, a trip which was not necessary. Obviously the talk between Ogilvie and the Croydons had to be kept a secret. 7.   the moon-faced made secretary: the use of male before secretary is to avoid possibility of the reader’s assuming otherwise, for commonly in the U.S. secretaryship is the female profession. Note: male nurse, man servant, but woman doctors, woman pilot. ‘Moon-faced’ means having a round face. The young man’s appearance is in keeping with his timid character(fear of pet animals). 8.   cruelly instructed: ‘cruel’ because they knew the secretary was terrified of dogs. They could easily have found some other errand for him. 9.   to exercise the Bedlington terriers: to walk the dogs, to take the dogs out and give them some exercise. The Bedlington terrier is a breed of blue or liver-coloured, woolly-coated, active, typically small dogs, the terriers are a status symbol showing that the Duchess is no ordinary dog owner. And the fact that they can keep dogs in a hotel suite proves they are very important people. 10. Her own tension was not lessened … : Ogilvie had telephoned to say that he would be at the suite in an hour. The Duchess made arrangement for the maid and the secretary to be away when he called. But he was an hour late, and the maid and the secretary might return at any moment. The Duchess knew this and it made her nervous. 11.A wave of cigar smoke accompanied Ogilvie in: to smoke a cigar in the presence of a lady without asking for permission is impolite and being familiar. He comes into the room smoking his cigar. Ogilvie is a coarse, vulgar, and uneducated fellow and because he thinks he has the Croydons under his thumb he doesn’t give a damn to what they may think or feel. The Duchess ‘looked pointedly’, that is, directly and sharply at the cigar, trying to intimidate him with her superior social position. 12.Would you kindly put that out: a period instead of a question mark, indicating it is said in a falling tone, meant to be a command, not a polite request 13.piggy eyes: small, narrow eyes lost in the mass of flesh. Ogilvie is one of the ‘bad guys’ in this novel. He has piggy eyes, a gross jowled face, an obese body, speaks in falsetto, is vulgar, unscrupulous, ill-mannered, to the point of throwing his cigar on the carpet. Some examples with the word pig: Don’t be a pig (Don’t be greedy.) He is a pig. (He is a dirty, greedy or ill-mannered person.) I’ve made a pig of myself. (I’ve eaten too much.) 14. surveyed her sardonically: He looked her up and down scornfully because he had evidence of their crime up his sleeve and felt sure that in a moment he would be able to humble her and bring her to her knees. Note the different meanings of the following words:   sardonic: being scornful, cynical   sarcastic: intending to hurt the feelings, to inflict pain by deriding, taunting   satirical: intending to make a person or thing appear foolish or absurd   ironical: a humorous or sarcastic form of expression in which the intended meaning of what is said is directly opposite to the usual sense. 15.to sweep the spacious, well-appointed room: His glance passes swiftly over the big, excellently furnished and arranged room. 16.who faced them uncertainly: Besides having a weak character, the Duke is over fond of liquor and other men’s wives ,and so is submissive to the Duchess, herself a woman of strong character, a known public figure and cousin of the queen . After the road accident , it was the Duchess who masterminded the cover-up and the Duke wasn’t quite sure of what to say to Ogilvie or what to do ,he was afraid of messing things up. 17.“Pretty neat set-up you folks got: Ogilvie’s language is ungrammatical, vulgar and slangy, Neat is slangy, meaning nice, fine; a general term of approval. Set-up, a noun, meaning arrangement of furniture, etc. A better educated person might say: “ This is a pretty nice room that you have got.”   For Ogilvie’s ungrammatical language, see Note 4 to the text. Here are some more examples from the text:   Whether they got fancy titles neither—whether they had fancy title or not I seen you come in —I saw you come in The kid and the woman was hit —were hit ‘f she’d have drove—if she had driven, etc. 18.an ornamental fireplace: a fake one, not for use. It is there to add to the décor of the suite. cf. an ornamented fireplace: a highly decorated one 19.He missed: His cigar butt did not fall inside the fireplace as he had intended it to . 20.I imagine you did not come here to discuss décor:   I suppose you did not come here merely to discuss the arrangement of the furniture and other decorations of this suite. What she meant was “Speak your mind. Don’t waste time.” She purposely used the word décor, imagining Ogilvie would be awed. Unlike Ogilvie, the Duchess always speaks the Queen’s English, using strictly grammatical structures and choosing her words carefully, sometimes to the extent of being pompous. 21.an appreciative chuckle: mainly self appreciative. When a hotel employee goes to a guest’s room, usually he goes there on business and no familiarity is allowed. But here Ogilvie was enjoying the fact that he could afford to do whatever he liked. He loved being in a position of temporary supremacy. Also he appreciated the fact that the Duchess was no fool. She knew why he had come. 22.He lowered the level of his incongruous falsetto voice: He had an unnaturally high-pitched voice. When he spoke now, he lowered the pitch. incongruous: this falsetto voice sounded funny coming from a thickset man like Ogilvie. 23.Jaguar: a brand of very expensive British made sports car. 24.“Aah”: Now the Duke knew what the man was there for. The sound escaping his lips showed that the Duke was startled and perhaps a bit relieved that things had now come out into the open. 25.a warning glance: The Duke had made a blunder the night before by mentioning the car in front of the hotel’s assistant general manager when his wife was trying hard to establish something of an alibi. Now the wife was warning him not to blunder again. 26.“ In what conceivable way does our car concern you?”: I can hardly imagine how our car could in any way concern you. Why are you so interested in our car? 27.“Who else is in this place?”: first indication that he did not come with an honest purpose, for why should he desire secrecy 28.It was the Duke who answered: the Duke realized that Ogilvie had found them out as soon as he heard that the latter was coming to talk to them. He didn’t think what the Duchess had done or would do could improve the situation. So he was eager to cooperate with Ogilvie. 29.We sent them out: another blunder, as good as admitting that they knew what Ogilvie had come for and that they had things to hide. 30.it pays to check: to be profitable or worthwhile to check. Other examples: 1)It pays to think before you speak.         2) It’ll pay to keep a diary in English. 31.surprising speed: surprising because you wouldn’t expect a fat man like him to move quickly 32.“Now then”: used to call attention or to express a warning or protest 33.“You two was in that hit-‘n-run”: you two are guilty of that hit-and-run accident. Hit-and-run is usually used to describe a driver who flees from the scene of an accident in which he is involved. 34.She met his eyes directly: to pretend that she was innocent of what he accused her of and therefore dared to take up the challenge 35.“ This is for real.”: I’m not joking. This is something serious. For real:(slang) meaning real, really 36.bit off the end : In order to light up a fresh cigar one end of it has to be clipped. Coarse people like Ogilvie just bit it off. 37.“There’s been plenty on radio, too.”: there have been a lot of reports about the accident on the radio, too. 38.Two high points of colour: the Duchess’ cheeks flushed, not evenly, but around the cheek bones. She was upset and a bit scared. But at the moment she was pretending indignation. 39.cut it out: (colloquial) to stop what she was doing, i.e. pretending they were innocent 40.The words spat forth: According to grammar, it should be:” the words were spat forth”, or “Ogilved spat out the words”. Perhaps the author here wants to make it more dramatic by having “the words” following right after what he had just said, instead of saying” he spat our the words”. Also, “the words spat forth” is more forceful and vivid than” the words were spat forth.” 41.all pretense of blandness gone: nominative absolute construction with a noun phrase plus a past participle. Ogilvie threw away his pretended politeness. Some other examples of the same construction from the text: his eyes sardonically on the Duchess( n.+prepositional phrase) you driving (pron.+ present participle) her poise for the moment recovered(n.+past participle) 42.Ignoring the Duke, Ogilvie waved the unlighted cigar under his adversary’s nose: he knew that the Duchess was the stronger character of the two and it was she that he had to deal with, do she was his enemy. 43.your high-an’-mightiness: high had mighty: very proud,(the correct way to address a Duke or a Duchess is “ your Grace”). Ogilvie addressed her this way in imitation of “your Highness”, to mock her haughty attitude. 44.burnin’mad: burning mad; very angry 45.high-tailed it: (colloquial) leave in a hurry, scurry off 46.they’ll throw the book, and never mind who it hits: they’ll deal out the maximum in punishment , to apply the full force of the law and they will not care who will be punished in the case. To throw the book is an idiom, in which the word book means the law book. It refers to the book. Here Ogilved follows the metaphor through. 47.if I do what by rights I should, … you’ll hardly see ’em: if I do what I should do in justice(that is , to report what I know to police headquarters), a group of policemen will come over here very fast, so fast that you wouldn’t be able to see them moving. 48.so’s: so as , so that 49.’f you want it the other way: if you refuse to tell me the truth and prefer to have the law to interfere 50.The Duchess of Croydon—three centuries and a half of inbred arrogance behind her—did not yield easily: The Duchess was supported by her arrogance coming from parents of noble families who belonged to the nobility for more than three hundred years. So she did not give in easily. 51.she faced the grossness of house detective squarely: She stood up boldly and rebuked the coarse vulgarity of the house detective. 52.blackguard: scoundrel, villain 53.flickered: wavered 54.It’s no go, old girl. It was a good try.”: It’s no use. What you did just now was a good attempt at trying to save the situation. Here the phrase no go is a colloquialism, meaning not possible; without use or value. Old girl is an informal way of addressing one’s wife. 55.“ That’s more like it. “: said when a second thing said by the other person sounds more acceptable, plausible, or less objectionable than the first one 56.“ Now we’re getting somewhere.”: Now we’re making some progress, accomplishing something 57.“ I’ll spell it out.”: I’ll tell you frankly and in detail. 58.The house detective took his time: It is the second time that Ogilvie has done so , both times to make the impact of what he is going to say on the Croydons even stronger. 59.as if challenging her objection: as if openly daring her to object to his smoking a cigar, as she had done earlier; as if he wanted to see if the Duchess dared to object to his smoking. 60.But beyond wrinkling her nose I distaste, she made no comment: She only wrinkled her nose to show her dislike for the offending cigar smell, but did not rebuke him. 61.Lindy’s Place: a gambling joint, a gambling nightclub, a casino 62.Irish Bayou: bayou[′beiu:] a French word ,a marsh. New Orleans was colonized by the French, so a lot of places there have French names. 63.fancy Jaguar: Fancy here means expensive and superior model(car). 64.leastways, I guess you’ll call her that if you’re not too fussy: I guess if you are not too particular about what words to use, at least you’d call her your lady friend. Here Ogilvie is trying to get at him. It’s more than obvious that he was not really with a friend, but a high class whore. 65.As Ogilvie glanced, grinning, at the Duchess: Ogilvie is rubbing it in ,enjoying himself over the wounded pride of an arrogant wife. 66.The way I hear it, you won a hundred at the tables then lost it at the bar: From what I hear, you won a hundred dollars in gambling and then spent the money drinking. 67.You were into a second hundred-with a real swinging party: You were beginning to spend another hundred dollars of your own( the hundred won in gambling had already been spent) to treat a merry and lively party. 68.There ain’t much out of the way, which people who stay in this hotel do, I don’t get to hear about: If anybody who stays in this hotel does anything wrong, improper or unusual, I always get to know about it. There isn’t much that can escape me. Out of the way: improper, wrong, unusual 69.I suppose it doesn’t matter: You already know so much, I might as well tell you this, it won’t make much difference now. 70.clucked his tongue reprovingly: He made noises with his tongue to show his disapproval. How can you be so careless! The expoliceman was playacting, gloating over their misfortune. 71.took off home: left for home 72.the way things turned out : judging from what happened later 73.Explains that one: This fact explains why you were driving in your sodden state: driving when you were drunk. 74.lickered up : liquored up, drunk Compare: liquor: an alcoholic drink, esp. one made by distillation, as whiskey or rum(neat whiskey) wine: mainly grape wine(sweet or dry wine) soft drinks: non-alcoholic, like soda pop chaser: a mild drink, taken with or after liquor 75.Then you don’t know: The Duchess thought it was all Ogilvie’s conjecture and that he didn’t really have any evidence against them. She thought he didn’t have any case against them. 76.Looked right shaken, too, the pair of you: You two looked extremely upset (shocked). 77.Just come in myself an’ I got to wondering why: I had just come in myself and began to wonder why (you two looked shaken). 78.the word was out: The news about the accident was spreading around. Some expressions with word: a word of advice(warning) say a good word for sb. have a word with sb. (talk with sb.) have words with(quarrel)     give sb. one’s word(promise) Be as good as one’s word/break one’s word/a man of his word in so many words word for word 79.On a hunch I went over to the garage: As I suspected and felt there was something wrong, I went over to the garage to inspect. hunch: a feeling about something not based on known facts: premonition or suspicion. The meaning derives from the superstition that it brings good luck to touch a hunch-back. I have a hunch that …: I rather think that… 80.look-see: (slang) a quick look or inspection