考GRE怎么能不认识“她”？

作者： 闫晨晨 发布时间：2023-04-10
今天又是一期“冷知识”系列，想来跟大家浅聊一位比较“冷门”的黑人女性作家、也是GRE考题中的座上宾，考试中出现过很多次——Zora Neale Hurston（佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿）。

Zora Neale Hurston

 
如果只能挑3个词来形容Hurston，那就是：
Brilliant
Tough
Big personality
Hurston的人生经历非常坎坷。1891年出生在一个父亲是传教士、母亲是老师的家庭里，在家里排行老五（总共八个兄弟姐妹），母亲很早就去世了，后来父亲再婚就把她抛弃了。因为自己没钱付学费辍学了很久，后来还给自己的年龄改小了10岁Image 然后自己勤工俭学继续读了high school、college、一直读到哥大的PhD，妥妥的学霸本霸！
 
有过好几段婚姻，甚至还搞过师生恋（传说是哥大当时的一个小鲜肉）。但每段似乎都be了，最后一个人病死在一个welfare里
 
她的作品在生前丝毫没有被重视、死后更是被遗忘，直到1973年Alice Walker读到她的作品觉得简直是宝藏！然后找到了她的墓（连块墓碑都没有的墓…），然后自掏腰包给她刻了墓碑上面写着“A Genius of the South”。还专门为她写了篇essay《In Search Of Zora Neale Hurston》。
就是在Alice Walker的大力推崇下Hurston才真正被世人看到，从原来无人知晓、孤独终老、死后甚至连块墓碑都没有，变成了现今被认为是Harlem Renaissance时期最伟大的黑人女作家，多部作品再度出版都是bestseller。

 

Alice Walker 自己都说：

“I realized that unless I came out with everything I had supporting her, there was every chance that she would slip back into obscurity.”

简直是girls help girls的典范！

 

GRE中有好几篇文章都是在讲Alice Walker是有多么崇拜Hurston，基本上出现Alice Walker的GRE阅读文章中都一定会提到Hurston，她的作品也是受到了Hurston巨大的影响。
 
GRE中出现最多的Hurston的作品有两部：
 
《Their Eyes Are Watching God》

这是Hurston最有名的一部小说（据说是七周就完成了），围绕着女主人公Janie在一个女性（尤其是黑人女性）备受歧视的时代下一直不断追求self-realization and empowerment而展开的故事。

 

她先是在很小的时候就被她外祖母强制嫁给了一个老男人导致Janie一直都郁郁寡欢；直到碰到了她的第二任会甜言蜜语的丈夫并跟他私奔了，后来她的第二任丈夫竟然家暴；直到她的第二任丈夫去世后，她终于碰到了自己年轻帅气的真爱Tea Cake！她们一起度过了一段甜蜜的爱情时光直到Tea Cake被疯狗咬了得了狂犬病，开始狂咬Janie，无奈下Janie开枪把他杀了......

除了追求女性的解放，这个故事或许还告诉我们打狂犬疫苗的重要性Image
《Dust Tracks on a road》

这本是Hurston的自传，但是很多学者说里面应该很多内容是Hurston给自己瞎编的，比如刚刚说的：她在一次走访中用了7周时间就写完了《Their Eyes Are Watching God》Image

 

Hurston的文风很独特，因为她的PhD读的是人类学，所以她非常致力于写实和还原，做了非常非常多走访，在书中故意用了很多方言和不标准的拼写。这可能也是她的作品在当时不被好评的重要原因，被评价语言没有美感、缺乏政治性以及内容没有深度。
 

GRE阅读中关于她的文章也都是围绕她的文学风格以及当时饱受的争议。其中有一篇是去年和今年都多次被考到，也是比较有难度的一篇易错题，我们今天一起来浅做一下！

GRE阅读真题

Zora Neale Hurston's 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a road, has received some of the most negative criticism of any of Hurston’s books. Among critics’ complaints—some from Hurston's warmest admirers—is the work’s fragmentary nature, a nature which, while present in other Hurston texts, including the universally acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, is particularly conspicuous in Dust Tracks. The complaints about Dust Tracks are valid if one insists on the cardinal conventions of autobiography: traditional autobiographical structure and formal organization, and a focused projection of the autobiographical persona. But Dust Tracks portrays a persona that resists reduction to a coherent unity—a person of many moods who is in tension with the world in which she moves. In order to correspond better to this persona, Dust Tracks focuses on the fragmented life of Hurston’s imagination: the psychological dynamics of her family, community stories, and characters of friends.

The author of the passage suggests that critics’ complaints about the structure of Dust Tracks are
A. not valid, because Dust Tracks should not be judged by the standards of conventional autobiography.
B. unjustified, because they have not been directed at other Hurston texts that are similarly structured.
C. justified, given the extent to which Dust Tracks is autobiographical.
D. inexplicable, given the critical response to Their Eyes Were Watching God
E. compelling, because Huston’s warmest admirers have complained the most strenuously.
这道题问作者对critics的态度，文章能看出作者态度的是：
The complaints about Dust Tracks are valid if one insists on the cardinal conventions of autobiography: traditional autobiographical structure and formal organization, and a focused projection of the autobiographical persona. But Dust Tracks portrays a persona that resists reduction to a coherent unity—a person of many moods who is in tension with the world in which she moves.
很多同学光看到“valid”就会选择C或者E这种明显的正态度选项。但作者恰恰对critics是负态度。为什么呢？

思路

我们不能光看文章中的一些碎片化的信息，要关注句间关系。
文章这两句话加在一起构成了这样一种逻辑：
如果我们坚持用传统的标准来衡量DT，那么critics的批判是有道理的。
但是DT是反对传统的。
那我们可以推出什么？
答：critics的批判就是没道理的！
所以作者反而是在质疑critics的观点，因此答案应该是A选项。
这考察的是在GRE阅读中很常见的一种论证方式-归谬论证（类似于反证法）：

Y一定是错的。如果有X才可以说Y是对的。但是实际没有X。

在实际行文时作者可能会隐藏掉部分前提或者给出完整前提隐藏掉结论，那我们得需要基于逻辑形式补充作者背后想说的。
这篇文章还有两道主旨题。通过识破归谬论证的形式，看出作者真正的态度之后，这两道主旨题也是迎刃而解。
1. The primary purpose of the passage is
A. explain why Dust Tracks has been less well received than other similarly structured works by Hurston.
B. argue that a supposed deficiency in Dust Tracks actually contributes to the work’s presentation of its subject.
C. compare the critical reaction to Dust Tracks with the critical reaction to Their Eyes Were Watching God.
D. point out specific similarities between the structure of Dust Tracks and the structure of Hurston’s other works.
E. suggest that some critics’ evaluations of Dust Tracks is influenced by their rejection of certain conventions of autobiography

文章主线是：

critics认为DT这个作品不好，它太支离破碎了。但是作者认为critics的批判是错的，DT是故意写的支离破碎的。

 

于是主旨题可以直接正选到B：critics所谓的DT的缺陷其实恰恰对这个作品起到了正向作用。

3. Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage?
A. A situation is presented and an explanation of how that situation developed is offered.
B. Two opposing points of view are contrasted and their relative merits are evaluated.
C. An orthodox view is discussed, a challenge to it is analyzed, and the original view is affirmed.
D. A point of view is described and an analysis challenging that point of view follows.
E. A dispute is analyzed and several points of agreement between the two sides are identified.

这是道结构型主旨题。

文章结构是：先描述critics的观点，然后是作者进行质疑。

因此直接正选D（先描述了一个观点，然后进行了质疑）。

今天的分享就到这里啦！希望通过Hurston的生平和趣事调剂一下大家复习的紧张情绪，同时也能掌握刚刚说的GRE阅读中常出现的“归谬论证”这种论证形式！觉得有帮助的话欢迎一键三连
 
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