Mary Barton, particularly in its early chapters, is a moving response to the suffering of the industrial worker in the England of the 1840s. What is most impressive about the book is the intense and painstaking effort made by the author, Elizabeth Gaskell, to convey the experience of everyday life in working class homes. Her method is partly documentary in nature: the novel includes such features as a carefully annotate reproduction of dialect, the exact details of food prices in an account of a tea party, an itemized description of the furniture of the Bartons’ living room, and a transcription (again annotated) of the ballad “The Oldham Weaver”. The interest of this record is considerable, even though the method has a slightly distancing effect.
As a member of the middle class, Gaskell could hardly help approaching working-class life as an outside observer and a reporter, and the reader of the novel is always conscious of this fact. But there is genuine imaginative re-creation in her accounts of the walk in Green Heys Fields, of tea at the Bartons’ house, and of John Barton and his friend’s discovery of the starving family in the cellar in the chapter “Poverty and Death.” Indeed, for a similarly convincing re-creation of such families’ emotions and responses (which are more crucial than the material details on which the mere reporter is apt to concentrate), the English novel had to wait 60 years for the early writing of D. H. Lawrence. If Gaskell never quite conveys the sense of full participation that would completely authenticate this aspect of Mary Barton, she still brings to these scenes an intuitive recognition of feelings that has its own sufficient conviction.
The chapter “Old Alice’s History” brilliantly dramatizes the situation of that early generation of workers brought from the villages and the countryside to the urban industrial centers. The account of Job Leigh, the weaver and naturalist who is devoted to the study of biology, vividly embodies one kind of response to an urban industrial environment: an affinity for living things that hardens, by its very contrast with its environment, into a kind of crankiness. The early chapters—about factory workers walking out in spring into Green Heys Fields, about Alice Wilson, remembering in her cellar the twig-gathering for brooms in the native village that she will never again see, about job Leigh, intent on his impaled insects—capture the characteristic responses of a generation to the new and crushing experience of industrialism. The other early chapters eloquently portray the development of the instinctive cooperation with each other that was already becoming an important tradition among workers.
1. It can be inferred from examples given in the last paragraph of the passage that which of the following was part of “the new and crushing experience of industrialism” for many members of the English working class in the nineteenth century.
A. Extortionate food prices
B. Geographical displacement
C. Hazardous working conditions
D. Alienation from fellow workers
E. Dissolution of family ties
答案：C
解析：根据文章最后一段，织布工和自然主义者Job Leigh看到被刺穿的昆虫非常着急，我们可以推测出织布工厂会造成伤害十分危险，对应选项C中：Hazardous working conditions。
2. It can be inferred that the author of the passage believes that Mary Barton might have been an even better novel if Gaskell
A. concentrated on the emotions of a single character
B. made no attempt to re-create experiences of which she had no firsthand knowledge
C. made no attempt to reproduce working-class dialects
D. grown up in an industrial city
E. managed to transcend her position as an outsider
答案：E
解析：根据文章第二段最后一句，如果Gaskell可以在描述中加入足够多的参与感，Mary Barton会显得更加真实。再根据文章第二段第一句，我们知道作者Gaskell是中产阶级，所以写 Mary Barton时总有局外人的感觉。结合起来我们知道，如果作者Gaskell可以超越自己的身份地位，更有参与感地描述工人阶级，Mary Barton会是一本更好的书，对应选项E中：…transcend…position…outsider。
3. Which of the following best describes the author’s attitude toward Gaskell’s use of the method of documentary record in Mary Barton?
A. uncritical enthusiasm
B. Unresolved ambivalence
C. Qualified approval
D. Resigned acceptance
E. Mild irritation
答案：C
解析：根据文章第一段最后一句，这样的描述好处是巨大的，虽然这种描述方法会让读者感觉心理距离变远了。“好处是巨大的”对应选项C中：approval，“虽然这种描述方法会让读者感觉心理距离变远了”对应选项C中：Qualified。
4. Which of the following is most closely analogous to Job Leigh in Marry Barton, as that character is described in the passage?
A. An entomologist who collected butterflies as a child
B. A small-town attorney whose hobby is nature photography
C. A young man who leaves his family’s dairy farm to start his own business
D. A city dweller who raises exotic plants on the roof of his apartment building
E. A union organizer who works in a textile mill under dangerous conditions
答案：E
解析：根据文章最后一段第二句话，我们知道Job Leigh是织布工，也是专注于研究生物学的自然主义者，工业化让他变得对活着的东西从喜欢到偏执。再根据文章最后一段第三句话，我们知道Job Leigh对被工业化害死的昆虫非常担忧。我们可以从他是织布工的职业推测出他在纺织厂工作，对应选项E中：works in a textile mill，我们还可以从他总是看到昆虫被工业化的机器所伤害，推测出他的工作环境很危险，对应选项E中：under dangerous conditions。