Keep your secrets
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Tema: Comprensió lectora.
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Espanya > Anglés > 3r ESO > Comunicació
Enunciat
Read the text from The Fairy Tales' Book, by Angela Carter, and answer the following questions:
Keep your secrets
(West Africa)
A certain girl was given by her parents to a young man in marriage. She did not care for the youth, so she refused and said that she would choose a husband for herself. Shortly after there came to the village a fine young man of great strength and beauty. The girl fell in love with him at first sight and told her parents that she had found the man she wished to marry, and as the latter was not unwilling the marriage soon took place.
Now it happened that the young man was not a man at all, but a hyena, for although as a rule women change into hyenas and men into hawks, the hyena can change itself into either man or woman as it may please.
During the first night the two newly married ones were sleeping together the husband said: ˜Supposing that when we go to my town we quarrel on the road, what would you do? The wife answered that she would change herself into a tree. The man said that he would be able to catch her even then.
She said that if that was the case she would turn into a pool of water. Oh! That would not trouble me, said the hyena man, ˜I should catch you all the same".
˜Why, then I should turn into a stone",replied his spouse. "Still, I should catch you", remarked the man.
Just at that moment the girl's mother shouted from her room, for she had heard the conversation: ˜Keep quiet, my daughter; is it thus that a woman tells all her secrets to her man?" So the girl said no more.
Next morning, when the day was breaking, the husband told his wife to rise up as he was returning to his home. He bade her make ready to accompany him a short way down the road to see him off. She did as he told her, and as soon as ever the couple were out of sight of the village the husband turned himself into a hyena and tried to catch the girl, who changed into a tree, then into a pool of water, then into a stone, but the hyena almost tore the tree down, nearly drank all the water and half swallowed the stone.
Then the girl changed herself into that thing which the night before her mother had managed to stop her from betraying. The hyena looked and looked everywhere and at last, fearing the villagers would come and kill him, made off.
At once the girl changed into her own proper form and ran back to the village.
unwilling: reticent
quarrel: baralla
bade: oferir alguna cosa a algú
to see someone off: acompanyar a algú que es va al seu punt de partida
swallow: engolir
betray: trair
made off: anar-se'n de pressa
1.Why didn't the girl marry the first time?
2.Why did she like the second man?
3.Why did the mother shout from her room?
4.What is the last thing the girl changes into?
5.What do you think the moral behind the story is? Write 10 lines.
Observacions i context
Amb motiu d'aquest text es pot proposar reflexionar sobre els conceptes de meravella i moralitat, per a més tard preguntar al nostre alumnat quina moralitat extrauen del text.
- Es pot plantejar a l'alumnat que busquen altres contes curts amb moralitat d'Angela Carter i que li'ls expliquen breument i de manera oral a la resta de la classe.
- D'altra banda també se'ls pot demanar que escriguen una història breu amb moralitat.
Angela Carter es va resistir a ser identificada amb cap grup. Es va interessar per desconstruir els rols i les estructures típiques que marquen les nostres existències, sobretot les de gènere.
Els seus innovadors procediments narratius i les seues freqüents referències intertextuals la relacionen amb el postmodernisme anglosaxó, així com amb autors francesos com Sade o Bataille. Moltes vegades se la relaciona amb el realisme màgic, però realment aquest no té molt sentit fora de Sudamèrica.
Va estar influenciada pel cinema, la psicoanàlisi, el surrealisme, la segona ona del feminisme i el Japó entre altres. En La cambra sagnant (1979) revisita els contes de fades d'una manera que ens pot recordar a Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve (La bella i la bèstia).
- A Espanya altres autores han fet coses similars, com és el cas de Carmen Martín Gaite o Ana María Matute.
- Altres figures contemporànies de Carter són, per exemple, Doris Lessing, que va rebre el mateix premi que Carter deu anys abans i a la qual admirava.
- Una altra important escriptora que en la mateixa època treballa la fantasia combinada amb el subversiu és Margaret Atwood.
- Pel seu pensament feminista, la podem enllaçar amb Simone de Beauvoir, perquè ambdues veien la feminitat com una construcció social.
Descripció
Es tracta d'una activitat de comprensió lectora.
Buscar sentit general, informació essencial, punts principals.
En aquesta activitat el nostre estudiantat ha de llegir una història curta del llibre Contes de fades d'Ángela Carter. En aquest cas és una història original de l'oest d'Àfrica que tracta sobre una dona i el seu marit.
Després de llegir el text l'alumnat respondrà a unes preguntes i reflexionarà sobre el significat de la història.
L'objectiu de l'activitat és que practiquen la seua comprensió lectora i aprenguen nou vocabulari.