Continue Lawrence

The Rocking Horse Winner (text)
(看到標題要想)
About The rocking horse
為什麼不是真的馬?
What is that? What is that for? Why should we care?
About Winner
who is winner?
Does he or she win it at all?

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them.
→ 可以看出媽媽也曾經年輕貌美過

They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew.
→ 小孩對媽媽的感覺

Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much.
→ 媽媽對小孩的感覺

There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and they had discreet servants, and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.
→ 有3個小孩，家境不錯

Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money.
→　Conflict: There must more money.
    At last the mother said: "I will see if I can't make something." But she did not know where to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this thing and the other, but could not find anything successful. The failure made deep lines come into her face. Her children were growing up, they would have to go to school. There must be more money, there must be more money. The father, who was always very handsome and expensive in his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to do anything worth doing. And the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better, and her tastes were just as expensive.
racked her brains 整理思緒
deep lines= wrinkle 皺紋
to do anything worth doing 做一些值得做的事情

They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery.
nursery 育嬰房

The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly, and seemed to be smirking all the more self-consciously because of it.
smirk :嘻嘻笑;傻笑;微笑(西概:Homer: Iliad出現過)

keep:
keep a car/ keep a dairy/ keep a journey
timidly 膽怯
vague- not clear
frenzy= madly= furious
jockey 馬師

"Well, I got there!" he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still flaring, and his sturdy long legs straddling apart.
blue eyes 象徵純真、愚蠢

And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother's voice saying to her, "My God, Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner."
Poor devil! 老天啊!
_____________________________________________________________
Joyce Carol Oates

1.被認為是1960年代以來最重要的美國小說家
2.是典型American Dream的縮影，因為她成長於紐約郊區的工人家庭
3.她是家中第一個念完高中的孩子，之後靠文學獎學金完成雪城大學學業
4. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (text) 最早發表於Epoch Magazine，靈感來自Life Magazine報導的一宗謀殺案。她把這篇作品獻給Bob Dylan，因為他的"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"那首歌，啟發她創作這篇關於15歲女孩Connie的故事。

Song:
Bob Dylan

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
Blowin in the wind