Unit One
The Dinner Party
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Lead-in Questions
1. How would you react to a crisis, especially when you feel scary? 2. Who do you think are better at handling crisis, men or women? Why?
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The American comes to with a start (Paragraph 6): The American becomes aware of the potential danger with a sudden shock. This sentence is grammatically loose, for the phrase “come to”, being used to express that sb. begins to realize sth., is not followed by a necessary object, i.e., sth. happening, etc.
five minutes — and not one of you is to move a
muscle. Those who move will forfeit 50 rupees. Ready?”
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9.
The twenty people sit like stone images while
he counts. He is saying “… two hundred and
eighty ...” when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the cobra emerge and make for the bowl of milk. Screams ring out as he jumps to slam the veranda doors safely shut.
the tone of his voice so arresting that it sobers everyone. 8. “I want to know just what control everyone at this table has. I will count three hundred — that’s
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7.
His first impulse is to jump back and warn
the others, but he knows the commotion would
frighten the cobra into striking. He speaks quickly,
The Dinner Party Mona Gardner
1. The country is India. A colonial official and his wife are giving a large dinner party. They are seated with their guests — army officers and government attaches and their wives, and a visiting American naturalist — in their spacious dining room, which has a bare marble floor, open rafters, and wide glass doors opening onto a veranda. 2. A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who insists that women have outgrown the jumping-on-achair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a colonel who says that they haven’t.
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And while a man may feel like it, he has that ounce more of nerve control than a woman has, and that last ounce is what counts. (Paragraph 3): Even though a man is also likely to “jump on a chair at the sight of a mouse,” he has at least the last bit of self-control to refrain himself from jumping up. And it is the self-control that matters.
Mona Gardner (1900-1981) was born in Seattle, Washington. She lived in Hong Kong, South Africa, and California, among other places, and she also traveled widely. Many of her novels and stories are set in Asia. The Dinner Party, her best-known short story, takes place in India earlier last century, when India was still a colony ruled by Great Britain.
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… that women have out growing the jumpingon-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era (Paragraph 2): … that women hasve passed the time when they would jump on a chair at the sight of a mouse. Here the word, a typical example of journalistic style, jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sightof-a-mouse is a compound adjective formed from an attributive clause.
colonial official (Paragraph 1): a British citizen appointed to a governmental position in India, a British colony for many, many years until 1974
attaches (Paragraph 1): persons with special duties on the staff of an embassy to another country
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5. Of the guests, none except the American notices this or sees the servant place a bowl of milk on the veranda just outside the open doors. 6. The American comes to with a start. In India, milk in a bowl means only one thing — bait for a snake. He realizes there must be a cobra in the room. He looks up at the rafters — the likeliest place — but they are bare. Three corners of the room are empty, and in the fourth the servants are waiting to serve the next course. There is only one place left — under the table.
turning to his hostess. “Mrs. Wynnes, how
did you know that cobra was in the room?”
12. A faint smile lights up the woman’s
face as she replies: “Because it was
crawling across my foot.”
Text II
Memorable quotes
Questions for discussion
1. On what topic did the colonel and the young girl disagree?
They disagreed on whether women were still easily scared. 2. What kind of expression did the American notice came over the face of the hostess? A strange expression came over the face of the hostess: she was staring straight ahead and her facial muscles contracted slightly.