Unit 4B - A New Toy
A New Toy
I was eight years old when our neighbors across the hall got a television. It was very small and very expensive, but that didn't matter. IT WAS WONDERFUL. Everyone in the building came up to the fifth floor to see this latest wonder of the modem world. Some people, the lucky ones, stayed for a while and got to watch a whole program. That was in 1948.
Soon a lot of people got new televisions, but not us. My parents didn't like television. They didn't think it was good for children. Being a good, docile son, I didn't argue with them. But I did secretly watch television — at my friends' homes.
By 1955 televisions weren't so expensive and they were much larger. My parents still thought television wasn't good for us, but my sisters insisted. They said we were the only people in the neighborhood who didn't have one. All their friends talked about certain programs and actors, but my sisters couldn't. Their friends laughed at them, and my sisters felt wretched, very unhappy.
One day, my youngest sister came from school and started to cry. She said she was never going back to school and that life without a television wasn't worth living. She cried and sobbed. My parents' usual arguments only made her more inconsolable. Nothing they said made her feel any better. Well, what could they do?
The next morning, without telling us, my parents went out and got a new TV. That afternoon an antenna was put on the roof. Suzanne came home from school and ran into the house.
Where is it? Where is it? she cried. "I know it's here." She was breathless, and her eyes were shiny with excitement.
"It's in the living room," my mother said as my sister ran off to look at, to admire, this beautiful thing called a television.
Later I asked her, "How did you know the TV was here?"
The antenna. Now our house looks like everyone else's.
She had a wonderful smile on her face.
When we were young our parents allowed us to watch TV two hours a night. Oh, yes. And we couldn't watch until our homework was finished. But after a year or two, TV wasn't exciting or new anymore. It became just another part of our lives, like shoes or soap. My parents still had fears about TV. We were going to forget how to read, they said. And we were not going to read books because watching TV was easier, they said. And TV was going to fill our minds with violence, they said. They said lots of things like that — once a day at least. I disagreed with them. I thought they were old-fashioned, thinking too much of old ways and ideas.
Today, people still argue about the value of TV. Nobody can deny the power of TV. It has an enormous, a very powerful, influence on our lives. On the average, Americans spend 30 hours a week watching TV. Is this influence good or bad? This is an unanswerable question indeed: It is hard enough to measure influence; and it is even harder to decide what is good and what isn't. What is good, I suppose, is that many people are concerned about TV's influence and that we have the power to change what we don't like.
Recently I read an article in the newspaper about the people of Monhegan Island, 18 kilometers off the coast of Maine. These people don't have electricity, and they decided, once again, that they liked it that way. Only a handful of people live there during the long winter, and they live without electricity — by choice. Electricity, they think, would make things too easy and spoil their way of life. Maybe the young people wouldn't want to go to town dances anymore. Maybe they would be more interested in staying home and watching television.
参考译文——一样新玩具
一样新玩具
我八岁那年，我们家对门的邻居买了台电视机。电视机既小又昂贵，可那算不了什么。这玩意儿太奇妙了。大楼里人人都上五楼来，争睹这一当今世界的最新奇迹。有些人——运气好的人——还能多待一会，看完整档节目。那是在1948年。
不多久，好多人家都买了新电视机，可我们没有。我父母不喜欢电视，认为它对孩子没好处。我是个听话的乖孩子，没跟他们争吵。不过我的确偷看过电视——在朋友家里看。
到了1955年，电视机不再那么昂贵了，而且也大了许多。可我父母还是认为电视对我们没好处。我的几个妹妹不服气。她们说附近一带就我们家没电视机。她们的朋友个个都在谈论某些电视节目和演员，可她们插不上嘴。朋友们都笑话她们，为此她们感到非常委屈，十分苦恼。
有一天，小妹放学一回到家就哭了。她说她决不再去上学了，还说生活中没有电视机活着不值得。她不停地哭着，抽泣着。爸妈搬出的那老一套理由，反倒更令她伤心。他们说的话，一点也宽慰不了她。唉，他们有什么法子呢？
第二天上午，爸妈什么也没说，便出去买了台崭新的电视机。到了下午，屋顶上竖起了电视天线。苏珊放学回家，连奔带跑进了屋子。
“在哪儿？哪儿？”她嚷道。“我知道就在家里。”她气喘吁吁，两眼兴奋得闪闪发光。
“在客厅里，”母亲话音刚落，小妹就跑过去，打量、赞赏这个名为电视机的尤物。
后来我问她:“你是怎么知道家里有电视机的？”
“电视天线呀。这一来我们家的房子看上去就跟别人家的一样了。”
她脸上漾起灿烂的微笑。
我们还小的时候，父母只允许我们每晚看两个小时的电视。哦，是这样。而且我们非得做完了功课才能看电视。可是，过了一两年，电视的新鲜劲儿过了。电视就像鞋子和肥皂之类的日用品一样，成了我们生活的一部分。我父母对电视仍心存戒虑，说我们会荒废阅读；说我们会不想看书，因为看电视更为轻松；还说电视会往我们的脑子里灌满暴力。他们说了好多好多诸如此类的话——至少每天得说上一回。我可不同意他们的观点，我觉得他们太守旧，脑子里的旧观念太多。
时至今日，人们仍在争论电视的作用。没有谁能否认电视的力量，它对我们的生活有着巨大的、非常强有力的影响。美国人平均一周看30小时的电视。其影响究竟是好是坏？这确实是个无法回答的问题。影响力本来就难以估量，要评定什么是好什么是坏就更难了。我认为好就好在很多人都很关心电视的影响，而且对我们不喜欢的东西我们也有能力加以改变。
最近我在报上读到一篇关于蒙希根岛上居民的文章。该岛离缅因州海岸18公里。岛上居民不使用电，他们再次做出决定，他们喜欢这样。在漫长的冬季，只有为数极少的人在那儿居住，他们过着没有电的生活——出于他们自己的抉择。他们认为电这玩意儿会使很多事情变得太容易，并会破坏他们的生活方式。年轻人或许就此不再去镇上参加舞会。也许他们更乐于守在家里看电视。
Key Words:
unhappy [ʌn'hæpi]
adj. 不快乐的，不高兴的
antenna [æn'tenə]
n. 触角，天线，感觉，直觉
docile ['dəusail]
adj. 容易教的，温顺的
certain ['sə:tn]
adj. 确定的，必然的，特定的
measure ['meʒə]
n. 措施，办法，量度，尺寸
v. 测量，量
antenna [æn'tenə]
n. 触角，天线，感觉，直觉
soap [səup]
n. 肥皂
vt. 用肥皂洗，阿谀奉承
enormous [i'nɔ:məs]
adj. 巨大的，庞大的
violence ['vaiələns]
n. 暴力，猛烈，强暴，暴行
concerned [kən'sə:nd]
adj. 担忧的，关心的
spoil [spɔil]
n. 战利品，奖品
参考资料：
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