“我覺得 GCSE 英文比較難考，對於我們這些國際生，
其實 GCSE English 之所以難，
閱讀文章：
This extract is from the beginning of a short story by H E Bates, set in the 1930s. Hartop and his wife own a van from which they sell produce to people in their local area, and their daughter, Alice, works with them.
A Ford motor-van, old and re-painted green with ‘Jos. Hartop, greengrocer, rabbits’ scratched in streaky white lettering on a flattened-out biscuit tin nailed to the side, was slowly travelling across a high, treeless stretch of country in squally November half-darkness. Rain hailed on the windscreen and periodically swished like a sea-wave on the sheaves of pink chrysanthemums* strung on the van roof.
Hartop was driving: a thin, angular man, starved-faced. He seemed to occupy almost all the seat, sprawling awkwardly; so that his wife and their daughter Alice sat squeezed up, the girl with her arms flat as though ironed against her side, her thin legs pressed tight together into the size of one. The Hartops’ faces seemed moulded in clay and in the light from the van-lamps were a flat swede-colour. Like the man, the two women were thin, with a screwed-up thinness that made them look both hard and frightened.
Hartop drove with great caution, grasping the wheel tightly, braking hard at the bends, his big yellowish eyes fixed ahead, protuberantly, with vigilance. His hands, visible in the faint dashboard light, were marked on the backs with dark smears of dried rabbits’ blood. The van fussed and rattled, the chrysanthemums always swishing, rain-soaked, in the sudden high wind-squalls. And the two women sat in a state of silent apprehension, their bodies not moving except to lurch with the van, their clayish faces continuously intent, almost scared, in the lamp-gloom. And after some time, Hartop gave a slight start, and then drew the van to the roadside and stopped it.
‘Hear anything drop?’ he said. ‘I thought I heard something.’
‘It’s the wind,’ the woman said. ‘I can hear it all the time.’
‘No, something dropped.’
They sat listening. But the engine still ticked, and they could hear nothing beyond it but the wind and rain squalling in the dead grass along the roadside.
‘Alice, you get out,’ Hartop said.
The girl began to move herself almost before he had spoken.
‘Get out and see if you can see anything.’
Alice stepped across her mother’s legs, groped with blind instinct for the step, and then got out. It was raining furiously. The darkness seemed solid with rain.
‘See anything?’ Hartop said.
‘No.’
Hartop leaned across his wife and shouted: ‘Go back a bit and see what it was.’ The woman moved to protest, but Hartop was already speaking again. ‘Something dropped. We’ll stop at Drake’s Turn. You’ll catch up. I know something dropped.’ He let in the clutch as he was speaking and the van began to move away.
Soon, to Alice, it seemed to be moving very rapidly. In the rain and the darkness all she could see was the tail-light, smoothly receding. She watched it for a moment and then began to walk back along the road. The wind was behind her; but repeatedly it seemed to veer and smash her, with the rain, full in the face. She walked without hurrying. She seemed to accept the journey as she accepted the rain and her father’s words, quite stoically. She walked in the middle of the road, looking directly ahead, as though she had a long journey before her. She could see nothing.
And then, after a time, she stumbled against something in the road. She stooped and picked up a bunch of pink chrysanthemums, and then she began to walk back with them along the road. Before very long she could see the red tail-light of the van again. It was stationary. She could also see the lights of houses, little squares of yellow which the recurrent rain on her lashes transformed into sudden stars.
When she reached the van, Mrs Hartop said: ‘What was it?’
‘Only a bunch of chrysanthemums.’
Hartop himself appeared at the very moment she was speaking.
‘Only?’ he said. ‘Only? What d’ye mean by only? Eh?’
Alice stood mute. Then Hartop raised his voice.
‘Well, don’t stand there! Do something. Go on. Go on! Go and see who wants a bunch o’ chrysanthemums. Move yourself!’
Alice obeyed at once. She picked up the flowers, walked away and vanished, all without a word.
題目：
A student said, ‘This part of the story, where Alice is sent back along the road to find what has fallen from the roof and returns with the chrysanthemums, shows how hard and cruel Hartop is, so that all of our sympathy is with Alice.’
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
• consider whether Alice is treated cruelly by her father
• evaluate how the writer creates sympathy for Alice
• support your response with references to the text.
My response:
I agree with the student’s statement to a large extent.
Hartop’s brutality towards Alice is suggested long before the scene in which he orders her to walk back in the rain and wind to retrieve the chrysanthemums. Earlier on, we are told that “dark smears of dried rabbits’ blood” mark the backs of his hands. Later, when Alice responds to his harsh treatment with meek acceptance, we are inclined to think of her as not unlike the helpless rabbits her father has butchered.
The inability of Mrs Hartop to truly stand up for Alice also makes Alice a pitiful figure. When Mr Hartop orders his daughter to leave the van, his wife “moved to protest” but fails to do anything more as soon as her husband speaks again. In enabling her husband, Mrs Hartop is making Alice feel her parents think cheap, missing merchandise is more important than she is.
The writer is a master at making the reader identify with Alice. He skillfully puts us in a position where we perceive the world exactly as Alice sees it. When her dad drives off, we are told “soon, to Alice, (the van) seemed to be moving very rapidly”; when she recovers the flowers and gazes at the houses where she has to peddle them, we are told the lights of those houses come across to her as “sudden stars” due to her rain-soaked lashes. In steering us to experience her five senses vicariously, the writer is making us feel we are the subject of her dad’s abuse too.
The writer also creates sympathy for Alice by repeatedly making reference to her silence: in the van, she sits “in a state of silent apprehension”; when she is scolded by her dad for suggesting the flowers aren’t a big deal, she reacts by being “mute”; after her dad orders her to sell flowers to the houses, she does so by walking away “without a word.” The reader is led to believe that Alice has long been convinced that arguing back would only make her father angrier.
In addition, the writer’s description of Alice’s state of mind after she leaves the van can be read as a subtle cue on how sorry her future will be. Even though her walk backwards won’t cover a huge distance, she feels “as though she had a long journey before her.” The reader is encouraged to extrapolate from this that as Alice proceeds on with the journey of life, her memories of her father’s abuse will continue to weigh on her and drag her back to the past.
Michelle Ng
英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。
聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站： https://michellengwritings.com
🌟加入YouTube頻道會員支持《追新聞》運作🌟
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5l18oylJ8o7ihugk4F-3nw/join
《追新聞》無金主，只有您！為訂戶提供驚喜優惠，好讓大家支持本平台，再撐埋黃店。香港訂戶可分享給英國親友使用。
