Unit 5

The Tapestry of Friendship Ellen Goodman

Objectives of Teaching

To grasp the main idea and understand the structure of the text

To appreciate the style and structure of the passage

To have a better understanding of the distinction between male friendship and female friendship

Teaching ProceduresPre-reading ActivitiesText I. The Tapestry of Friendship● Passage● Main idea of the passage● Structural analysis● Comprehension questions● Text explanation ● sentence studies ● vocabulary studiesText II. My Daughter, My FriendExercises

Pre-reading questions

1. Do you keep in touch with your childhood friends?

No/Yes?Only a few/some/manyReasons?

 

2. What do you need friends for?Co-operationHelpMutual emotional support

3. Have you find any difference in male friendship and female friendship?

Yes/No?In what respects?

Main idea of the text

In this text, the author distinguishes two kinds of friendship: that between men and that between women, from several respects.

Structural analysis

The text can be divided into four parts.

Part I (Paragraphs 1-2 )This part serves as the Prelude,

where the author reveals what kind of film the woman had just seen.

Part II (Paragraphs 3-6)

This part describes the woman's observation of the shift of focus of the cinema and advances the argument for the distinction between the two types of friendship: that between men and that between women.

Part III (Paragraphs 7-18)

This part is the Body, where the distinctions of the two types of friendship are detailed.

Part IV (paragraph 19)This paragraph is the Conclusion, which su

mmarizes the fundamental difference between the male companionship and the female friendship.

Comprehension question

Decide which of the following best states the author’s purpose of writing.

a. To reveal the shift of the cinema lens’ focus from the Male Buddy movies to the Female Friendship flicks.

b. To argue that the shift from the Male Buddy movies to the Female Friendship flicks is a historical trend.

c. To make a distinction between men and women as buddies and friends.

TEXT I The Tapestry of Friendship

1 It was, in many ways, a slight movie. Nothing actually happened. There was no big-budget chase scene, no bloody shoot-out. The story ended without any cosmic conclusions.

2 Yet she found Claudia Weill’s film Girlfriends gentle and affecting. Slowly, it panned across the tapestry of friendship — showing its fragility, its resiliency, its role as the connecting tissue between the lives of two young women. Questions

3 When it was over, she thought about the movies she had seen this year — Julia, The Turning Point and now Girlfriends. It seemed that the peculiar eye, the social lens of the cinema, had drastically shifted its focus. Suddenly the Male Buddy movies had been replaced by the Female Friendship flicks.

4 This wasn't just another binge of trendiness, but a kind of cinema vérité. For once the movies were reflecting a shift, not just from men to women but from one definition of friendship to another.

Why does the author list the movies the woman had seen?

What led the woman to think so

?

What was the shift?

5 Across millions of miles of celluloid, the ideal of friendship had always been male — a world of sidekicks and "partners" of Butch Cassidys and Sundance Kids. There had been something almost atavistic about these visions of attachments — as if producers culled their plots from some pop anthropology book on male bonding. Movies portrayed the idea that only men, those direct descendants of hunters and Hemingways, inherited a primal capacity for friendship. In contrast, they portrayed women picking on each other, the way they once picked berries.

6 Well, that duality must have been mortally wounded in some shoot-out at the You're OK, I'm OK Corral. Now, on the screen, they were at least aware of the subtle distinction between men and women as buddies and friends.

7 About 150 years ago, Coleridge had written, "A woman's friendship borders more closely on love than a man's. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts, whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment."

8 Well, she thought, on the whole, men had buddies, while women had friends. Buddies bonded, but friends loved. Buddies faced adversity together, but friends faced each other. There was something palpably different in the way they spent their time. Buddies seemed to "do" things together; friends simply "were" together.

9 Buddies came linked, like accessories, to one activity or another. People have golf buddies and business buddies, college buddies and club buddies. Men often keep their buddies in these categories, while women keep a special category for friends.

Fundamental difference?

10 A man once told her that men weren't real buddies until they had been "through the wars" together — corporate or athletic or military. They had to soldier together, he said. Women, on the other hand, didn't count themselves as friends until they had shared three loathsome confidences.

11 Buddies hang tough together; friends hang onto each other.

12 It probably had something to do with pride. You don't show off to a friend; you show need. Buddies try to keep the worst from each other; friends confess it.

Question?

13 A friend of hers once telephoned her lover, just to find out if he was home. She hung up without a hello when he picked up the phone. Later, wretched with embarrassment, the friend moaned, "Can you believe me? A thirty-five-year-old lawyer, making a chicken call?" Together they laughed and made it better.

14 Buddies seek approval. But friends seek acceptance.15 She knew so many men who had been trained in

restraint, afraid of each other's judgment or awkward with each other's affection. She wasn't sure which. Like buddies in the movies, they would die for each other, but never hug each other.

Meaning of this example?

What’s the point?

The point?

16 She had reread Babbitt recently, that extraordinary catalogue of male grievances. The only relationship that gave meaning to the claustrophobic life of George Babbitt had been with Paul Riesling. But not once in the tragedy of their lives had one been able to say to the other: You make a difference.

17 Even now men shocked her at times with their description of friendship. Does this one have a best friend? "Why, of course, we see each other every February." Does that one call his most intimate pal long distance? "Why, certainly, whenever there's a real reason." Do those two old chums ever have dinner together? "You mean alone? Without our wives?"

   

Why?

What point?

18 Yet, things were changing. The ideal of intimacy wasn't this parallel playmate, this teammate, this trenchmate. Not even in Hollywood. In the double standard of friendship, for once the female version was becoming accepted as the general ideal.

19 After all, a buddy is a fine life-companion. But one's friends, as Santayana once wrote, "are that part of the race with which one can be human."

It was, in many ways, a slight movie.: In many aspects it was a simple, ordinary movie.

big-budget chase scene: a car-chase scene that costs a lot of

money

cosmic1) very great This earthquake was a disaster of cosmic

scale. 2) relating to the universe The other great cosmic reality is time.Some people believe that what happens in

their lives is influenced by cosmic forces.

Slowly, it panned across the tapestry of friendship ... : Step by step it gave an all-sided of the complex structure

of friendship...orSlowly, the movie gave a panoramic picture of friendship.Pan: vTo move a movie or television camera to follow an object

or create a panoramic effectTo criticize or review harshlyEveryone panned the film as the worst they had ever

seen.Pan out: To turn out well; be successful:If I don't pan out as an actor I can still go back to school.

fragile adj 1 easily damaged or broken; delicate : fragile china/glass (fig) Human happiness is so fragile. 人生幸福易逝 . a fragile economy 疲软的经济 . 2 (infml) not strong and healthy; weak, eg because

one has drunk too much alcohol 不强健的 , 弱的（如因酗酒所致） :

He's feeling a bit fragile after last night's party.Compare: fragile ,breakable ,frangible ,delicate ,brit

tle These adjectives mean easily broken or damaged.

Fragile applies to objects whose lightness or delicacy of material requires that they be handled with great care:

a collection of fragile porcelain plates. Breakable and frangible, which are identical in meaning, mean capabl

e of being broken but do not necessarily imply inherent weakness: Even earthenware pottery is breakable.The museum stored all frangible articles in a locked showcase. Delicate refers to what is so soft, tender, or fine as to be susceptible to

injury: The peach is a delicate fruit. Brittle refers to hardness and inelasticity of material that makes some

thing especially likely to fracture or snap when it is subjected to pressure:

brittle bones. a brittle relationship between husband and wife (fig.)

frail adj 1 (of a person) physically weak or delicate （指人）体

弱的 , 虚弱的 : a frail child At 90, she's getting very old and frail. 2 easily broken; fragile 易破碎的 ; 易损的 : Careful: that

chair's rather frail! 小心点儿 : 那把椅子不结实 ! 3 morally weak 道德观念薄弱的 : frail human nature 易堕落的人性 . 4. Not strong or substantial; slight: evidence too frail to stand up in courtfrailty

resilient adj 1 (of an object or material) springing bac

k to its original form after being bent, stretched, crushed, etc; springy （指物体或材料）能复原的 , 弹性的 , 有弹力的 .

2 (of a person or character) quickly recovering from shock or depression; buoyant （指人或性格）能迅速恢复或重新振作的 , 达观的 , 适应性强的 :

physically/mentally resilient She is very resilient to change.

What kind of film did the woman see?It was a movie that portrayed all aspects

of the friendship between two women: its fragility, its resiliency and its connecting function. It was quite an ordinary film. without thrilling scenes like the long-time car chase or the fierce gunfight. The end was of no great significance either.

What did she think of it?The movie was gentle and moving to the woman, because, as the fol

lowing paragraphs show, with the other two movies it brought about a new definition of friendship that stood against the traditional view of friendship.

Flick v. n. To touch or hit with a light, quick blow:flicked him with his hand. To cause to move with a light blow; snap:flicked the light switch on. To remove with a light, quick blow:flicked the lint off the coat. A light, quick blow, jerk, or touch:a flick of the wrist; gave my horse a flick with the reins. [Slang] A movie

This wasn't just another binge of trendiness, but a kind of cinema vérité.

This was not simply a shift from one fashion to another, but a truthful description of friendship.

cull choose from various sources, pick out

from othersHere are a few facts and figures I've

culled from the week's papers.It's a collection of fascinating stories

culled from a lifetime of experience.

only men ... inherited a primal capacity for friendship.

... only men ... were born with the instinctive capacity of making friends.

primal adj [attrib] (fml)

1 first or original; primeval 最初的 ; 原始的 : the loss of their primal innocence 他们原有的天真素质之丧失 . 2 chief or most important; fundamental; pri

mary of primal importance 至为重要的 .

inherit: 1) receive (money, a house etc. ) from someone after they h

ave died All her children will inherit equally.When I took on the job of manager, I inherited certain financi

al problems.2) be born with (a physical or mental quality that a parent, gr

andparent or other relative has) Rosie inherited her red hair from her mother.The child has an inherited disease which attacks the immune

system.他继承了父亲的坏脾气。He -s his father's bad temper.

only men ... inherited a primal capacity for friendship.

... only men ... were born with the instinctive capacity of making friends.

pick on sb 1) choose sb (esp repeatedly) for punishment, criticism or blame 选中某人（尤指屡次）惩罚、 批评或责怪 :

她觉得父母老是偏偏责备她 . She felt that her parents were picking on her. 2) choose sb for a task, esp an unpleasant one 选

中某人做某事（尤指厌恶的事） : 偏偏选中我去宣布这个坏消息 . I was picked on to announce the bad newsCf. pick

out, pick at, pick up

The two sides must have been mortally wounded in the OK Corral gunfight.

What led the woman to think that the cinema has drastically shifted its focus?

It was the fact that at present there were many more movies about Female Friendship than about Male Buddiness. In contrast, in the past, the friendship between men had dominated the movies, giving a false impression that only men were capable of making friends.

What was the shift?On the surface, it was a shift from the friend

ship between men to that between women; but in nature the shift highlighted a different type of friendship: Male Buddiness is subtly distinct from Female Friendship.

borderv 1 be a border to (sth); be on the border of (s

th) Our garden is bordered on one side by a stre

am. 2 border on sth (a) be next to sth; adjoin sth The new housing estate borders on the mot

orway. (b) (fig) be almost the same as sth; verge on st

h 几乎与某事物相同 ; 在某事物的边缘 : The boy's reply to his teacher was bordering o

n rudeness. Our task borders on the impossible.

What's the fundamental difference between buddies and friends?

Buddies are men's companions; they are connected by common activities. Friends, in the narrow sense in the text, are women's companions; they are associated by emotional attachment. Without shared activities, there would be no buddies for men; without love there would be no true friends for women.

palpable adj. 1 that can be felt or touchedAnger rushed out in a palpable wave through his a

rms and legs. 从他手臂和腿的挥动中可感觉到的愤怒暴发2 (fml) clear to the mind; obvious a palpable lie, error 明显的谎言、 错误 .

a palpable mistake 明显的错误 palpable results 具体可见的成果

accessory A subordinate or supplementary item; an adjunct. Something nonessential but desirable that contributes to an effect or res

ult Law: one who incites, aids, or abets a lawbreaker in the commission of a

crime but is not present at the time of the crime.Also called accessory before the fact

Law: one who aids a criminal after the commission of a crime, but was not present at the time of the crime: accessory after the fact

A cigar-lighter is an ~ to a car.She often wear accessories such as a diamond bracelet, a neclace and eari

ngs.I frequently change ~ies in my room.“through the wars” together -- corporate or athletic or military:through the commercial, athletic or military strives together they had to soldier together ... : They had to struggle together ...

count: consider or be considered as I count myself fortunate to have had such a good education. I think we can count this meeting a great success. I didn't think his grudging remarks really counted as an apology. I hope you won't count it against me if I don't come to your birthday

party.Have importance, have a specified importance or valueYou really count with me.Your opinion counts for little.Collocations:Count me inCount me outCount on/upon

What are the conditions of men becoming buddies and of women becoming friends?

Men can become buddies only when they have weathered storms in commercial or athletic or military" wars" together, while women have to exchange at least three loathsome secrets before they consider themselves as friends.

Buddies hang tough together; friends hang onto each other.Buddies hold on together in face of adversity, friends cling tightly to each o

ther for emotional support. hang togetherTo stand united; stick together:To constitutea coherent totality:diverse plot lines that did not hang together.不同的剧情线索没有形成一体hang rough: not give, not feel discouragedHe decided to ~ ratehr than give in.Hang on to: cling/attach to; keep; depend onFor the whole afternoon the little girl hung on to me.He swore he would ~the job until they fired him.The police have only one fingerprint to ~.More: hang off, hang back, hang out, hang in

show off (infml often derog) try to impress others with one's abilities, wealth, intelligence, etc: The child danced around the room, showing off to everybody. He likes showing off how well he speaks French.Compare: show ,display ,expose ,parade ,exhibit These verbs mean to present something to view. Show is the most general: The jeweler showed the necklace to the customer.She hated to show her feelings. Display often suggests an attempt to present something to best advantage: The dealer spread the rug out to display the pattern. Expose usually involves uncovering something or bringing it out from concealment: The excavation exposed a staggering number of Bronze Age artifacts. The term can often im

ply revelation of something better left concealed: Parade usually suggests a pretentious or boastful presentation: “He early discovered that, by parading his unhappiness before the multitude, he produced

an immense sensation” (Macaulay). Exhibit implies open presentation that invites inspection: “The works of art, by being publicly exhibited and offered for sale, are becoming articles of

trade”

wretched with embarrassment:unhappy with embarrassment She had had a wretched life as a child. There can be few experiences as wretched as moving house.Wretched adj. In a deplorable state of distress or misfortune; miserable:“the wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages “ 那些不幸的囚犯全

挤在恶臭的牢笼里” ( 乔治·奥韦尔 ) Characterized by or attended with misery or woe:a wretched life.悲惨的生活 Of a poor or mean character; dismal:鄙陋的：具有穷困或卑鄙的性质；阴沉

的：a wretched building. 破旧的建筑 Contemptible; despicable:卑鄙的：卑鄙的；恶劣的：wretched treatment of the patients.对病人草率的诊治 Of very inferior quality:品质很差的：wretched prose.拙劣的散文

Moan n. A low, sustained, mournful cry, usually indicative of sorrow or pain;

A similar sound:the eerie moan of the night wind.夜风的可怕哀鸣v.To utter a moan or moans. 发出呜咽声 To make a sound resembling a moan: 发出悲泣：A saxophone moaned in the background. 一个萨克斯管在幕后悲鸣 To complain, lament, or grieve:报怨，哀悼，或使痛心：an old man who still moans about his misspent youth.一个仍为浪费青春而痛心疾首的老人 To bewail or bemoan:叹惜或怜惜：She moaned her misfortunes to anyone who would listen.她向任何乐于听的人哀叹命运不济made it better:reduced her unhappiness; made her less unhappy

What point is Paragraph 13 meant to illustrate?

It is meant to illustrate that friends hang onto each other and confess their worst to each other.

What is the point put forward in Paragraph 14?

What men want to have is their buddies' proof of their close relationship by actions; they d words but actions. In contrast, women would accept their friends through verbal communications; they need words like" I love you." "Honey." and" Dear" to start and nourish their friendship.

restraint n. The act of restraining or the condition of being restrained. Loss or abridgment of freedom.His rage was beyond restraint. 他怒不可遏。I am under no restraint whatever. 我不受任何束缚。Collocations: be beyond restraint 不能抑制 free from restraint自由的 , 无束缚的 in restraint of限制 , 约束 keep [put] under restraint束缚 , 抑制 with restraint以克制态度 / without restraint自由地 , 无拘束地 , 无节制地What is the point of Paragraph 15?Men do things to show their closeness but never display their emotio

ns by hugging each other.

Grievance n. An actual or supposed circumstance regarded as just cause for protest. (against)

The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers.

工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。Expressions: air one's grievance 诉说自己的苦衷 ; 发泄不满情绪 pour out grievance 诉苦 nurse a grievance against sb. 怀恨某人 ; 对 ... 心怀不满 have a grievance against sb. 怀恨某人 ; 对 ... 心怀不满

only relationship that gave meaning to the claustrophobic life of George Babbitt had been with Paul Riesling.:

What made the claustrophobic life of George Babbitt meaningful had been his relationship with Paul Riesling; without his relationship with Paul Riesling George Babbitt would have found his claustrophobic life meaningless.

Claustrophobic adj. a pathological disposition to feel terror in closed spaces. I felt claustrophobic in that tiny room) 在那种小屋里我感到恐怖 refer to a space that induces such sensationsThe staff members are jammed into a nest of claustrophobic offices). 工作人员被塞进让人会感到幽闭恐怖的办公室里）。

make a, no, some, etc difference (to sb/sth) (a) have an, no, some, etc effect (on sb/sth) The rain didn't make much difference (to the game). The sea air has made a difference to (ie improved) her

health. (b) be important, unimportant, etc (to sb/sth); matter It makes no difference (to me) what you say: I'm not go

ing. It won't make much difference whether you go today o

r tomorrow. make a difference between treat differently 区别对待 ;

不同样对待 : She makes no difference between her two sons.

What point does the example in Paragraph 16 illustrate?

Even though men are emotionally dependent on each other, they never confess it.

Why was the woman shocked by men's description of friendship?

Because men's standard of intimate friendship is so drastically different from women's that under such circumstances as described in Paragraph 17 women would not count each other as close friends at all.