北京大学2012年考博英语真题

　　Part Four Reading Comprehension (20%)

　　Passage Three

　　Both versions of the myth 一 the West as a place of escape from society and the West as a stage on which the moral conflicts confronting society could be played out — figured prominently in the histories and essays of young Theodore Roosevelt，the paintings and sculptures of artist Frederic Remington, and the short stories and novels of writer Owen Wister. These three young members of the eastern establishment spent much time in the West in the 1880s, and each was intensely affected by the adventure. All three had felt thwarted by the constraints and enervating influence of the genteel urban world in which they had grown up, and each went West to experience the physical challenges and moral simplicities extolled in the dime novels. When Roosevelt arrived in 1884 at the ranch he had purchased in the Dakota Badlands, he at once bought a leather scout’s uniform, complete with fringed sleeves and leggings.

　　Each man also found in the West precisely what he was looking for. The frontier that Roosevelt glorified in such books as The Winning of the West (four volumes, 1889-1896), and that the prolific Remington portrayed in his work, was a stark physical and moral environment that stripped away all social artifice and tested an individual’s true ability and character. Drawing on a popular version of English scientist Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which characterized life as a struggle in which only the fittest and hast survived, Roosevelt and Remington exalted the disappearing frontier as the last outpost of an honest and true social order.

　　This version of the frontier myth reached its apogee in Owen Wister’s enormously popular novel The Virginian (1902)，later reincarnated as a 1929 Gary Cooper movie and a 1960s television series. In Wister’s tale the elemental, physical and social environment of the Great Plains produces individuals like his unnamed cowboy hero, “the Virginian”，an honest, strong, and compassionate man, quick to help the weak and fight the wicked. The Virginian is one of nature’s aristocrats — ill-educated and unsophisticated but uptight, steady, and deeply moral. The Virginian sums up his own moral code in describing his view of God’s justice: “He plays a square game with us. ” For Wister, as for Roosevelt

　　and Remington, the cowboy was the Christian knight on the Plains, indifferent to material gain as he

　　upheld virtue, pursued justice, and attacked evil.

　　Needless to say, the western myth in all its forms was far removed from the actual reality of the West. Critics delighted in pointing out that no one scene in The Virginian actually showed the hard physical labor of the cattle range. The idealized version of the West also glossed over the darker underside of frontier expansion — the brutalities of Indian warfare, the forced removal of the Indians to reservations, the racist discrimination against Mexican-Americans and blacks, the risks and perils of commercial agriculture and cattle growing, and the boom-and-bust mentality rooted in the selfish exploitation of natural resources.

　　51. Which of the following is probably the main reason for the author to mention Theodore Roosevelt, Frederic Remington and Owen Wister?

　　A. They glorified the frontier life.

　　B. They were constrained by the genteel urban world.

　　C. They spent much time in the West.

　　D. They were famous members of the eastern establishment.

　　52. Which of the following statements best describes The Virginian!

　　A. It is the best Western movie ever made in Hollywood.

　　B. It is a popular novel written by Own Wister and Theodore Roosevelt.

　　C. It gives an accurate depiction of the frontier experience.

　　D. It is one of the most successful books about the West.

　　53. According to the passage, which of the following statements regarding the myth of the West is NOT true?

　　A. In one idealized view, the West was a place one can escape from society and its pressures.

　　B. In one version of the myth, western frontiersman was depicted as a figure deeply immersed in society and its concerto.

　　C. Some writers portrayed the western wilderness as a simple and innocent society.

　　D. The extreme hardship of the frontier life is one powerful theme of the legendary West.

　　54. The author’s primary purpose in writing the passage is •

　　A. to perpetuate the myth about the West

　　B. to introduce the famous writers and painters of the West

　　C. to distinguish the myth of the West and the actual reality

　　D. to present the brutalities of Indian warfare

　　55. What s probably the reason for people to make up a legendary West?

　　A. They liked to make up stories.

　　B. They believed what they portrayed were the actual reality.

　　C. They clung to the myth of the West as an uncomplicated, untainted Eden of social simplicity, and moral clarity in an era of unsettling social transformation.

　　D. They wanted to make profit by luring people to the West.

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