Unit 3 Inventors and inventions using language课时作业

Ⅰ.阅读理解

　　A

　　Can you believe that there used to be a consensus in society that opposed the writing of novels by authoresses? Clearly this restriction must have operated at a time when there was no equality of opportunity for women. Amazingly, it was a generally held view only 100 years ago in England. In a strange contradiction, this period produced a couple of most courageous and gifted authoresses. Here are three of them.

　　Jane Austen(1775­1817)

　　All of the six completed novels of Jane Austen dealt with the problems and limitations of women's choices. At her time, the only respectable "career" for a woman was to marry, so the dilemma of her heroines' was also to marry but for love. Besides the content, the appeal of her works also lies in her refreshingly light and ironic style.

　　Charlotte Bronte(1816­1855)

　　Charlotte Bronte's novels were revolutionary for the explicit way they described women struggling against their restricted roles in society. Her heroines are outspoken in expressing their feelings, while demonstrating honesty and conscience in their choices. Her novel, JaneEyre, published under a man's name, was very successful when it came out. The book was a revelation after the more reserved feelings expressed in Jane Austen's novels.

　　George Eliot(1819­1880)

　　Her novels examined the morally ambiguous concessions people made in their lives in order to succeed. In one of her books, SilasMarner, the hero discovers a little girl rejected by her own father. Her father did so for fear of losing his second wife's love-a mistake for which the couple both suffer.

　　篇章导读：本文是一篇说明文。文章向读者介绍了100年前英格兰的三位著名的女作家的小说及其风格。

1．Why does the author describe the authoresses as "courageous"？