The trial that rocked the world(高级英语第一册第十课)

The trial that rocked the world

1.main idea

John Scopes was a science teacher at a secondary school in Dayton. He was charged with teaching evolution and that was against the law. However, the trial became one of the most famous trials in the U.S. and he was convicted guilty.

After the trial, he went to study at the University of Chicago and later he became a geologist for an oil company. This article is intend to draw the world’s attention to the Evolution Theory and science will always win no matter how strong the hostility and opposition is.

2.style of text

The style is NARRATION (SROTYTELLING). There are three elements a narration( plot、characters and background).

Plot of text:

(1)Beginning: I was indicted on May 7, and my case became snowball.

(2)Climax: Bryan and Malone against with Darrow.

(3) Ending: The verdict was guilty. Called “victorious defeat”

Characters:( John Scopes 、William Jennings Bryan、Clarence Darrow 、Dudley Field Malone)

Background: (1) There are two types of American law: civil law and criminal law.

Civil law covers suits between individuals.

(2) Fundamentalism: conservative religious movement that arose among

members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent. its aim is to maintain traditional interpretations of the Bible and what believed to be the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Nowadays this word can apply to other religions.

(3) Darwin’s theory of evolution: All living forms, plants and animals, including

Man, have developed from earlier and simpler forms by processes of change and selection.

3. Language style

(1)Style is formal and persuasive by way of conversation.

(2) The description of the activities by different people outside the little court is so vivid, vigorous and lively.

(3)The writer makes use of many rhetorical device.

4. Rhetorical device

Hyperbole: It is the deliberation use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis.

E.g. The Trial that Rocked the World.

Sarcasm(it uses harsh or bitter derision or irony. A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting)

E.g. there is some doubt about that. (para.19)

Oxymoron(A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist):The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination of two words.

E.g. Dudley Field Malone called my conviction a “victorious defeat”. (para45) Transferred epithet:An epithet is an adjective (or phrase containing an adjective) or adverb which modifies (describes) a noun.

E.g. Darrow had whispered throwing a reassuring arm round my shoulder. (para2) Ridicule (unkind descriptions that intend to make someone or something stupid.): e.g. Bryan mopped his bald dome in silence. (35)

Synecdoche(an expression for a representative entity can stand for what is represented.) e.g. the case had erupted round my head… (para3)

5. Comments

The trial began with prayer by a local minister. This showed the close connection of the religion (Christianity) with the law. Among 12 jurors three had never read any book except the Bible. One couldn’t read. That showed the spread of science and truth no easy task. The struggles were between science and religion, culture and ignorance. Because the trial was concerned with the problem of intellectual and academic freedom, whose result would affect the whole country, even the whole world? The law and the legal procedure were dominated by religion.

In America, the teaching of any theory that is against the Bible would be considered the violation of the law. Judging from this, we can see that the law and legal procedure in the U.S. at that time were not sensible. We can’t take the Bible literally. Actually there is something inconsistent in it. It can be only being accepted as a religious book. It should not be defined as law and truth. people should learn to accept new changes and new things and they shouldn’t be blinded by ignorance.