Meaning

1. What two ways of breaking a horse does Lincoln Steffens describe?

2. How did Steffens regard his sisters? Why do you think they were so content to do his bedding? Would girls of today act the same way?

3. Why did he prefer his father’s method of punishment to his mother’s?

Method

1. Why do you suppose Steffens included this narrative in his Autobiography? Was it to show an important event in his boyhood, or was it to show what the possession of the colt taught him? Explain your answers.

2. Steffens says he “learned what tyranny is and the pain of being misunderstood and wronged, or, if you please, understood and set right: they are pretty much the same.” Is he correct? Explain your answer.

3. The incidents narrated in this chapter from Lincoln Steffens’s Autobiography took several months to occur. Nevertheless, the narrative moves at a fast pace. How do Steffens’s vocabulary and sentence structure help achieve this pace?

Language: idioms

G.Antrushina states, that idioms (phraeological units,) as they are called by most western scholars, represent what can probably be described as the most picturesque, colourful and expressive part of the language's vocabulary.

Phraseology is a kind of picture gallery in which are collected vivid and amusing sketches of the nation's customs, traditions and prejudices, recollections of its past history, scraps of folk songs and fairy-tales. Quotations from great poets are preserved here alongside the dubious pearls of philistine wisdom and crude slang witticisms, for phraseology is not only the most colourful but probably the most democratic area of vocabulary and draws its resources mostly from the very depths of popular speech.

So, idioms are expressions in a language that are unique to that language and cannot easily be translated into another language - for example, to put up with. Some idioms are not even grammatically correct, but they have become acceptable through use.

The title of the selection you have just read contains the idiom break in. Look up break in in a dictionary. Write a sentence for at least eight of the idiomatic phrases. You will find at the end of the entry for break.

Discovering Rhetorical Strategies

1. What tone did L.Steffens establish in his autobiography? What is his reaction towards creating this particular tone? What is your reaction to it?

2. What words did the L.Steffens use to describe the horse?

3. What did the colt meant to the author? Explain your answer.

Composition

If you have ever trained an animal, write an essay explaining exactly what you set out do, the step-by-step training program, and the new results of your efforts. If you have not, write about how you learned to do something - such as skate, swim, or ride a bicycle.

Susan sontag (born 1933)

S.Sontag is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and film director who is one of America's foremost social commentators. She was born in New York City and raised in Arizona and California. She studied at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago, earning her B.A. degree at the age of eighteen. After doing graduate work in philosophy at Harvard, she worked as a teacher and writer-in-residence at several universities. Her first important publication was Against Interpretation, and Other Essays (1966), which established Sontag as an influential critic and cultural analyst. The autobiographical Trip to Hanoi (1968) followed, then Styles of Radical Will (1969). Her prose fiction includes two novels, The Benefactor (1963) and Death Kit (1967), and a collection of stories entitled I, etcetera (1978). She has also written and directed several films. One of Sontag's best-known books is On Photography (1977), a systematic inquiry into the source and meaning of visual imagery.

In the following essay, the author uses already established critical tools of literary analysis, linguistics, and philosophy to help describe the effect of modern art and photography on viewers. It is taken from Sontag’s book AIDS. As you begin to read this essay, take a few minutes to consider what you know about AIDS:

• What facts do you know about the disease? How do different people respond to those suffering from the virus? Are you afraid of being infected?

• Do you think your government is doing enough to help prevent the spread of this disease and to find a cure? When do you think a cure will be found?