名篇背诵：My Mother 我的母亲

My Mother 我的母亲

艾丽丝·沃克(Alice Walker)

In the late 1920s my mother ran away from home to marry my father. Marriage, if not running away, was expected of seventeen-year-old girls. By the time she was twenty, she had two children and was pregnant with a third. Five children later, I was born. And this is how I came to know my mother:she seemed a large, soft, loving-eyed woman who was rarely impatient in our home.Her quick, violent temper was on view only a few times a year, when she battled with the white landlord who had the misfortune to suggest to her that her children did not need to go to school.

She made all the clothes we wore, even my brothers' overalls. She made all the towels and sheets we used. She spent the summers canning vegetables and fruits. She spent the winter evenings making quilts enough to cover all our beds.

During the “working” day, she labored beside — not behind — my father in the fields. Her day began before sunup, and did not end until late at night. There was never a moment for her to sit down, undisturbed, to unravel her own private thoughts; never a time free from interruption — by work or the noisy inquiries of her many children. And yet, it is to my mother — and all our mothers who were not famous — that I went in search of the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated , but vibrant , creative spirit that the black woman has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day.

- unravel [ʌnˈrævl] v. 清理，梳理

- muzzled [ˈmʌzld] a. 被抑制的

- mutilated [ˈmjuːtɪleɪtɪd] a. 被弄得残缺不全的

- vibrant [ˈvaɪbrənt] a. 生机勃勃的

在20世纪20年代后期，我母亲离家出走嫁给了我的父亲。如果不离家出走，17岁的姑娘也该结婚成家了。到20岁的时候，她有了两个孩子，正怀着第三个。生了五个孩子之后，我出生了。我就是这样渐渐了解母亲的：她似乎个头很高，很温柔，眼睛里充满慈爱，在家里很少不耐烦。一年难得有那么几次看到她使性子，大发脾气，那是当她和白人房东斗争的时候，那房东自讨没趣，向她建议说她的孩子没有必要上学。

我们穿的所有的衣服都是她做的，甚至我哥哥们的工装裤。她制作了我们所使用的所有的毛巾和床单褥单。夏天，她忙着装蔬菜水果罐头。冬夜，她缝制被子，足够全家的铺盖。

在“工作”日，她在我父亲的旁边——而不是后边——在田里劳作。每天，她在日出前就开始忙碌，直到夜里很晚才停歇。她没有片刻能坐下来休息，不受干扰，去梳理自己的种种心事；没有一点不受打断的自由时间——被工作打断或被吵吵闹闹打断。但是，正是为了我的母亲——还有所有默默无闻的母亲——我去探索这个秘密，那就是是什么支撑着黑人妇女所继承的压抑、残缺，但却充满生机、富有创造性的精神，直到今天，这种精神在荒芜的、条件恶劣的地方依然勃发着。

艾丽丝·沃克(1944—　)，美国黑人女小说家、诗人、散文家、批评家，出生于美国佐治亚州。八岁时她哥哥无意中射瞎了她一只眼睛。

她是第一个黑人女性赢得普利策奖小说奖的作家，获奖作品是她的长篇小说《紫色》（The Color Purple）。《紫色》讲述了一个黑人女性的生活经历，探讨了种族、阶级和性别问题。这部作品被普遍认为是美国现代文学的经典之一，也被拍摄成了一部备受称赞的电影。

她获多种奖项，主要作品有：《一次》(Once ，1976)，《格兰奇·科普兰的第三次生命》(The Third Life of Grange Copeland ，1970)，《恋爱与麻烦中：黑人妇女故事》(In Love & Trouble：Stories of Black Women ，1973)，《搜索母亲的花园：女权主义散文集》(In Search of Our Mother's Garden：Womanist Prose ，1983)，《马使山水更显美丽》(Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful ，1985)等。

除了文学作品，沃克也是一位活跃的社会活动家，她参与了许多社会运动，包括女权主义、反种族歧视和和平运动等。