A really noble person

Maupassant (1850~1893) was one of the greatest critical realist writers in the world. During his brief life, Maupassant created six novels and more than 350 medium forms. His literary achievement relied heavily on his short stories, such as necklace, suet ball, beautiful friend, etc. As one of three “kings of world short story”, Maupassant produced a great effect on the later word literature. Maupassant won world renown for suet ball, which was his maiden work. Suet ball was created based on a true story happened at the war between French and Prussia.

Suet ball, a humble prostitute, was the heroine of the story. In 1870, several French tried to flee from enemy-occupied area by cottage. Unfortunately, they were detained by a Prussia officer. The officer didn’t let them leave unless suet ball agreed to sleep with him for a night. Out of her patriotism, suet ball gave him a point-blank refusal. However, in order to leave that area, other French, the so-called nobles, flattered suet ball, prayed her to sleep with that officer. Suet ball was so kind that she made a sacrifice for them. Next morning, when suet ball got into the cottage, the nobles, who still smiled at her yesterday, altered their attitudes to suet ball totally. They stayed away from her, cast contemptuous sights at her, and even disdained talking with her. In their eyes, the nasty prostitute wasn’t useful any

more.

Through the sharp comparison between suet ball and the so-called nobles, Maupassant put the evil, shamelessness, greed and hypocrisy of the aristocracy in the spotlight, and paid a tribute to the people of lower class for their goodness and patriotism. The so-called nobles were selfish and greedy; they paid their attention to nothing but wealth. So it was impossible for them to concern about the future of their motherland and national honor. When they can take advantage of you, they flattered you, served you like you were god; when they used up you, they discarded you like rubbish. It was just the evil soul that brought power, wealth and status to the nobles. However, suet ball, the prostitute of the lower class, behaved like a real noble person. She returned good for evil: though the nobles humiliated her, she still shared her food with them. She refused to sleep with that officer, because she thought it was a betrayal of her motherland to sell her body to enemy. At that critical time, suet ball showed her patriotism and national honor. To help her compatriots, she would rather sacrifice herself. Suet ball was humbly born, but her soul was noble.

In my opinion, the several nobles were disgusting, humble, no matter how much wealth they had, how powerful they were. Suet ball was noble and gracious, though she was a prostitute. Suet ball

helped me to realize that a man with a noble soul is a real noble person.

第二篇：功夫熊猫 英文读后感

Review on the movie “Kung Fu Panda”

Do you understand what the culture is? As for us, culture seems to be an abstract concept. In fact, culture is the total way of life that a group of people shares. A group of people existing in the different places live their lives, creating their own culture day by day. The world is so big that different countries have different culture. For example, Chinese culture is different from American culture. That’s what I want to show on the review on the movie “Kung Fu Panda”.

“Kung Fu Panda”, an American action comedy movie, is about an awkward panda Po, whose ambition is to be a Kung-fu master. Many people find it very interesting for the reason that Po is funny character in this movie and he brings lots of joy to the audience.

From my perspective, this movie can serve as the combination of eastern culture as well as western culture, especially the combination of Chinese culture and American culture. “Kung Fu Panda” is made by American but based on the ancient China, full of elements of Chinese culture, such as the scenes and costumes. Meanwhile, panda is known as the national treasure of China and yet acts as the main character of the American movie. Plus, it is also the crash of Chinese culture and American culture. Although its elements feature Chinese unique style, but what the movie really wants to show to audiences is the American spirit.

By watching it carefully, we can find the culture differences in values, thoughts and thinking patterns from the details.

For instance, Americans tend to place themselves on the first place, in favor of the individualist. However, Chinese people have a tendency to place their team on the first place, supporting the collectivism. Apparently, there is a significant contrast presenting. In the end of movie, Po defeated Tai Lung by himself. Yet, if it were made by Chinese, Po would have beaten Tai Lung with the help of five Kung-fu masters at last. And then, we can find the same difference from other movie “Hua Mulan”, made by Disney.

In the mean time, there are also some differences in belief between Chinese and American. Po believes in Master Shifu, revealing that American have beliefs. Americans have a preference for believing in Christianity. On the contrary, frankly speaking, most Chinese are lacking in belief or faith but prefer to believe in intuition Just take me as an example. I don’t belief in religion and always believe in my own intuition.

With the development of economic globalization , communication and cooperation among lots of countries become frequent .More importantly, we all should pay more attention to culture .Only by understanding what the culture is can we know more about culture difference .Culture is the total accumulation of belief, customs，values，behaviors，institution and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable group of people. As for us,

university students, whose majors are English, we are supposed to learn more bout culture differences