Edgar Alan Poe was and is an abnormal figure among the major American writers of his period. It seems to have been true of Poe that no one could look at him without seeing more than they would wish.
Poe published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket in 1838, his only novel. Its importance is suggested by the fact that his major work comes after it. The Narrative’s shortcomings are sometimes considered to be the fact that it was written for money, as it surely was, and as almost everything else Poe wrote was also. This is not exceptional among writers anywhere, though in the case of Poe it is often treated as if his having done so were disgraceful. Be that as it may, the Narrative makes its way to a peak as strange and powerful as anything to be found in his greatest tales.
The word that reoccurs most importantly in Poe’s fictions is horror. His stories are often shaped to bring the narrator and the reader to a place where the use of the word is reasonable, where the word and the experience it arouses are explored or by implication defined. Perhaps it is because Poe’s tales test the limits of mental health and good manners that he is both popular and criticized.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym has the grand scale of the nineteenth-century voyage of discovery, and a different and larger scale in the suggestions that appear as the voyage goes on. The Narrative is frequently compared with Moby-Dick, published thirteen years later, after Poe’s death. Poe uses whiteness as a highly ambiguous symbol, by no means to be interpreted as purity or holiness or by association with any other positive value. There is blackness, too, in The Narrative, specifically associated with the populations that live in the regions nearest the South Pole. The native people in Tasmania, the island south of Australia, were said by explorers and settlers to be black, and were in any case, with the word “black,” swept into the large category of those related to displacement, exploitation, and worse.
Something very like the occupation of Kentucky by white settlers lies behind the events that bring Pym to the far-sighted conclusion of his narrative. In the early years of the nineteenth century the British began what made the native people of Tasmania die out, who had tried to resist white invasion of their island. Such occupations were, of course, a major business of Europeans, or whites, almost everywhere in the world at the time Poe wrote. They, were boasted of as progress. It would have required unusual sensibility in Poe to have taken a different, very dark view of the phenomenon. But he was an unusual man. And the horror that fascinated him and gave such dreadful unity to his tales is often the unavoidable, conflict of the self by a perfect justice, the exposure of a guilty act in a form that makes its reveal a falling back of the mind against itself.
Young Pym is simply telling a story of a kind popular at the time, a voyage adventure lived out beyond the farthest reaches of exploration. The story is disturbed by its own deeper tendencies, the rising through this surface of the kind of recognition that must find expression in another form of literature. As his ship approaches the region of the South Pole, Pym notes the mildness of the climate, coolly listing the resources of the islands, which were assumed by such voyagers to be there for the taking.
If The Narrative were a conventional story, the immense roar and the towering flames might attract the notice of a passing sail—and there would be no need for a note explaining its lacking an ending. But the force of the narrative carries it beyond the fate of individuals, toward an engagement with a reality beyond any temporary human drama.
【语篇解读】本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了十九世纪美国诗人、小说家和文学评论家埃德加•爱伦•坡的著名小说《The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket》的主要内容和写作特点。这本书描述了19世纪航海大发现年代最后的黑暗现实，一切事物都不是看上去的样子。爱伦坡给我们展示的人性中黑暗的一面。
61. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 mean?
A. Allan Poe was a famous America writer of his period.
B. People expect too much of the American writer—Alan Poe.
C. Unlike other writers, Allan Poe is a unique and unusual writer.
D. People think Poe is a popular novelist like other famous writers.
【答案】C
【解析】句意猜测题。根据本句“no one could look at him without seeing more than they would wish.”如果人们不超过自己所希望去理解他，也就没有人能够明白他。也就是说他的作品超出了人们能够理解的范围，他是一个很独特的作家。故C项正确。
62. Which of the following can describe the characteristic of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym?
A. Poverty is the main theme of the novel. B. The novel is full of justice elements.
C. Blackness can possibly be felt in the novel. D. Whiteness is the obvious symbol of the novel.
【答案】C
【解析】细节理解题。根据第四段倒数两句“There is blackness, too, in The Narrative, specifically associated with the populations that live in the regions nearest the South Pole. The native people in Tasmania, the island south of Australia…”可知在这本书里描述了19世纪航海大发现年代最后的黑暗现实。一切事物都不是看上去的样子。准备充足的食物会被吃完或隐藏，船员可能会哗变，朋友可能会背叛，茫茫大海唯一看似救援的船里实际上装满了恶臭腐尸，几个没有食物的人为了不被饿死集体吃其中一个人的人肉，表面上热情友好的野人实际上是凶残的杀人狂魔……爱伦坡给我们展示的人性中黑暗的一面。故C项正确。
63. Which of the following might be taken from the novel The Narrative?
A. “One of these adventures was related by way of introduction to a longer narrative.”
B. “Gordon Pym’s father was a respectable trader at Nantucket, where Pym was born.”
C. “The wind, as I before said, blew freshly from the southwest. The night was very cold.”
D. “Pym at length hit upon the idea of working on the terrors and guilty conscience of the mate.”
【答案】C
【解析】推理判断题。根据文章倒数第二段最后一句“As his ship approaches the region of the South Pole, Pym notes the mildness of the climate, coolly listing the resources of the islands, which were assumed by such voyagers to be there for the taking.”可知当他们到达南极的时候，感受到温和的气候，但是仍然有阵阵寒意。C项“The wind, as I before said, blew freshly from the southwest. The night was very cold.”与上下文语境一致。故C项正确。
64. Which of the following statements is True according to the passage?
A. The Narrative is an adventurous story written in a conventional way.
B. The Narrative is considered one of Alan Poe’s famous novels.
C. Allan Poe was misunderstood to write The Narrative for money.
D. Readers might not understand why The Narrative ended so abruptly.
【答案】D
【解析】推理判断题。根据文章最后一段第一句If The Narrative were a conventional story, the immense roar and the towering flames might attract the notice of a passing sail—and there would be no need for a note explaining its lacking an ending.可知这个故事没有结尾，突然就结束了，这是很多人无法理解的。故D项正确。