2014英语四级听力练习慢速3.31(2)_大学英语听力

2014英语四级听力练习慢速3.31(2)

　　Peter Taylors book Summons to Memphis won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1985. The Tennessee writer explores how white middle and upper class southerners responded to changes in southern culture in the last century. The playwright Tennessee Williams examined some of the same social issues in his play The Glass Menagerie. In the play, a young woman named Laura has a collection of glass animals. She is a shy person and mostly stays home by herself. One day, her brother brings home a friend from work.

　　Isnt there something youre more interested in than anything else?

　　Well, I do have my glass collection.

　　Glass? What kind is it?

　　Just ornaments. Animals mostly.

　　Oh.

　　Heres an example of one if youd like to see it.

　　Sure. Well.

　　Be careful, if you breathe it breaks.

　　I better not touch it then. Im awful clumsy with things.

　　Well, I trust you with it.

　　Close to the Mississippi River and just south of the center of town is Beale Street, one of the most famous streets in America. W.C. Handy worked on Beale Street as a musician in the early 1900s. The African-American composer is known as the Father of the Blues.

　　In 1916, W.C. Handy wrote a song about the famous street. Here is Louis Armstrong singing Beale Street Blues.

　　More than 60 percent of the people in the city of Memphis are black. Memphis is home to the National Civil Rights Museum. Visitors learn about the history of the American civil rights movement. The museum buildings include the place where Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered.