2015考研英语阅读美国南方的家务_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读美国南方的家务

　　Domestic work in the South

　　美国南方的家务

　　The Help, updated

　　升级的帮佣

　　Maids are no longer servants

　　帮佣不再是仆人

　　UNDER segregation, black women were so rigidlyexcluded from good jobs that 60% of those whowere employed in 1940 worked as maids. With so few other choices, their wages were lousy andtheir white bosses could treat them abysmally. In Kathryn Stockett s novel The Help, set inthe early 1960s, a black maid is fired for using an indoor toilet rather than braving a tornado touse the outhouse; her revenge, involving a chocolate pie, is not for the squeamish.

　　在种族隔离的时代，黑人妇女被严格地排除在好工作之外。在1940 年，那些得到工作机会的有60%从事女佣的工作。由于几乎没有其他的选择，他们的工资极低此外她们还可能遭受白人雇主的极坏对待。在凯瑟琳斯多克特的小说《帮助》中，她讲述了一个发生于上世纪60年代早期的故事。一个黑人女佣由于在龙卷风肆虐的时候使用了室内卫生间而不是世外卫生间而被解雇。她用一个巧克力派进行报复，这并不是由于她太过于生气。

　　Times have changed. In 1935, six out of ten urban white families above the poverty line in theSouth had a full-time domestic servant, compared with under 20% in the North. Now hardlyanyone does. People who want help with the housework typically hire cleaners for a few hours aweek, not as live-in flunkeys with whom they pretend to have a warm relationship. A cleanerarrives, blitzes the house with a Hoover and various chemicals and drives to the next job.Employers are less likely to be paternalistic and more likely to be absent, since women now holdhalf the jobs in America.