（博主按：下面是我在80年代初读研期间写的一篇英语作文，经本所黄大闢先生批改过。他毕业于剑桥大学，英语很好。黄先生已仙逝，谨以此作文纪念他。Annie是我们当时英语课本中一篇短篇小说里的人物。）

My View of Annie

Annie was born in a work-class family. But all her behavior smelled of petit-bourgeois. It seems to me that her greatest desire in life was to raise herself up to a higher stratum. Every time she set her aspiration at a target not too high to attain; bue as soon as  it is reached, at once she would set another a little higher. She never felt satisfied. Besides fulfilling her aspiration , there was nothing else she cared.

At first she just wanted to lift herself out of her poverty-stricken family. Repressing the ideal that she should have a house equipped with beautiful furniture of her own besides getting a husband, she jumped at the chance of marrying Bob soon after their acquaitance. As a consequence of her mother-in-law’s death, she started to manage the house. One afternoon, when she was window shopping in a furniture store, her dream of refurbishing the house vevived. With a yielding and uxoriors huaband, her greed to grab what was there for her knew no limit. After nursing a period that taxed patience, she satisfied herself with selling the old furniture and replacing them with fashionable ones. Following the success, she managed to urge her husband to see Maud, intending to throw Old Thompson over to her. While he was away running her errand, she sold away the old man’s tall-backed chair too. Among a chain of events, these two were the last straw for Old Thompson. He uttered his wrath to his son and daughter-in-law: “I am waiting, just bidding my time till the good Lord decides to take me to her again. And you’ll just have to bide your time and wait for me."

I think the reason why readers are more often than not disgusted with Annie is that she just could not fobear to wait. Her eagerness to get things done is in itself blameless. (To digress a little, many of us who are faced with the task of accelerating “four modernizations” lack this kind of eagerness.)

Fortunately, Annie was not so base as to be devoid of all conscience. She did regret that she had sold the chair and her repentance would result in a better treatment of her father-in-law afterwards. After all, she should have realised that the world was not creted  for her alone.