First Listening
Please listen to a short passage carefully and prepare to answer some questions.
Perhaps being born into extreme poverty, having an unstable early family life and his mother’s mental illness helped Charlie Chaplin create “The Tramp”. Certainly Chaplin appeared to be a man with an exceptionally strong desire to succeed. Unusually, his personality combined a strong need to be loved with a contradictory distrust of people. Perhaps this is why his early marriages failed. When he was 54, he married a girl of 17 who provided him with the peaceful life he so desired. His bride, Oona O’Neill, coming from a large family, had the life skills from her own childhood that helped her comfort Chaplin when their own large family argued. ( 119 words )
Second Listening
Listen to the tape again. Then answer the following questions with your own experiences.
1. What disadvantages did Chaplin face early in his life and how did these perhaps help him later?
2. When it came to relationships, what main problem did his personality have and what results did this have?
3. What important role did Oona O’Neill play in his life?