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Loojka Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary
A few clarifications needed
Hello, everybody!
I would be grateful if someone could help me understand a few parts from this text:
"Martin had never done anything like that in his life before. He didn't even kill flies in the house, instead he patiently stalked them, trapping them with a glass and a plate before letting them free. The meek shall inherit the earth (1). He was fifty and had never knowingly committed an act of violence against another living creature, although sometimes he thought that might be more to do with cowardice than pacifism.
He had stood in the queue, waiting for someone else to intervene in the scene unfolding before them, but the crowd were in audience mode, like promenaders at a particularly brutal piece of theatre (2), and they had no intention of spoiling the entertainment. Even Martin had wondered at first if it was another show - a faux-impromptu (3) piece intended either to shock or to reveal our immunity to being shocked because we lived in a global media community where we had become passive voyeurs of violence (and so on). That was the line of thought running through the detached, intellectual part of his brain. His primitive brain, on the other hand, was thinking, Oh, this is horrible, really horrible, please make the bad man go away. He wasn't surprised to hear his father's voice in his head (Pull yourself together, Martin). His father had been dead for many years but Martin often still heard the bellow and yell of his parade-ground tones. (4)
When the Honda driver finished breaking the windows of the silver Peugeot and walked towards the driver, brandishing his weapon and preparing himself for a final victory blow, Martin realised that the man on the ground was probably going to die, was probably going to be killed by the crazed man with the bat right there in front of them unless someone did something and, instinctively, without thinking about it at all - because if he'd thought about it he might not have done it - he slipped his bag off his shoulder and swung it, hammer-throw fashion, at the head of the insane Honda driver.
He missed the man's head, which didn't surprise him - he'd never been able to aim or catch, he was the kind of person who ducked when a ball was thrown in his direction - but his laptop was in the bag and the hard weighty edge of it caught the Honda driver on the shoulder and sent him spinning. (5)
The nearest Martin had been to a real crime scene previously had been on a Society of Authors' trip around St Leonard's police station. Apart from Martin, the group consisted entirely of women. 'You're our token man (6),' one of them said to him, and he sensed a certain disappointment in the polite laughter of the others, as if the least he could have done as their token man was to be a little less like a woman.
Martin expected the Honda driver to pick himself up off the ground and search the crowd to find the culprit who had thrown a missile at him. Martin tried to make himself an anonymous figure in the queue, tried to pretend he didn't exist. He closed his eyes. He had done that at school when he was bullied, clinging to an ancient, desperate magic - they wouldn't hit him if he couldn't see them. He imagined the Honda driver walking towards him, the baseball bat raised high, the arc of annihilation (7) waiting to happen.
To his amazement, when he opened his eyes, the Honda driver was climbing back into his car. As he drove away a few people in the crowd gave him a slow hand-clap. Martin wasn't sure if they were expressing disapproval of the Honda driver's behaviour or disappointment at his failure to follow through. Whichever, they were a hard crowd to please.
Martin knelt on the ground and said, 'Are you OK?' to the Peugeot driver, but then he was politely but firmly set aside by the two policewomen who arrived and took control of everything."
(1) Does this mean "Those who are meek will prevail in the future?"
(2) This is absolutely confusing to me. What is "brutal piece of theatre" supposed to mean and what do promenaders have to do with it?
(3) Does this mean "a show that was actually fake and wasn't prepared in advance, but was rather spontaneous"?
(4) Tones that can be heard during a parade (loud, roaring)?
(5) Caused him to fall on the ground and start rotating?
(6) I know what token is, but "token man"?
(7) I have absolutely no idea what this means.
Thank you very much for your help.
I would be grateful if someone could help me understand a few parts from this text:
"Martin had never done anything like that in his life before. He didn't even kill flies in the house, instead he patiently stalked them, trapping them with a glass and a plate before letting them free. The meek shall inherit the earth (1). He was fifty and had never knowingly committed an act of violence against another living creature, although sometimes he thought that might be more to do with cowardice than pacifism.
He had stood in the queue, waiting for someone else to intervene in the scene unfolding before them, but the crowd were in audience mode, like promenaders at a particularly brutal piece of theatre (2), and they had no intention of spoiling the entertainment. Even Martin had wondered at first if it was another show - a faux-impromptu (3) piece intended either to shock or to reveal our immunity to being shocked because we lived in a global media community where we had become passive voyeurs of violence (and so on). That was the line of thought running through the detached, intellectual part of his brain. His primitive brain, on the other hand, was thinking, Oh, this is horrible, really horrible, please make the bad man go away. He wasn't surprised to hear his father's voice in his head (Pull yourself together, Martin). His father had been dead for many years but Martin often still heard the bellow and yell of his parade-ground tones. (4)
When the Honda driver finished breaking the windows of the silver Peugeot and walked towards the driver, brandishing his weapon and preparing himself for a final victory blow, Martin realised that the man on the ground was probably going to die, was probably going to be killed by the crazed man with the bat right there in front of them unless someone did something and, instinctively, without thinking about it at all - because if he'd thought about it he might not have done it - he slipped his bag off his shoulder and swung it, hammer-throw fashion, at the head of the insane Honda driver.
He missed the man's head, which didn't surprise him - he'd never been able to aim or catch, he was the kind of person who ducked when a ball was thrown in his direction - but his laptop was in the bag and the hard weighty edge of it caught the Honda driver on the shoulder and sent him spinning. (5)
The nearest Martin had been to a real crime scene previously had been on a Society of Authors' trip around St Leonard's police station. Apart from Martin, the group consisted entirely of women. 'You're our token man (6),' one of them said to him, and he sensed a certain disappointment in the polite laughter of the others, as if the least he could have done as their token man was to be a little less like a woman.
Martin expected the Honda driver to pick himself up off the ground and search the crowd to find the culprit who had thrown a missile at him. Martin tried to make himself an anonymous figure in the queue, tried to pretend he didn't exist. He closed his eyes. He had done that at school when he was bullied, clinging to an ancient, desperate magic - they wouldn't hit him if he couldn't see them. He imagined the Honda driver walking towards him, the baseball bat raised high, the arc of annihilation (7) waiting to happen.
To his amazement, when he opened his eyes, the Honda driver was climbing back into his car. As he drove away a few people in the crowd gave him a slow hand-clap. Martin wasn't sure if they were expressing disapproval of the Honda driver's behaviour or disappointment at his failure to follow through. Whichever, they were a hard crowd to please.
Martin knelt on the ground and said, 'Are you OK?' to the Peugeot driver, but then he was politely but firmly set aside by the two policewomen who arrived and took control of everything."
(1) Does this mean "Those who are meek will prevail in the future?"
(2) This is absolutely confusing to me. What is "brutal piece of theatre" supposed to mean and what do promenaders have to do with it?
(3) Does this mean "a show that was actually fake and wasn't prepared in advance, but was rather spontaneous"?
(4) Tones that can be heard during a parade (loud, roaring)?
(5) Caused him to fall on the ground and start rotating?
(6) I know what token is, but "token man"?
(7) I have absolutely no idea what this means.
Thank you very much for your help.
Top answer
Loojka The meek shall inherit the earth (1). This is a line from the Bible. It's part of the Sermon on the Mount.
- Loojka The meek shall inherit the earth (1).
- This is a line from the Bible.
- It's part of the Sermon on the Mount.
- Here, it's intended to show that Martin believed in pacifism.
- Loojka (2) This is absolutely confusing to me.
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3 Answers
0
LoojkaThe meek shall inherit the earth (1).This is a line from the Bible. It's part of the Sermon on the Mount. Here, it's intended to show that Martin believed in pacifism.
Loojka(2) This is absolutely confusing to me. What is "brutal piece of theatre" supposed to mean and what do promenaders have to do with it?"Brutal pi
00
Thank you a lot!0
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