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Stenka25 Posted 15 years ago
Vocabulary
What does "these" stand for?
The below is a paragraph from a treatise, "The self in social psychology."
In the paragraph what "these" represents seems not definite to me. In a way "these" seems "rage and impotent despair" in a paradoxical sense, and in another it seems to indicate "the cruelest bodily tortures" directly.
Could you tell me which?
A man’s social me is the recognition which he gets from his mates. We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met “cut us dead,”and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would well up in us, from which the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all.
In the paragraph what "these" represents seems not definite to me. In a way "these" seems "rage and impotent despair" in a paradoxical sense, and in another it seems to indicate "the cruelest bodily tortures" directly.
Could you tell me which?
A man’s social me is the recognition which he gets from his mates. We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met “cut us dead,”and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would well up in us, from which the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all.
Top answer
the cruelest bodily tortures
- the cruelest bodily tortures
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3 Answers
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Thanks for an immediate answer, Mister Micawber.
But to me,
If every person we met “cut us dead,”and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would well up in us, from which [=from a kind of rage and impotent despair] the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief;
for these would make us feel that, however bad might be
But to me,
If every person we met “cut us dead,”and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would well up in us, from which [=from a kind of rage and impotent despair] the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief;
for these would make us feel that, however bad might be
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Thanks, Mister Micawber.
You're right.
"for these (the tortures) would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight (=the tortures), we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all. That is, even someone who tortures us, at least, gives us attention.""
Thanks, again.
You're right.
"for these (the tortures) would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight (=the tortures), we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all. That is, even someone who tortures us, at least, gives us attention.""
Thanks, again.
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