The subject in Unit 2 is ‘What, Me? Showing Off?’ When I read the passage between paragraph 1 and paragraph 6, I have some problems.
In paragraph 1, I find a sentence is interesting, which is ‘she expresses such anguish at the anguish of mankind that attention quickly shifts from the moral issues she is expounding to how very, very, very deeply she cares about them.’ In this sentence, it has two ‘anguish and three ‘very’. Anguish means ‘extreme unhappiness caused by physical or mental suffering’. The second ‘anguish’ is stand for mankind’s anguish, the first one is stand for the intense young woman’s anguish because of mankind’s anguish. The repetition of ‘very’ show that she shifts their attention to her from the moral issues, she wants to express that she pays much attention to the moral issues.
In paragraph 3, there is a sentence---‘Down at the other end of the room a scholarly fellow has just used “angst”, “Kierkegaard”, “epistemology” in the same sentence.’ It has three new words----“angst”, “Kierkegaard” and “epistemology”. ‘Angst’ means ‘strong anxiety and unhappiness, especially about personal problems’, ‘epistemology’ means ‘the part of philosophy that is about the study of how we know things’, but I can’t find what the meaning of ‘Kierkegaard’ is. I think the fellow uses them to show off his knowledge, emphasizing his scholarship.
In paragraph 2, 4 and 6, there is a common point, which is ‘somebody is showing off.’ Somebody stands for the intense young woman, a scholarly fellow, a resident expert, the author and her husband. In paragraph 1, 3 and 5, the author gives us some examples. Then the author makes some conclusions. I think the author wants to show that kinds of people need to show off.
