Wu Ting
How would you interpret this phrase?
How would you interpret this phrase ‘all that was happening was without interest or relation’ in the last sentence?
I think it means the pain was so severe that he had no interest in everything, right?
Thanks. It’s from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Chapter 9).
The captain waved to me. They lifted me and the blanket-flap went across my face as we went out. Outside the sergeant-adjutant knelt down beside me where I lay, "Name?" he asked softly. "Middle name? First name? Rank? Where born? What class? What corps?" and so on. "I'm sorry for your head, Tenente. I hope you feel better. I'm sending you now with the English ambulance."
"I'm all right," I said. "Thank you very much." The pain that the major had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without interest or relation.
2016年4月25日 03:51
解答 · 5
Right - pain or shock was the cause. He failed to say "to me" at the end of "all that was happening was without interest or relation." I think Hemingway wrote this to reflect/emphasize the vague, foggy, rather blended or unfocused state of a patient in shock. A patient's English is rather blurred when experiencing pain (as said above by Joey) and shock, too. And Hemingway expected the reader to know this. As such, I think stylistic factors were the basis of writing this particularly detached or oblique statement.
2016年4月25日
That sounds about right-- he means that the pain is so severe that it's hard to focus on anything else, so the conversation seems uninteresting and distant.
2016年4月25日
還沒找到你要的答案嗎？
寫下你的問題，讓母語者來幫助你！
