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  3. American mythology loves nothing more than the reluctant hero: the man whose natural talents have destined him for more than obl

American mythology loves nothing more than the reluctant hero: the man whose natural talents have destined him for more than obl

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问题    American mythology loves nothing more than the reluctant hero: the man whose natural talents have destined him for more than obliging obscurity. George Washington, we are told, was a leader who would have preferred to have been a farmer. Thomas Jefferson, a writer. Martin Luther King, Jr., a preacher. These men were roused from lives of perfunctory achievement, our legends have it, not because they chose their own exceptionalism, but because we, the people, chose it for them. We—seeing greatness in them that they were too humble to observe themselves—conferred on them uncommon paths. Historical circumstance became its own call of duty, and the logic of democracy proved itself through the answer.
   Neil Armstrong was a hero of this stripe: constitutionally humble, circumstantially noble. Nearly every obituary written for him this weekend has made a point of emphasizing his sense of privacy, his sense of humility, his sense of the ironic ordinary. And yet every aspect of Armstrong’ s life made clear: On that day in 1969, he acted on our behalf, out of a sense of mission that was communal rather than personal. The reluctant hero is also the self-sacrificing hero.
   And so Armstrong was an icon fit for America’ s particular predilections : one who made history, yet one who recognized the ultimate contingency of his own history-making. One who, Washington-like, preferred quiet retirement over continued fame. "Nothing is more typical of Armstrong, or more estimable," Anthony Lane put it, " than his decision not to go into politics; heaven knows what the blandishments, or the invitations, must have been. And Armstrong, by dint of being the first man to tread not upon terra firma but upon the gray dust of terra incognita, rose above the fray and stayed there."
   And so Armstrong’ s loss is not merely a loss for all the obvious reasons, but also because it signals a small shift in American mythology. If Armstrong’ s was the age of the reluctant hero,ours is the age of adamant heroism. Our icons strive and struggle and seek. Our familiar figures are people who, whether or not their talents entitle them to it, explicitly sought their own fame.
   That is largely to the good. It means a democratic culture, a culture where systematized notions of merit—based on race, based on class—dissolve into the broader cultural will. But it also means a shift in how we see success and ourselves as seekers of it. The tension Armstrong embodied so succinctly— publicity on the one hand, humility on the other—is dissipating. The humility factor is dissolving into a culture that often equates fame with power. Our current icons are less the people who have been called to duty, and more the people who have battled their way into it—the subjects, rather than the predicates, of their own greatness. The reluctant hero is diminishing. Armstrong’ s passing signals an end to that myth.
The transit in American mythology could be reflected in______.
选项 A、the loss of all the apparent reasons
B、the reluctant age of hero
C、American’ s talents in struggle
D、American’ s attitude towards heroism
答案D
解析 本题是一道细节信息理解题。根据题干中的“in American mythology(在美国神话中)”可以把本题的答案信息来源迅速且精准地确定在第四段首句。但是，由于第四段首句未对“shift(转变；=transit)”进行具体的解释，所以判定本题的具体答案信息来源就在第四段第二句“If Armstrong’s was the age of the reluctant hero，ours is the age of adamant heroism．(如果阿姆斯特朗的年代属于不情愿的英雄，我们的年代就属于决绝的英雄主义。)”由此推断，选项D“American’s attitude towards heroism．(美国人对英雄主义的态度。)”应该是本题的正确答案。解答本题时，首先要抓住题干中的核心词语，例如本题题干中的“American mythology”，否则就会失去寻找答案信息的线索和方向。
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