首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old
admin
2017-04-20
35
问题
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old losers, junkies, cockroaches and rats. Whenever she left her room—a tiny cubicle with a cot, a chair, a seven-year-old calendar and a window so filthy it blended with the unspeakable walls—she would pack all her valuables in two large shopping bags and carry them with her. If she didn’t, everything would disappear when she left the hotel. Her "things" were also a burden. Everything she managed to possess was portable and had multiple uses. A shawl is more versatile than a sweater, and hats are no good at all, although she used to have lots of nice hats, she told me.
The first day I saw Letty I had left my apartment in search of a "bag lady". I had seen these women round the city frequently, had spoken to a few. Sitting around the parks had taught me more about these city vagabonds. As a group, few were eligible for social security. They had always been flotsam and jetsam, floating from place to place and from job to job—waitress, short order cook, sales clerk, stock boy, maid, mechanic, porter—all those jobs held by faceless people. The "bag ladies" were a special breed. They looked and acted and dressed strangely in some of the most determinedly conformist areas of the city. They frequented Fourteen Street downtown, and the fancy shopping districts. They seemed to like crowds but remained alone. They held long conversations with themselves, with telephone poles, with unexpected cracks in the sidewalk. They hung around lunch counters and cafeterias, and could remain impervious to the rudeness of a determined waitress and sit for hours clutching a coffee cup full of cold memories.
Letty was my representative bag lady. I picked her up on the corner of Fourteenth and Third Avenue. She had the most suspicious face I had encountered; her entire body, in fact, was pulled forward in one large question mark. She was carrying a double plain brown shopping bag and a larger white bag ordering you to vote for some obscure man for some obscure office and we began talking about whether or not she was an unpaid advertisement. I asked her if she would have lunch with me, and let me treat, as a matter of fact. After some hesitation and a few sharp glances over the top of her glasses, Letty the Bag Lady let me come into her life. We had lunch that day, the next, and later the next week.
Being a bag lady was a full-time job. Take the problem of the hotels. You can’t stay to long in any one of those welfare hotels, Letty told me, because the junkies figure out your routine, and when you get your checks, and you’ll be robbed, even killed. So you have to move a lot. And every time you move, you have to make three trips to the welfare office to get them to approve the new place, even if it’s just another cockroach-filled, rat-infested hole in the wall. During the last five years, Letty tried to move every two or three months.
Most of our conversations took place standing in line. New York State had just changed the regulations governing Medicaid cards and Letty had to get a new card. That took two hours in line, one hour sitting in a large dank-smelling room, and two minutes with a social worker who never once looked up. Another time, her case worker at the welfare office sent Letty to try and get food stamps, and after standing in line for three hours she found out she didn’t qualify because she didn’t have cooking facilities in her room. "This is my social life,"she said. "I run around the city and stand in line. You stand in line to see one of them fancy movies and calling it art; I stand in line for medicine, for food, for glasses, for the cards to get pills, for the pills; I stand in line to see people who never see who I am; at the hotel, sometimes I even have to stand in line to go to the John. When I die there’ll probably be a line to get through the gate, and when I get up to the front of the line, somebody will push it closed and say,’ Sorry. Come back after lunch. ’ These agencies, I figure they have to make it as hard for you to get help as they can, so only really strong people or really stubborn people like me can survive. "
Letty would talk and talk; sometimes, she didn’t seem to know I was even there. She never remembered my name, and would give a little start of surprise whenever I said hers, as if it had been a long time since anyone had said "Letty. " I don’t think she thought of herself as a person, anymore; I think she had accepted the view that she was a welfare case, a Mediaid card, a nuisance in the bus depot in the winter time, a victim to any petty criminal, existing on about the same level as cockroaches.
What is the author’s attitude towards Letty?
选项
A、Doubtful.
B、Detached.
C、Sympathetic.
D、Appreciative.
答案
C
解析
态度题。根据文章最后一段“She…would give a little start of surprise whenever I said hers,as if it had been a long time since anyone had said‘Letty.’I don’t think she thought of herself as a person,anymore…”可以推知,作者对Letty的遭遇是关切和同情的,故答案为[C]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/rLeMFFFM
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Lettytheoldladylivedina"SingleRoomOccupancy"hotelapprovedbytheNewYorkCitywelfaredepartmentandoccupiedbyold
Lettytheoldladylivedina"SingleRoomOccupancy"hotelapprovedbytheNewYorkCitywelfaredepartmentandoccupiedbyold
PASSAGEFOURWhatistheaimofpreparingpersonalizedgene-basedmedicine?
PASSAGEFOURWhydoscientistsexaminethegenomesofastronauts?
ThesteakhousemaybeAmerica’sgreatestsingleachievement.Sure,there’sthatConstitutioneveryone’ssoimpressedwith,andb
ThesteakhousemaybeAmerica’sgreatestsingleachievement.Sure,there’sthatConstitutioneveryone’ssoimpressedwith,andb
A、ItissetupbytheU.S.DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices.B、Theirworkislabor-intensive.C、Itaimstosavemoneyfo
随机试题
A、 B、 C、 B题干问的是这首歌是谁唱的。A选项说自己是个好歌手;C选项说索耶夫人的去向,均与题干无关。B选项说没听过这首歌,所以不知道歌手是谁,符合题意,故选B。
急性肾衰无尿或少尿早期,发生水中毒的常见原因是()
试述过敏性休克的抢救措施。
可以协助诊断输卵管妊娠破裂的检查项目是
以演示账套“云顺公司”为基础资料,进入演示账套“云顺公司”。新建报表,表页标识“01工资分配表”。添加表页,标识“02工资分配表”关键字:云顺,将表页锁定。
不同幼儿学习某一动作的具体时间不同,但是任何一个幼儿的动作的发展顺序是一致的,这体现了心理发展的()。
It’srelaxingtogetclosetonature________thebeauty.
人民代表大会是我国立法机关和国家权力机关,享有撤销法规、规章等规范性文件和人事罢免的权力,其监督权属于()监督权,因而具有极大的权威性。
先进性是马克思主义政党的生命所系、力量所在。党在新阶段的先进性是要靠千千万万高素质的党员在发展中国特色社会主义的具体实践中的先锋模范作用体现出来的。离开了党员的先进性。党的先进性就成了无源之水。在新的历史条件下共产党员保持和发展先进性要
Whydon’tbirdsgetlostontheirlongflightsfromoneplacetoanother?Scientistshavepuzzledoverthisquestionforalong
最新回复
(
0
)