2. 外语
  3. (1) Why make a film about Ned Kelly? More ingenious crimes than those committed by the reckless Australian bandit are reported e

(1) Why make a film about Ned Kelly? More ingenious crimes than those committed by the reckless Australian bandit are reported e

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问题    (1) Why make a film about Ned Kelly? More ingenious crimes than those committed by the reckless Australian bandit are reported every day. What is there in Ned Kelly to justify dragging the mesmeric Mick Jagger so far into the Australian bush and away from his natural haunts? The answer is that the film makers know we always fall for a bandit, and Jagger is set to do for bold Ned Kelly what Brando once did for the arrogant Emiliano Zapata.
   (2) A bandit inhabits a special realm of legend where his deeds are embroidered by others: where his death rather than his life is considered beyond belief: where the men who bring him to "justice" are afflicted with doubts about their role.
   (3) The bandits had a role to play as definite as that of the authorities who condemned them. These were men in conflict with authority, and, in the absence of strong law or the idea of loyal opposition, they took to the hills. Even there, however, many of them obeyed certain unwritten rules.
   (4) These robbers, who claimed to be something more than mere thieves, had in common, firstly, a sense of loyalty and identity with the peasants they came from. They didn’t steal the peasant’s harvest: they did steal the lord’s.
   (5) And certain characteristics seem to apply to "social bandits" whether they were in Sicily or Peru. They were generally young men under the age of marriage, predictably the best age for dissidence. Some were simply the surplus male population who had to look for another source of income: others were runaway serfs or ex-soldiers: a minority, though the most interesting, were outstanding men who were unwilling to accept the meek and passive role of peasant.
   (6) They usually operated in bands between ten and twenty strong and relied for survival on difficult terrain and bad transport. And bandits prospered best where authority was merely local—over the next hill and they were free. Unlike the general run of peasantry they had a taste for flamboyant dress and gesture: but they usually shared the peasants’ religious beliefs and superstitions.
   (7) The first sign of a man caught up in the Robin Hood syndrome was when he started out, forced into outlawry as a victim of injustice: and when he then set out to "right wrongs" , first his own and then other people’s. The classic bandit then "takes from the rich and gives to the poor" in conformity with his own sense of social injustice: he never kills except in self-defense or justifiable revenge: he stays within his community and even returns to it if he can to take up an honorable place: his people admire and help to protect him: he dies through the treason of one of them: he behaves as if invisible and invulnerable: he is a "loyalist" , never the enemy of the king but only of the local oppressors.
   (8) None of the bandits lived up fully to this image of the "noble robber" and for many the claim of larger motives was often a delusion.
   (9) Yet amazingly, many of these violent men did behave at least half the time in accordance with this idealist pattern. Pancho Villa in Mexico and Salvatore Giuliano in Italy began their careers harshly victimized. Many of their charitable acts later became legends.
   (10) Far from being defeated in death, bandits’ reputation for invincibility was often strengthened by the manner of their dying. The "dirty little coward" who shot Jesse James in the back is in every ballad about him, and the implication is that nothing else could have brought Jesse down. Even when the police claimed the credit, as they tried to do at first with Giuliano’s death, the local people refused to believe it. And not just the bandit’s vitality prompts the people to refuse to believe that their hero has died: his death would be in some way the death of hope.
   (11) For the traditional "noble robber" represents an extremely primitive form of social protest, perhaps the most primitive there is. He is an individual who refuses to bend his back, that is all. Most protesters will eventually be bought over and persuaded to come to terms with the official power. That is why the few who do not, or who are believed to have remained uncontaminated, have so great and passionate a burden of admiration and longing laid upon them. They cannot abolish oppression. But they do prove that justice is possible, that poor men need not be humble, helpless and meek.
   (12) The bandit in the real world is rooted in peasant society and when its simple agricultural system is left behind so is he. But the tales and legends, the books and films continue to appear for an audience that is neither peasant nor bandit. In some ways the characters and deeds of the great bandits could so readily be the stuff of grand opera—Don Jose in "Carmen" is based on the Andalusian bandit El Empranillo. But they are perhaps more at home in folk songs, in popular tales and the ritual dramas of films. When we sit in the darkness of the cinema to watch the bold deeds of Ned Kelly we are caught up in admiration for their strong individuality, their simple gesture of protest, their passion for justice and their confidence that they cannot be beaten. This sustains us nearly as much as it did the almost hopeless people from whom they sprang.
Which of the following words is NOT intended to suggest approval of bandits?
选项 A、Bold (Para. 1).
B、Claimed (Para. 4).
C、Legend (Para. 2).
D、Loyalty (Para. 4).
答案B
解析 语义理解题。根据题干分别定位至第一段、第二段和第四段。根据第四段第一句“These robbers，who claimed to be something more than mere thieves…”可知，claim意为“声称，宣称”，是中性词，无法表示对土匪的认可，故B为答案。由第一段最后一句中的the film makers know we always fall for a bandit可知，bold在这里是褒义，表示土匪内德-凯利“大胆”，因此排除A；第二段第一个分句指出土匪生活在一个特殊的legend王国，紧接着三个where引导的并列定语从句修饰realm of legend，根据从句的句意可知，legend意为“传奇”，是褒义，表示对土匪的认可，故排除C；第四段第一句提到“These robbers…had in common，firstly，a sense of loyalty and identity with the peasants they came from．”。该句表明这些强盗对农民拥有共同的忠诚感和认同感，紧接着第二句进一步解释了这种忠诚感是指他们偷走的是贵族而不是农民的收成，由此可知，loyalty为褒义，故排除D。
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