James’s first novels used conventional narrative techniques: explicit characterization, action which related events in distinctl

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问题     James’s first novels used conventional narrative techniques: explicit characterization, action which related events in distinctly phased sequences, settings firmly outlined and specifically described. But this method gradually gave way to a subtler, more deliberate, more diffuse style of accumulation of minutely discriminated details whose total significance the reader can grasp only by constant attention and sensitive inference. His later novels play down scenes of abrupt and prominent action, and do not so much offer a succession of sharp shocks as slow piecemeal additions of perception.  The curtain is not suddenly drawn back from shrouded things, but is slowly moved away.
    Such a technique is suited to James’s essential subject, which is not human action itself but the states of mind which produce and are produced by human actions and interactions. James was less interested in what characters do, than in the moral and psychological antecedents, realizations, and consequences which attend their doings. This is why he more often speaks of "eases" than of actions. His stories, therefore, grow more and more lengthy while the actions they relate grow simpler and less visible; not because they are crammed with adventitious and secondary events,  digressive relief, or supernumerary characters, as overstuffed novels of action are; but because he presents in such exhaustive detail every nuance of his situation. Commonly the interest of a novel is in the variety and excitement of visible actions building up to a climatic event which will settle the outward destinies of characters with story-book promise of permanence.  A James novel, however, possesses its characteristic interest in carrying the reader through a rich analysis of the mental adjustments of characters to the realities of their personal situations as they are slowly revealed to them through exploration and chance discovery.
James’ later novels differ from his earlier works in that they ______.

选项 A、show specifically described settings
B、are full of action
C、are less lengthy
D、analyze the states of mind of his characters

答案D

解析 詹姆斯后期的小说与早期的作品不同,因为它们分析了人物的心态。根据第二段前两句,詹姆斯的基本主题不是人的行为本身而是导致人的行为和交往以及受人的行为和交往影响的心态。詹姆斯对人物的行为不怎么感兴趣,而是对人物以往的道德、心理、认知以及伴随他们行为的影响更感兴趣。
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