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
40
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://kaotiyun.com/show/bVzK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
GivetheSenatesomecredit:inshapingthecurrentimmigration-reformbill,ithascomeupwithoneideathatalmosteverybody
Lettytheoldladylivedina"SingleRoomOccupancy"hotelapprovedbytheNewYorkCitywelfaredepartmentandoccupiedbyold
Lettytheoldladylivedina"SingleRoomOccupancy"hotelapprovedbytheNewYorkCitywelfaredepartmentandoccupiedbyold
OnWednesday,theTreasuryDepartmentreleasedmoredetailsofitsplantostress-testthenation’s19largestbankstoseejust
OnWednesday,theTreasuryDepartmentreleasedmoredetailsofitsplantostress-testthenation’s19largestbankstoseejust
Insociolinguisticstudies,thesocialgroupsingledoutforanyspecialstudyiscalledthe
______isthemostoutstandingsingleromanceontheArthurianlegendwritteninalliterativeverse.
ItwouldbeunjusttosupposethatthepatriotismandthezealthateveryAmericandisplaysforthewelfareofhisfellowcitize
PASSAGEFOURWhydoscientistsexaminethegenomesofastronauts?
ThesteakhousemaybeAmerica’sgreatestsingleachievement.Sure,there’sthatConstitutioneveryone’ssoimpressedwith,andb
随机试题
女性,40岁,因贫血入院,下述病情应分别归于哪类病史?A、8年前患甲状腺功能亢进,经药物治疗痊愈B、月经量多C、头晕、乏力3个月D、无放射性物质接触史E、曾服铁剂治疗个人史
男,62岁,反复心绞痛1年,3小时前突发心前区痛,向左肩臂放射,伴大汗,含硝酸甘油无效。血压100/60mmHg,心率92次/分,心律齐,心尖部Ⅱ级收缩期杂音。双肺检查未见异常。全科医生接诊后初步诊断印象是
糖尿病最常见的急性并发症糖尿病最常见的死亡原因是
促销方式可分为人员促销和非人员促销两大类。下列选项中,()属于非人员促销.
股份有限公司公开发行企业债券必须满足净资产额不低于()万元。
德育原则
汉朝颁布的法律中,最能体现抑商政策的是()
Peoplethinkingabouttheoriginoflanguageforthefirsttimeusuallyarriveattheconclusionthatitdevelopedgraduallyas
Everystreethadastory,everybuildingamemory.Those【C1】______withwonderfulchildhoodscandrivethestreetsoftheirhomet
Onetrulyremarkableachievementthatsetsushumansapartthe【M1】______restoftheanimalkingdomisourcreationanduseof
最新回复
(
0
)