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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 text could be best entitled______.
选项 A、Heroism died with Armstrong
B、One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind
C、With Armstrong goes a long-standing brand of heroism
D、Many achieved their greatness for themselves
答案C
解析 本题是一道中心主旨题。该题目是要确定本文的标题。所选标题应该能够一语点明全文的主旨内容。此类题型需要对全文的首尾段和中间段落的主题句进行整合和总结。本文首段开门见山地点破了“the reluctant hero(不情愿的英雄)”这一论题；第二、三和四段首句均紧紧围绕阿姆斯特朗(Armstrong)进行相关论题的阐述；全文以下列两句话结束：“The reluctant hero is diminishing．Armstrong’s passing signals an end to that myth．(不情愿的英雄正在隐退。阿姆斯特朗的去世标志着这个神话的终结。)”由此推断，选项C“With Amstrong goes a long-standing brand of heroism(长久以来的英雄主义类型随着阿姆斯特朗消失了)”应该是本题的正确答案。解答此题时，应该注意运用破解中心主旨题型的总结归纳方法，否则就会偏离原文的本来主旨内容。
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