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  3. The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31, 1997, shook Britain and t

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31, 1997, shook Britain and t

游客2025-01-29  44
问题     The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31, 1997, shook Britain and the world. The New York Times asked journalists who covered Diana and the deadly car accident, which also killed her companion, Dodi Al-Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, to share their memo and reflections.
Diana was considered disloyal and unhinged, an unguided missile, when she went on the BBC in 1995 to talk of her emotional distress. ("There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.") In a sign of how much things have changed, William and Harry are marking the anniversary by speaking publicly about her, with royal approval.
    Her death also marked a turning point in the history of Britons’ relationship to their own ids, ushering in an era in which people have new license to express themselves and feelings can weigh more heavily than reason, Mr. Freedland said.
    "The reaction to her death is a preview of the Brexit landscape, in which emotion trumps expertise, " he said. "It was a shock to people — we didn’t think it was part of the British mind-set — and now, after Brexit, you can see there was something growing there, a willingness to give two fingers to the experts." (Instead of using their middle fingers, Britons use what is known as a two-fingered salute.
    Public opinion polls suggest nobody is particularly fond of Prince Charles, who at 68 is still waiting for his chance to become king. But they also show that the royal family, led by the seemingly indestructible 91-year-old queen, endures as a comforting unifying thread, providing a constitutional underpinning for a nation whose quirks include the fact that it has no written constitution.
    "The royal family is key to our constitution, " Geordie Greig, editor of The Mail on Sunday, which publishes its share of royal-related articles, said in an email. "It provides a permanent and historical foundation going back more than 1, 000 years."
    The pomp and circumstance of its spectacles — the weddings of Charles and Diana and of William and Kate; the funeral of Diana — unify the country "with a familial heartbeat that also resonates around the world, " he added.
    At the very least, the royal family provides a gossipy distraction for a nation fretting about where it belongs and where it is going in this fraught era of Brexit. When is Harry going to propose to his girlfriend, Meghan Markle, and does it matter that she is Canadian, describes herself as mix race and is an actress? How disappointing is it that, at 35, William has already lost much of his hair? How expensive was Kate’s sister’s very big, very fancy engagement ring?
    Not everyone loves the royal family. Clearly anyone who visits Diana’s memorial fountain in Kensington Gardens is part of a self-selecting group, hardly a representative sample of public opinion. But a recent stop there showed how Diana, even after all this time, remains part of the conversation.
"I feel bad for Diana, the way they treated her, " said Kristina Landgraf, a German tourist. "She was a good person, she was kicked out of the royal family, and tried to have a personal life."
    Visitors to Buckingham Palace said that the royal family held a fascination, even for those who are not really a royal family sort of person. [br] What does "something growing there" refer to in Paragraph 4?
选项 A、A preview of the Brexit landscape.
B、Part of the British mind-set.
C、Willingness to show respect to the experts by two-fingered salute.
D、Willingness to show contempt to the experts by two-fingered salute.
答案 D
解析 此题可定位至第4段。第4段大意为：人们对她死亡的反应是英国退欧事件的预演，在退欧事件中情感胜过理性；这一点使人们深受震撼——我们认为它不是英国思维模式的一部分——现在英国脱欧之后，你可以看到有一些情绪在滋长，人们乐意给专家两个手指表示不屑(不是用中指，而是用英国人熟知的V形手势)。A项表示“英国退欧事件的预演”，B项表示“英国思维模式的一部分”，C项指“用V形手势向专家表示敬意”，均与文中意思不符。D项表示“用V形手势向专家表示不屑”，与文中意思吻合。文中“a willingness to give two fingers to the experts”是对上文“something”的进一步解释。因此答案为D。
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