Please help with the understand the following sentences.
It had nothing to do with falling in love, this interest; this excitement. If, on Sunday night, after two days in his company, he had turned to her and said: 'Come away with me, Liz,' she would have laughed aloud at so absurd a notion. She had no desire to go away with him.
But a light went out of the room with him, and sprang up again when he came back. She was aware of every movement of his, from the small mallet of his forefinger as it flicked the radio switch, to the lift of his foot as it kicked a log in the fireplace.
I have a few questions:
1) What is the 'light' here, since the auther was alive froom 1896-1952, is the light here from a flashlight or a torch?
2)what is mallet here? I've looked up the dictionary and found that mallet is a hammer with a large wooden head. But I wonder mallet may not be what is said in the dictionary, does it to describe hif forefinger as long and straight?
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 12
3
Light here is used metaphorically. It means that life is brighter (better) when he is in the room. As for mallet, it is just a way to describe the end of the finger. It is unusual too. I don't think I've ever seen the tip of the finger described as a mallet.
2
1. I think "a light" here is stressed time gone fast less than one second or nearly by, not noun
2. mallet of his forefinger ,you can look up mallet of finger on line ,means 锤状指，
Both of them are used in rhetoric way.
1
The small "hammers" in a piano that are responsible for hitting the strings and making the sounds are called "mallets". It is indeed used metaphorically here. It is an elegant and adoring metaphor here.
The effect is cinematic, visual, physical and sensuous: zooming in on the movement of his forefinger and the lift of his foot.
These metaphors give colour to and elaborate on the word "excitement". What kind of excitement is it? His presence lights up her life. She is very acutely aware of the movements of his body. It moves like piano music.
0
哈哈，我也是中国人，被英语困扰了好多年！
0
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