长难句释义

1) Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. (Para. 1)

With a sharp and loud noise, Washington, the neatly well-designed city of order was thrown into a terrible confusion.

2) And there was the aesthetic clash as well—blue and green Air Florida, the name of a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks of ice in a black river. (Para. 1)

3) Last Wednesday the elements, indifferent as ever, brought down Flight 90. And on that same afternoon human nature—groping and struggling—rose to the occasion. (Para. 2)

Last Wednesday, the bad weather, unconcerned about the consequences it might bring about as always, made Flight 90 fall down. On that same afternoon, human nature, groping for the flotation rings and struggling in the icy water, came to prove its greatness displayed in an unexpected tragedy.

4) Of the four acknowledged heroes of the event, three are able to account for their behavior. (Para. 3)

Only three out of these four heroes lived to tell people what they actually had done and how they had rescued the five survivors.

5) On television, side by side, they described their courage as all in the line of duty. (Para. 3)

6) Skutnik added that “somebody had to go into the water”, delivering every hero’s line that is no less admirable for being repeated. (Para. 3)

7) But the person most responsible for the emotional impact of the disaster is the one known first as “the man in the water”. (Para. 4)

8) His selfishness was one reason the story held national attention; his anonymity another. (Para. 4)

9) For a while he was Everyman, and thus proof (as if one needed it) that no one is ordinary. (Para. 4)

10) So the age-old battle began again in the Potomac. For as long as man could last, they went at each other, nature and man. (Para. 7)

11) … the one making no distinctions of good and evil, acting on no principles, offering no lifelines; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles and, perhaps, on faith. (Para. 7)

12) In reality, we believe the opposite, and it takes the act of the man in the water to remind us of our true feelings in this matter. (Para. 8)

Actually, the death of the man did not mean that human beings had lost the battle. In a moral sense, man had won because man’s courage to defy death was also a tremendous power. Therefore, what happened to this man in the water should fill us with pride rather than sadness.

13) The man in the water set himself against an immovable, impersonal enemy; he fought it with kindness; and he held it to a standoff. He was the best we can do. (Para. 9)