hce_nthu
113年
英文
第 48 題
📖 題組：
Reading 6 Most schoolchildren are taught the Declaration of Independence’s most famous lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” But relatively few children or adults today are as familiar with the right to revolt that follows: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it….When a long train of abuse and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” When Thomas Jefferson penned those words, he owned hundreds of enslaved people. Yet he was acutely aware that Black people yearned for freedom no less than the white colonists who had waged the American Revolution and that no principle of justice could defend slavery. Even God, he later claimed, would likely side with enslaved people if they organized a successful revolt against their enslavers. In Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785, Jefferson admitted that rebellions were a legitimate, rational response to an immoral and inhumane system: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, and exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference!” Jefferson’s anxious reflections were a kind of inheritance, something passed down from generation to generation among uneasy white enslavers. At the heart of slavery lay a terrifying conundrum---an epic struggle between the enslavers who sought to extract labor, loyalty, and submission from their human property and the enslaved people who longed for freedom and were willing to obtain their liberation by any means necessary. Jefferson, whose ancestors had been enslaving Africans on large Virginia plantations since the seventeenth century, understood this dilemma well. Slavery, he once quipped, was akin to having a “wolf by the ear”---white people could not release their grip on it, but they also knew that beneath the surface boiled a formidable Black rage that could not be fully contained. From the founding of the original thirteen colonies, white people in the North and South lived in constant fear that the men and women they whipped, raped, and forced to work without pay would, if given the chance, rise up and take revenge on their white enslavers. This is why governmental surveillance and severe punishment of black people began almost concurrently with the introduction of slavery itself. In 1669, the Carolina colony granted every free white man “absolute Power and Authority over his Negro Slaves.” Within decades, Carolina law drastically bolstered white authority, mandating that all white people ought to be responsible for policing all Black people’s activities. Any white person who failed to properly monitor suspicious Black activity would be fined forty shillings. This notion---that Black people were inherently devious and criminal, and that white people were required to monitor and police them---ultimately defined the nature of race relations in the United States.
Reading 6 Most schoolchildren are taught the Declaration of Independence’s most famous lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” But relatively few children or adults today are as familiar with the right to revolt that follows: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it….When a long train of abuse and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” When Thomas Jefferson penned those words, he owned hundreds of enslaved people. Yet he was acutely aware that Black people yearned for freedom no less than the white colonists who had waged the American Revolution and that no principle of justice could defend slavery. Even God, he later claimed, would likely side with enslaved people if they organized a successful revolt against their enslavers. In Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785, Jefferson admitted that rebellions were a legitimate, rational response to an immoral and inhumane system: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, and exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference!” Jefferson’s anxious reflections were a kind of inheritance, something passed down from generation to generation among uneasy white enslavers. At the heart of slavery lay a terrifying conundrum---an epic struggle between the enslavers who sought to extract labor, loyalty, and submission from their human property and the enslaved people who longed for freedom and were willing to obtain their liberation by any means necessary. Jefferson, whose ancestors had been enslaving Africans on large Virginia plantations since the seventeenth century, understood this dilemma well. Slavery, he once quipped, was akin to having a “wolf by the ear”---white people could not release their grip on it, but they also knew that beneath the surface boiled a formidable Black rage that could not be fully contained. From the founding of the original thirteen colonies, white people in the North and South lived in constant fear that the men and women they whipped, raped, and forced to work without pay would, if given the chance, rise up and take revenge on their white enslavers. This is why governmental surveillance and severe punishment of black people began almost concurrently with the introduction of slavery itself. In 1669, the Carolina colony granted every free white man “absolute Power and Authority over his Negro Slaves.” Within decades, Carolina law drastically bolstered white authority, mandating that all white people ought to be responsible for policing all Black people’s activities. Any white person who failed to properly monitor suspicious Black activity would be fined forty shillings. This notion---that Black people were inherently devious and criminal, and that white people were required to monitor and police them---ultimately defined the nature of race relations in the United States.
Which of the following is closest in meaning to the phrase “having a wolf by the ear” in the third paragraph?
- A Being in a precarious situation from which it is as dangerous to extricate oneself as it is to remain in it
- B Calling for help when it is not needed, with the effect that one is not believed when one really does need help
- C Avoiding circumstances leading to brutality and violence
- D Having something harmful or problematic disguised as something peaceful and pleasant
- E Handling a dangerous situation skillfully
思路引導 VIP
請試著想像一下：如果你正徒手死死抓著一頭猛獸的耳朵，當你持續抓著時，你正感受著什麼樣的威脅？而如果你現在選擇立刻鬆手，你的處境會變得更安全還是更危險？文中描述的制度與這頭猛獸之間有什麼共同的特性？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到文中隱喻的轉折，這代表你對作者筆下的矛盾心理有著非常細膩的察覺。選項 (A) 完美詮釋了托馬斯·傑佛遜（Thomas Jefferson）當時面臨的困境。
隱喻與進退維谷的困境
「手抓狼耳」（having a wolf by the ear）這個生動的比喻，描述的是一種進退兩難的高風險狀態。在文中，傑佛遜深知奴隸制度在道德上是站不住腳的，且被奴役者的憤怒正暗潮洶湧；然而，若選擇放手（廢奴），他與當時的白人社會又極度恐懼隨之而來的血腥報復。這種「放手會被咬，抓著又支撐不住」的極度不安，正是選項中所謂「身處險境，且脫身與留守同樣危險」的寫照。
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